When I was in college my history professor said that someone living in 1900 would have more in common with someone born in 100BC than she would with someone born in 2000. When you think of the changes in communication, in transportation, in technology, when you think of car travel and air travel and space travel, when you eating avocadoes from Mexico, wine from France, and mangoes from Africa you might be inclined to agree. However, there is a book in the Bible which reminds you of your grumpy uncle. In Ecclesiastes we read: Nothing is new under the sun. When the Biblical author means, and what experience demonstrates, is that human beings are the same that we have always been for the past 20,000 years. We are capable of great love and great hate, of great compassion and of great selfishness, of great forgiveness and of great resentment. It is God’s grace that polishes up our surly selves into something precious.
