My article from the July 2004 issue of ‘The Circuit Rider’ a monthly newsletter I did for some years for the Wesley Chapel UMC, outside of Jacksonville, IL…

Some years ago, when I first drove a ‘big truck’ over the road, I would occasionally load soybean oil at a plant in Mexico, Mo. This was a very old plant, and the oil loading facility was very primitive in many ways. Basically, it consisted of a steel walkway built at truck height and covered with steel panels. After weighing in on the scale one block over, the procedure was to pull under the roof and line up the opening in the tank to the six-inch pipe used to load. Then you would climb up on top of your tank, open the dome and man-handle that multi-swiveled monstrosity into the tank and chain it down. About a half-hour later, after filling, you would let the last of the oil drain out before lifting the pipe out of the tank and hanging it back out of the way. You would then close your lid and drive around the block to see how close you were to having the right amount on.

You see, the gauge they had back then measured the gallons that flowed through the pipe into the tank, but it was not very accurate. Further more, the temperature of the oil would make a very big difference in your final weight… one gallon of hot oil weighs much less than one gallon of cold oil… and depending on which supply tank they were pulling out of there could be a five thousand-pound difference in the same number of gallons!

I chanced to go to that same plant recently to load the same product. Very little had changed except that the old gauge had been replaced with a new electronic one that somehow reads and counts the weight of the oil as it passes through it… and thus far, it has always been within three-or-four hundred pounds of reading the same as the scale itself!

Ahhh, the wonders of technology!

            Another thing I’ve noted while on the road is how rest-areas have changed over the years. I can recall going on family vacations and trips as a child when a rest-area sign meant a picnic table located at a spot to pull off the road and stop. Ten years ago, while making my first trip across Iowa, I had made note of their rest-areas. These dated from the fifties or sixties and were simple affairs with no vending machine facilities, though they did have heating and air-conditioning. I went that same way recently and found that most of those old buildings had been torn down and replaced with huge two-story affairs! These were very light and colorful, and each contained a mini-museum of information pertaining to that area!

            Many times over the last few years I have spoken to the idea that throughout the ages, mankind himself has not changed! Consider with me a moment… are the men and women of today any more intelligent than the men and women of Jesus’ time in Israel? No! We’re merely better educated! Can we run any faster or lift any heavier? No! We’re merely better trained! If left alone, would our bodies be any healthier, or would we live any longer? No! Without the aid of modern medical knowledge and science, we would be virtually no different from any other human who has ever lived on this earth! In other words, the only thing that HAS changed over all of these centuries is… technology!!

Example… people’s reasons for needing to stop at a rest area during a long trip have never changed… but what some people find acceptable while making that stop has! Technology has led us to expect to be entertained, educated and taken care of at all times and on every level! Furthermore, so many of us have been so taken with technology that we have come to believe that anything ‘natural’ must be evil, and  are no longer satisfied with the world as God created it… we want it sanitized, deodorized and modernized into OUR idea of what is acceptable! Unfortunately, many have tried to do the same thing with the Word of God!

During the first century, knowledge was passed on primarily by word of mouth… few people knew how to read and write, so what had been written was read to the masses by those who could. Centuries later, monks would sit for long hours with pen, ink and paper and hand-copy the books and words of the Bible, and the few copies thus produced were expensive and went only to those who could afford such ‘luxuries’. Still centuries later, the printing press brought the availability of the Bible to many more, and today its messages and meanings can be brought up at the speed of light in various electronic mediums! However… the message contained in those words has never… nor will it ever… change!

Don’t be fooled into believing that a modern world needs a modern message… the Word of God stands as true today as it ever was… and only a fool would think to change it!