A point often presented by critics of Christianity is this: The Bible was written thousands of years ago. It’s antiquated and irrelevant. The implication here is times have changed, we’re much smarter and more sophisticated now, so the lessons presented in the Bible are no longer valid at most or replaced by more advanced lessons now at the least.
It’s sounds like a fair point on the surface. Our textbooks get updated frequently, new scientific theories replace old ones, and those 90’s windbreakers went out of style (thank you, Lord!). So why would the lessons in the Bible survive centuries and remain important to this current, enlightened generation?
Simply put: While some things change, most fundamental aspects of life are timeless. But let’s unpack that a bit.
You see, we tend to focus on things that change because they inherently keep our focus.
There’s no need to concentrate on the fact gravity keeps our feet on the ground, because in our atmosphere that’s a given. Contrastingly, the new Zelda game catches our attention because it’s new, exciting, and different from the one we played on the 8-bit Nintendo. And that new house we just bought has that better kitchen. So, we tend to take seemingly little things like this (because gravity is so trivial, right?) for granted, which causes us to take more notice of the variables in our lives. Consequently, we tend to apply the notion of change and advancement to more things than we ought.
We also tend to look at advanced theories in science, philosophy, and the like as new truths or that they are more sophisticated than the fundamentals when, in reality, the fundamentals must exist, be discovered, and understood before we can build onto the more advanced theories. So, we only have our current knowledge because we stand on the shoulders of our predecessors’ work. Those truths we’ve discovered have always existed too, even though we are only now discovering them. People didn’t float into space before Isaac Newton was hit in the head with an apple, after all.
You might say something like, “We once thought the earth was flat, but thanks to modern science, we know that isn’t true. The same could happen with what we know from the Bible.” It is true our understanding of some things change, and aside from the fact the Bible suggested the earth was a sphere in Isaiah 40:22 centuries before the flat-earth theory was popularized (don’t chase that rabbit trail, Shawn, stay on point), the express purpose of the Bible isn’t to teach us scientific theory, though I do believe we can glean some information in that area from the Scriptures as well.
Some of the major points skeptics point to when making these assertions come from changes in cultural context. For example: People like to look at verses such as Ephesians 6:9 and assert the Bible advocates for slavery. Culturally, we understand slavery from the context of American history where we traveled to Africa, took people against their will, and forced them into servitude. In the ancient cultures we see in Scripture, however, slavery was often a means to pay back a debt or a form of work where a master would feed and house someone in exchange for working their fields, tending their house, etc. That doesn’t mean some slavery wasn’t forced then, but it wasn’t always the case.
Looking through this lens, we see Paul wasn’t telling people it was okay to seize people against their will as we understand from our history (the Bible never condones that type of slavery, only records it happened historically); he was giving a lesson on how to treat someone who works for you in either circumstance as people tended to be their horrible selves to people they could lord over. That lesson given in a different cultural situation still applies today. Bosses, treat your workers with respect. As is always the case, truth transcends time and culture.
Ultimately, this is what the Bible is here to teach us:
-
How to have a saving relationship with God through Christ
-
Who God is and how He interacts with His creation
-
Why salvation is necessary through Christ and how it was attained
-
The historical account of God’s guiding the birth of our Savior
-
How He wants us to behave – in a way that honors Him and keeps us from hurting ourselves and others