August 24, 2019

Universal Principles or Constant Change, Where’s the Balance for You?

In 1980 I sold all my CB equipment and bought my first computer, a VIC 20. A few years later I bought an Atari 128 computer, joined a local Atari club with some amazing programmers and used that computer for almost a decade. It was about 1993 when I first entered into the world of Microsoft.

I remembered how excited I was when I bought my first 500 mg hard drive. I thought I would never fill such a thing with all that memory. Today, the hard drive in my computer holds 2 terabytes and I have purchased compression software in order to increase its capacity to hold more data.

The new computer I will be picking up next week comes with a 500 g solid state hard drive. I wonder, will that be big enough to run the operating system and my programs. I will be adding a two terabyte hard drive for data storage.

Things in our world are constantly changing and we must be willing to adapt, at least in some areas of life. There are universal principles however that do not change, regardless of what humanity thinks or does. If we ignore these principles we do so to our own peril. It is wise to consider, if all change is better.

You would expect me to say, God’s Word, “The Holy Bible” is something that is unchanging in a continually changing world. There is a sense in which this is very true. However, our understanding of those universal unchanging principles must be connected to a process that may need to be changed.

Remember, “The Holy Bible” was not originally written in English, or for that matter most of the languages of our day. What we have are translations of the originals. That does not mean they should not be considered as the inspired Word of God. It means they are translations.

When you have a language like English, which is subject to change and differences of word meanings and understandings depending on the region of the world you are in, updates and changes to the translation may be necessary to stay relevant and true to the unchanging principles of what God’s Word is really saying.

It is important to make sure that the translation of God’s Word you use, in whatever language you speak, is relevant to the period of time and area of the world in which you live. To be accurate to the principles of the original is necessary, but so is being able to communicate these principles in ways people can understand. Universal Principles or Constant Change, Where’s the Balance for You?