by Kevin Burton
You fearful and despairing, you weary of mind and heart, comfort today from The Bible, with help from a French novelist.
“The more things change, the more they are the same” is the best-known quotation of Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr (1808 –1890) a French critic, journalist, and novelist.
You’ve probably heard that quoted as “…the more they stay the same.” We’ll see today how Karr got it right, but the Bible gets it better.
“In Alphonse Karr’s famous quote, ‘The more things change, the more they are the same,’ he encapsulates a profound truth about the nature of existence,” reads a post on the website www.socratic-method.com. “At first glance, it may seem contradictory – how can things be both changing and staying the same?”
“However, upon closer examination, this paradoxical statement unveils a timeless wisdom that speaks to the cyclical nature of life and the underlying unity of all things. At its core, this quote suggests that despite the ever-present flux and transformation happening around us, there are fundamental aspects of human nature, society, and the world that remain constant throughout time.”
“It highlights the perennial recurrence of certain patterns, behaviors, and ideologies that persist despite the ever-changing external circumstances,” the website writes.
“One could interpret this quote as a reflection on the human condition itself – no matter how much progress we make, or how advanced our technology becomes, certain aspects of human nature are enduring. Our desires, aspirations, fears, and motivations have remained remarkably consistent throughout history.”
“We may have evolved culturally and technologically, but the core of what it means to be human remains remarkably similar,” the website writes.
All that is true as far as it goes. But it isn’t clear to me that the website is qualified to know what it truly means to be human. To be human is to be subject to almighty God His laws and His plan.
In the United States today and no doubt in other places, we see wrenching change. We see evil going largely unchecked – and it’s just getting started.
But wrenching change is not new, neither is evil. Though it doesn’t feel like it much of the time, God has all these things covered.
“The Israelites in the wilderness were continually exposed to change,” writes Alistair Begg, speaker on the Truth For Life radio ministry. “Whenever the pillar of cloud stopped, the tents were pitched; but the next day the morning sun arose, the trumpet sounded, the ark was in motion, and the fiery, cloudy pillar was leading the way through the narrow mountain passes, up the hillsides, or along the arid wastes of the wilderness.”
“They scarcely had time to rest a little before they heard the sound of ‘Onward! this is not your rest; you must keep journeying onward toward Canaan!’ They never stayed for long in one place. Even wells and palm trees could not detain them.”
“They had an abiding home in their God,” Begg writes. So do post-democracy Americans.
“The Christian knows no change with regard to God,” Begg writes. “He may be rich today and poor tomorrow; he may be sick today and well tomorrow; he may be happy today and sad tomorrow—but there is no change regarding his relationship to God. If He loved me yesterday, He loves me today.”
“My unmoving mansion of rest is my blessed Lord. Even when prospects are few and hopes are squashed and joy is waning, I have lost nothing of what I have in God,” Begg writes. “He is my refuge to which I continually return. I am a pilgrim in the world, but at home in my God. In the earth I wander, but in God I dwell in a quiet dwelling place.”
The more things change, the more they stay the same under the care of almighty God.
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