Americans have a great respect for their Constitution. You can see it especially when there is a disagreement about the merit of an action or a law. The final appeal for justice seems to involve finding a basis in the Constitution.
But—as hearings for candidates for judgeships often show—with the passage of time there are different schools of thought among judicial scholars and lawyers about how to understand and interpret the words of the Constitution.
And, if and when the Constitution is amended—a complex legal matter involving the federal and state governments and ultimately the citizens themselves—then a brand-new fundamental concept or interpretation is placed on equal footing with the original document!
Americans also have a great respect for the Bible. You can see it especially when there is a disagreement about the rightness or wrongness of certain behaviors or actions or about the values and ideals that inspire them. Often the final appeal for morality involves finding a basis in the Bible.
But, with the passage of time, there are different schools of thought among biblical scholars and religious authorities about how to understand and interpret the words of the Bible.
And, most importantly, the Bible isn’t a book in the sense of one continuous narrative, one planned literary work. It’s a collection of significant religious writings assembled and redacted over a period of some thousands of years.
The Bible cannot be “amended” as the U.S. Constitution, but the understanding of God and his designs clearly evolves over the centuries—and the process still continues!
Later books of the Bible often go beyond and/or enrich the thoughts and teachings of earlier ones—as do the successive generations inspired by them.
Our understanding of human nature and destiny—God’s designs, will, and plans for us—is like that. How we see the stages of life and our expectations for the future gradually have changed and been modified as time passes—and continue to do so.
For example, early books of the Bible tended to identify worldly success and esteem with goodness and vice versa.
Yet the Book of Job overwhelmingly shattered that simplistic point of view, although it had no detailed alternate explanations beyond the mysterious and overwhelming will and power of the Creator.
Gradually the belief in an after-life, the next world, began to develop, rooted in trust in the justice and love of God and culminating in the life and teachings of Jesus and in his resurrection.
In centuries when life was hard, painful, and short with little or no prospect of improvement—and when people heard of a better place to live in this world or in a better world to come—they yearned and hoped for it and, as best they could, planned to get there some day.
However, in times when life is easier, more comfortable, with expectations for betterment, there is less interest in relocating or less thought, yearning, and planning for a world to come.
Of course, for each person a time comes when health declines, life wanes, and death needs to be faced—either as an end or as a gateway to a better place and stage of life.
Those who have hope for the next world—even though they have not yet experienced it and can only imagine it—are sustained and encouraged by their confidence and trust—their faith—in God’s mercy and love.
31 January 2021