Observation: During the Babylonian exile, God promises to make God's people hear new things, and to deal with them in a new (and more merciful) way.
Application: Many hold it as a core belief that God never changes. There is some scriptural support for that, but there are also stories going all the way back to Abraham in which a human being somehow manages to change God's mind. I myself wouldn't go to the mat for the belief that God never changes in even the slightest way over billions of years. It is enough for me to know that God is faithful.
Whether or not God changes, we do know that throughout the Bible, God's way of dealing with humankind changes. Sometimes God is harsh and punitive, sometimes gentle and comforting. God's approach to us changes based on what we need to hear.
If God's approach to us changed during the 2,000 years it took to compile our scriptures, it makes sense that God's approach to us may have also changed over the 2,000 years since. Through communal prayer, discernment and study of God's Word, our interpretations of scripture change, and that's a good thing. It says right in the Bible that sometimes God does new things! We wouldn't want twenty-first century Christians to still be consulting their Bibles to justify slavery or the genocide of Native Americans. The core meaning of God's Word to us doesn't change. But it does require frequent "software updates" from us so we can continue to hear God's mercy through history.
Prayer: Update our spiritual software, God. Help us read your ancient Word in a relevant way for a new day. Amen.
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