The heavenly Father has blessed us with amazing technology. Especially during this unprecedented time of COVID-19, believers marvel how the living Word is preached perhaps more widely than ever before. The Good Shepherd has not forgotten His sheep, but rather He has led them to green pastures where He feeds and nourishes them – even in remote corners of the earth. It’s almost unfathomable how services have been held locally, nationally, internationally, and even inter-culturally.

Can we respect and even love our ancestors while still recognizing that they were flawed human beings – just as we are? When we look into the past, sometimes we question what people were thinking in making the decisions that they made. For instance, we can wonder why a significant portion of the population defended slavery for a long time. Or why Hitler was allowed to progress so far before the rest of the world stopped his atrocities. These questions can only be answered with a full view of the complexity of the time. Lacking a full view, we may begin to assume too much – we might even think we would not have done such a thing. The Bible warns against thinking we are better, specifically in Galatians 6. “Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ. For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself” (v. 1–3). Indeed, it’s likely that if we were alive in that time period, we would share something of the common view of the day.