by Jeremy Mcnabb

Created on: April 12, 2008

Humanity faces a limited amount of problems. To look at the news, we might think otherwise, but consider our lives. We can die, and that's one concern. There are dozens of tortures, both natural and afflicted, that we can experience in life, but the fears of starvation, disease, murder, and old age, plague us just as they did our great-grandparents. We may have postponed death with our technologies, but it still remains an inevitable event. People still feel cheated, lied to, embarrassed, cast out, hated, and betrayed on a weekly, if not daily, basis.

And on the other side of the coin, we are capable of love no better or worse than that of Romeo and Juliet, or for that matter, Adam and Eve. Our joys reach the same heights, our embraces are just as strong, and our kisses are just as lingering. Mankind's aptitude for love has remained unchanged since we picked our first rose and handed to that special person.
In eight thousand years, the whole of human history, the core of humanity has not changed. We're still attempting to cheat death and we're still trying to do it in the company of friends. Every emotion that we see in historical literature is one with which we can identify, and in that, the Bible is just as relevant today as it was in the centuries in which it was written.

No one, for example, looks at Judas' betrayal of Jesus, and says to themselves, "I don't see why that upset Jesus so much." Many of Paul's sentiments: that he tries hard not to sin, but does anyway, or that he misses those friends that he hasn't seen in a great while, are not alien to us. Even the panic that Adam and Eve must have felt, upon realizing that they were naked, is familiar to those of us who grew up with a bathroom whose lock was broken.

There are those that try to point out that the bible treats women, the enslaved, the poor, and the homosexual unfairly, but in the ways that count, I believe this is an empty charge. The bible has its share of heroines, such as Deborah the judge, who sat in authority over a male-dominated culture, and Mary Magdalene who, before all others, recognized and rejoiced at the sight of the risen Jesus. No other ancient book has taken the God-given ability to better oneself beyond one's situation, and transformed it from an option, into an obligation. Few other ancient writings take the time to expound on the plight of the poor as the bible does.
Both Jesus and James put upon their audience the duty of caring for the poor. In a society that is only just remembering the need to care for the broke and broken, I should think that we should be realizing that the Bible is possibly more relevant to us than our churchly and isolated grandparents.

The Bible addresses the issues that matter in life, and since the primal desires of man have not, nor will they ever change, it will remain relevant forever.

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