Some people make the assumption that the Bible is outdated simply because it's old, because the last book accepted into the canon of Scripture occurred nearly 2,000 years ago. But when you think about it, being outdated has nothing to do with age but entirely to do with not being relevant to today.
Consider the fascination with Shakespeare in drama and English classes worldwide hundreds of years after the bard's death. Think about how the original design of things like the light bulb and the camera are still recognizable in modern light bulbs and cameras over 100 years later. These things might be considered as old, but their modern relevance and influence prove that they are not outdated.
If you question the relevance of the Bible in our modern world, do the following:
- Read the first ten verses of 2 Timothy chapter 3 and ask yourself if this doesn't with absolute precision describe the world of today, "the last days" that the Bible repeatedly refers to.
- Read Romans chapter 1 from verse 18 to the end of the chapter and ask yourself if the moral abyss the world currently finds itself in has ever been better explained than in this portion of Scripture.
What some people fail to realize is that although cultures, nations, technology, and trends have changed immensely since the time the Messiah walked this planet, human nature has not changed one bit. As soon as a humanist claims that our species has "evolved" to some higher level of intelligence or sophistication, we read some news headline about a genocide or other unthinkable act of evil that sound no different from such accounts in the Bible.
The only difference between these modern acts and those recorded in the Bible are the fact that they are being committed by people in different cultures and nations using different technology and following different trends. Whereas in ancient times some cultures burned their babies alive in the arms of scalding hot idols, we allow girls and women in our civilized, sophisticated modern age to have their unborn child ground into bits and vacuumed from their innards using some of the most intricate surgical instruments and techniques. Such a practice is not considered barbaric because it is so methodical and sterilized.
Apparently, the accounts (actually disproven myths) of women using coat hangers in back alleys was too inhumane and gruesome for those in the women's liberation movement of the early 1970s to stomach, but I digress. History since that time has proven that the legalization of abortion was done to serve selfish political, financial, and scientific interests among others, but I raise this issue as an example of how the mere acceptance of this practice is one of countless proofs of how human nature - in this case lying, greed, and selfishness - have only changed in form, not in substance.
While I'm on the topic of relevance, I can't help but question that of the Theory of Evolution in our modern age. (You can look at the keyword archive in this blog for other thoughts that God has revealed to me about this and other topics.) Scientific understanding of the workings of the human body were elementary at best at the time of the publishing of The Origin of Species in 1859: scientists knew what was inside the body at a non-molecular level, but little was known about how body systems and organs worked and interacted. And nobody - including Darwin himself - had any idea of the unfathomable intricacy and sophistication of the workings of the human body that scream "Design!". In addition, apart from the human body and that of other mammals, the literally infinite vastness of the universe was unknown and atomic structure was unheard of.
Therefore, this theory at its core is based on outdated science despite all claims to the contrary, on assumptions based upon the scientific understandings (and misunderstandings) of the time that modern science has since largely disproven. Yet you'll rarely hear about anyone who lacks a true understanding of God, any non-Christian, questioning its relevance in this modern age. The modern proponents of this theory, who continually churn out new sub-theories to cover up the ones that modern science continues to disprove, gain influence and keep the dead horse of evolutionary theory alive as they wax eloquent and get the Oprah seal of approval for their new book about their new theory - as she has largely replaced God and His Word as the beacon of modern moral, spiritual, and scientific wisdom in pop culture, and apparently in the evolutionist community as well.
Yet begin to seriously ask objective, frank questions about their beliefs - which are different in substance but no different in magnitude from those of Christians - and you get accused of being what they themselves are: narrow-minded, subjective, and worst of all, "religious" (whether you actually believe in God or not). The saddest part about the believer of evolutionary theory is that they don't realize that they are themselves disciples of a religion, that of Evolution, the new religion of this relativistic and humanistic world we now live in.
So even though some things are considered relevant in this modern age, we see now how they can be outdated. Fortunately, anyone looking for something solid to stand on, something that won't be disproven 5, 50, 500, or even 5,000 years from now, need look no further than the Bible, the only true Scriptures and truth in existence. The Bible is the only body of writings whose truth and claims have withstood all persecutions, all examinations, and all other tests of time. (If you think you've found a new way to poke holes in its truth and absolute integrity and sink it once and for all, I urge you to do so, but I can guarantee that you cannot do so with an objective mind.)
If you haven't dug into the Bible because you believe that it's outdated and therefore irrelevant and a waste of time, or because you believe the hype that it's a book of fairy tales or riddled with "internal contradictions" and so forth rather than just letting it speak to you on its own merit, then you're missing out on the greatest adventure of this life and the one beyond. But don't just take my word for it: be objective and find out for yourself.
