God doesn’t change, understanding does

Re: Foster Covington’s “There can be nothing new to a creator God” (July 13 letter):

God may not change, but human understanding of him and his laws does. The best example of this is the Bible, in which the depiction of God changes tremendously between the Old and New Testaments.

The Old Testament has God saying, “For I thy God am a jealous God.” The New Testament depicts him as primarily a loving and merciful God. Some people equate jealousy with love. Perhaps Covington does, too.

Covington ends his letter saying that being gay is a choice, a contention that I find dubious. I never considered my heterosexuality a choice, but something that happened to me. Perhaps Covington’s experience is different, but I suspect that for most people their orientation is simply a given.

I suppose anyone can claim to know the mind of God, but I suspect he is much more than we can comprehend, and that his plan for humanity can never be fully understood. We do, however, have Jesus’s assurance that loving our neighbors and our enemies is very important.

ALLEN STARBUCK
ELLISTON

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