Your eternal word, O Lord, stands firm in heaven. Your faithfulness extends to every generation, as enduring as the earth you created. [Psalm 119:89-90 (NLT)]
The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of our God stands forever. [Isaiah 40:8 (NLT)]
It really wasn’t that long ago when people had to get off the sofa to change channels (of which there just were four) and the only thing our watches did was tell time. I remember a world of rotary phones and party lines, rabbit ear antennas, cameras with film that had to be developed, telegrams, film strips and slide projectors, manual typewriters, encyclopedias, 8-track and cassette tapes, and library card catalogues! Today’s generation doesn’t even know what those things are!
My children think I’m old-fashioned since neither Amazon Echo nor Goggle Nest run my home, my doorbell isn’t smart, and I play CDs rather than stream Spotify. I’m not a total Luddite since I do have an iPad, computer, and iPhone but, while I shop and bank online, I don’t do social media like Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, FaceBook/Meta, LinkedIn, Snapchat, or Whatsapp or whatever else there is.
It’s hard to keep up with the rapidly changing world of computing and electronic devices and, while my new phone and tablet were ready for the 5G rollout, my 3G car isn’t! Just about the time I finally catch up, the technology has become obsolete and I have to start all over! When I went to school, there was only one “Industrial Revolution” (the one between 1760-1840 when we went from an agricultural/handicraft economy into one of power-driven machinery and factories). The world is moving at such an incredible pace that I missed the second and third industrial revolutions entirely only to discover that we’re now in the fourth one. Called Industry 4.0 (or IR4) it has to do with automation and data exchange in manufacturing technologies, cyber-physical systems, the Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing, cognitive computing, and creating smart factories, most of which is beyond my comprehension.
In a world that is ever-changing and becoming harder to understand (at least for me), there’s something very comforting about the Bible. Even though I can read it on any of my devices, the words I’m reading haven’t changed in thousands of years because our God doesn’t change! He is the same today as He was yesterday, and will be tomorrow. There will be no need for Gospel 2.0 because God’s Word is perfect as written, is as relevant today as when it first was penned, and God’s promises have no expiration date.
While I find the permanence and immutability of Scripture comforting, there are others who find it disquieting because God’s words don’t fit into their view of the modern world. To them, the Bible is rigid, unenlightened, antiquated, and in need of some tweaking, reinterpreting, and revising to bring it into line with the 21st century. Unlike technology, however, God’s words can’t be improved.
Peter wrote that God’s word is alive, powerful, and like a sword, because it can reach into our deepest thoughts. What he didn’t say was that it’s revisable! Nevertheless, when our deepest thoughts don’t match God’s word, we grow uncomfortable and wish it were. Jesus told us He was the way, the truth and the life. The truth, however, doesn’t change when it is more convenient to believe something else! The truth isn’t what we want it to be; it is what God says it is. We are not the ones who should be changing the Bible; the Bible should be changing us!
The world changes – circumstances change, we change – but God’s Word never changes. [Warren Wiersbe]
Devotions of the Heart 