History 3 - Being close to the Past and to the Future ...

Wednesday, Oct 7, 2009. Have you ever read the stories of the Old Testament yourself? Have you taken the time to really read the bible, and perhaps talk it through with a friend, or with a group of Christians? That is an exciting adventure. The figures of the Old Testament start to become alive, these are not dead old stories, these are exciting stories about life and death, about freedom and bondage, about God and mankind.

We might need faith to really understand the meaning of the Old Testament stories. There is a lot about faith. It is God's story with people of faith. They have tried to follow the eternal one. They have had their unbelievable success and many failures. We hear about guilt and repentence, about the search for the will of the eternal God, about bright hours of wisdom and mercy, but also about cruel death, about violence and disregard.

It is interesting to observe how close we can come to the past when we read these stories. The people who lived 3000 years ago had the same fears, the same hopes, the same problems which we have today. They needed food. They were looking for purpose and relationships. They were longing to know more about God. They loved power and money and sex just as we do today. The text of the Old Testament in its present form has been conserved already 200 years before Christ was born. This has not been influenced by the 2000 years after that until today - imagine how close we are to the past!

The documents we have from the past prove that people have not changed that much during the 3000 years of human history. Of course, we have strongly developed our cultures. Of course we have made magnificent progress with respect to our insight into technical possibilities and natural sciences. But humans are still the same. Our mind and our hearts are the same. Our needs are the same. Our hopes are as they were when our human brothers and sisters lived during the time of Abraham, of Moses and of David. It is fascinating and exciting to move into history and understand the ideas, which shape our world until today. We can go through the ages, see the development of travel during the Roman empire, the journey of the first Christians to Greece and Rome. We can follow the early church, the significant changes during the migration of the northern barbarian tribes, the discussions during the age of enlightenment and the industrial revolution. History lives!

History opens a door to the future. Things changed in the past, they change today and they will continue to change in the future. We are not in a static world. Our time is dynamic, as was any time in the past. We are not yet at the end of history, we are in the middle of change. A good knowledge about history can help us to avoid mistakes today. A good knowledge of the errors of our fathers might help us to avoid one or the other error today. History provides ideas how things could be run, how things could be changed. History is a pool of experiences. And it is God's history with mankind. Let us not forget that the Lord has a plan for all of us. He has a goal. He provides a purpose to our world, to our life, to our society. [R.W.E.P., jesusnetwork.eu]

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