A step closer to seeing God as he intended

I was thinking the other day…have you ever noticed how God seems to be continually showing more and more of himself through greater revelation. Its kind of a progressive revelation. God will always meet us where we are, as a culture and as individuals. Then it seems as time goes on and cultures change, God reveals a little more about himself. God lowers himself to our ignorance and prejudices, grabs our hearts, then slowly moves us a little bit closer to where he really intended us to be. As history moves on, God moves man further and further down the revelation scale.

For example:

God revealed to the Israelites that they were a chosen nation and his hand was upon them. Then later, God reveals in a vision to Peter that any believer, Greek or Jew, was part of God’s chosen people.

Did God change his mind, or did he just reveal a little more of his original intent to Peter?

People used to discern God’s will by casting lots. Even the disciples did it after Jesus’ ascension to determine who God wanted to take Judas’ place. Now we consider that practice crude and pretty much wrong. Today God reveals his will through scripture, and promptings from the Holy Spirit.

Did God change the way he shows us what he wants, or did we begin to understand there are better ways God wants to show us his will.

In the Bible God never once said Slavery was a sin. In fact Paul encourages slaves to be the best slaves they can in order to show their owners how Christ can change a person’s life. But, today almost every Christian would agree that owning another human being is detestable to God.

Did God change his mind about slavery, or did our culture change enough that we finally understood God a little more clearly on this subject?

We see this pattern with ceremonial laws, divorce, Women rights, etc.

So my whole point is this…If Jesus doesn’t return for some time, in 500 years when people look back at us what things will they say, “I can’t believe they thought that about God.” or, “Those people back then actually believed that God wanted them to live that way.”

So what are the areas where God is meeting us in our ignorance and desires to move us closer to a more complete understanding of his will? I would venture to say areas like the aids epidemic, seeing the church globally, social justice, and environmentalism. What do you think? What areas are we missing God’s ideal?