Can we really believe that a book thousands of years old is worth the read?

The biggest obstacle to embracing something old as being true is the notion that new makes true. So many people today have the notion that, as time goes by speakers are closer to the truth. That's an irrational assumption.

We today probably don't understand some things as well as people 300 years ago understood them. But we might think we do, because we live in a technological, scientific age and, generally, science does proceed like that. Scientifically we know more today than we knew yesterday. But in moral things and religious things—theoretical things—we don't experience it that way.

There are seasons where a culture becomes very blind to certain deep wonderful truths, and there are others where a culture becomes more alert to them. Therefore reading people from 100, 500, or 3000 years ago is tremendously illuminating because at any given point they may be seeing something about God much more clearly than we see it today.

So I can empathize with the person who says, "I wouldn't want to read something 3000 years old," because I know that they probably have a progressive mindset that sees everything is getting wiser, smarter and better understood. But we need to distinguish between the scientific reality and the moral/religious reality. We need to wake up to the fact that there were wise people 3000 years ago who saw things in God and in the nature of the human soul that are far more profound and illuminating than our view of them today (which is perhaps weaker precisely because we are so scientifically minded and don't have a heart for those kinds of insights).

So why don’t you take the challenge?  Read the Bible.  It couldn’t hurt, . . .or could it?  The Bible has profoundly affected the lives of millions of people.  And it still does!  Read it!  You’ll see!  And if you’ve got questions, that’s what our church is here for.

Pastor Brad Schollenberg