I will pose it here as I posed it to my teens on Sunday... as a question:
What if God still works in our lives today the same way He did in Bible times?
Haven't most religious organizations held that God works differently today than He did then? I know my religious upbringing made a very clear distinction between 'then-God' and 'now-God'...
So, that question begs another: have we been correct in making that distinction? If God is indeed the same 'yesterday, today and tomorrow', if He is the Unchanging One, why would man decide there is something different now about the God of the Universe?
Is it possible that our God still 'gets our attention' in the same ways He got the attention of Moses or of Abraham? Is it so hard to fathom that the God who allowed or caused His people to be borne away in shameful captivity by the Babylonians would cause a modern day plague or tragedy to get the attention of His people today?
In some ways it is simply inconvenient to believe that. It is way easier to believe in a God who, at some point in History, decided to become very hands-off; most of us need to believe in a God who 'gave the globe a whirl', then took a siesta for a couple millennia (or however long He chooses) before awakening again to send Jesus back to get His people.
I believe we have the complete revealed will of God in the inspired writings of the Bible... I also understand that the Bible is a very accurate historical document. I am confident in that belief. But what if....
...what if, today, God inspired another historical testament which would chronicle the past 2,000 years? What if we could see the last two millennia through the eyes of the Creator?
Is it possible that God's 'world view' of the events of the last 20 centuries would be different from that of man? Asked a different way, is it possible that the people who lived during 'Bible times' (by the way, they probably didn't refer to their era of history as 'Bible times'), did not see the destruction of Jerusalem through the same lens as our God's?
Could it be that people of Moses' time saw the slaughter of entire families (when several families - including children - were swallowed up by a hole in the earth for their sins) as a natural disaster... Is it possible that those people viewed the extinction of an entire generation (the one which God decided didn't deserve to see the promised land - thus the wandering) not as the hand of God, but poor leadership?
Is it possible that the people around the region of Sodom and Gomorrah saw that city's destruction as an inexplicable natural disaster? (Today, we would have to send out a team of scientists to the crater to try to get some logical explanation)
Is it possible (I'm just asking the question) that God may have a different view of certain historically significant events which have occurred since the last Biblical writings?
What about the wars (Revolutionary War, French/Indian war, Civil War, WWI, WWII, Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, etc - just to name a few which have involved the U.S.)? How about the constant middle eastern conflicts?
What about the events we refer to as natural disasters or (in a weird twist of irony) "acts of God"? How about Floods and Hurricanes and Tsunamis?
Or (now it starts to get REALLY politically incorrect!) what about the holocaust or AIDS or 911 or global warming (if that really exists)?
Is it folly to consider that these may be something other than terrible man-made tragedies or unbelievable natural disasters?
I'm just asking the question: could it be we have conveniently glossed over God's awesome power so we can sleep better at night?
I know this: it is worth considering that the God who breathed the stars into existence and knows me by my name has the power to do whatever He wills in order to shape and prune His people.
So, is it crazy to imagine that the same God who performed inexplicable acts 3,000 years ago may perform inexplicable acts today?
just asking...
No comments:
Post a Comment