A couple of things. God can change his mind. He has agency and sovereignty and is a personal God. The scripture contains many examples of him changing his mind. Examples would be with Abraham, the flood, Ninevah...and many others.
Also, Jesus is the perfect revelation of God. He is God with us. John makes it clear if youvsaw him you saw the father. And they didn't know him because they didn't know the father. If you want to know what God is like, start with looking st Jesus. Everything else is interpreted through him...God become flesh and dwelt among us.
God "changing His mind" doesn't equate to Him contradicting Himself. He never deviated from His plan or changed His course once Jesus came. The New Covenant was prophesied before Jesus came and the Spirit was promised to come (future-tense in the OT and past-tense in our view). The original plan of Gods salvation was stated in the OT from the suffer servant, to the king riding upon a lowly donkey, the Messiah being born in Bethlehem, the messenger sent to prepare the way, and on and on all the way into future events we haven't seen yet in our day referenced from the OT to the NT. If at some point all or part of the OT turns into a bunch of "rewording" or God "reinterpreting" or "its just Jesus", then what hermeneutical principles are we to use if we see major themes in scripture like Kingdom, creation, covenants, repentance, etc...? Jesus fulfills these themes but He doesn't make them vanish into Himself Hindu style. It makes the Bible message vague and blurs the carefully laid plans God spoke throughout the book. I fail to understand how any of us could be taught from the Bible or take it seriously if all the major subjects now just get simplified into "Jesus". So maybe that's why you can say we shouldn't elevate the Bible above Jesus. I dont think we should elevate the Bible above Jesus or Jesus above the Bible...to me they are tightly knit without contradiction or contrast. Can people be saved without the Bible? Of course! That doesn't mean that we must now pit Jesus against the Bible...Gods message of Jesus is in the Bible.
The difference is...the Anabaptist vision and hermeneutic. When Jesus takes all authority, his teachings and witness, are centered. Therefore the Sermon on thr Mount, to the Anabaptist, has a much different impact than it does for the protestant or catholic where the teachings and life of Jesus are subjugated, even explained away, by "the Bible."
My understanding is that the "Christocentric Hermeneutic" was birthed from a Reformed Protestant Hermeneutic (usually of the Presbyterian persuasion in my experience)...not a "Anabaptist Hermeneutic". Not that I think that makes it wrong...
Your right, if some are "explaining away" the Sermon on the Mount with "the Bible", then that is a faulty Hermeneutic as well. I'm speaking more against the idea of "passage priority" where we have verses battling for positions of relevance over others...all based on what an individuals preference is. Sure, I might read the Sermon on the Mount more than some of the genealogy passages, but I wouldn't make a point to say that the genealogy passages are "less important" than Matt ch. 5-7.
For me the question is "what do you harmonize with what?" I would advocate for a model that harmonizes the passages that "seemingly" contradict the teachings and witness of Jesus, with his teachings rather than the other way around.
Whereas other faith traditions take Romans 13 and the OT and conclude that Jesus life and teachings don't apply for us in all situations. In a sense, they use the Bible to nullify the life and witness of Jesus. I would say instead, we take the life and witness of Jesus and then harmonize what Paul writes in Romans 13 as therefore being only descriptive and not establishing some "divine right" of rule or sacred office of an emperor. That is what I mean by Jesus is the final/supreme full authority. All authority was given to him. And why I think "biblicism" too often misses the Lordship of Jesus.
I do not see how anyone can separate Jesus from the Bible. Without the Bible we would not know much of anything about Jesus' life or even what he taught us. And without Jesus, the New Testament would not have much meaning...
Both are equally important and equally the foundation of Christian life
JohnH wrote: ↑Tue Oct 29, 2024 10:32 am
I do not see how anyone can separate Jesus from the Bible. Without the Bible we would not know much of anything about Jesus' life or even what he taught us. And without Jesus, the New Testament would not have much meaning...
Both are equally important and equally the foundation of Christian life
For thousands of years, literally, most Christians didn't even have a Bible. They did have Jesus and his Spirit.
JohnH wrote: ↑Tue Oct 29, 2024 10:32 am
I do not see how anyone can separate Jesus from the Bible. Without the Bible we would not know much of anything about Jesus' life or even what he taught us. And without Jesus, the New Testament would not have much meaning...
Both are equally important and equally the foundation of Christian life
For thousands of years, literally, most Christians didn't even have a Bible. They did have Jesus and his Spirit.
Do you mean to say that most Christians didn't have a personal copy of a Bible, or that most never had access to read the Bible or to have it read to them?
I think your comment could be interpreted to imply that you think most Christians learned everything they knew about Christianity directly from Jesus and the Holy Spirit. I'm pretty sure that's not what you meant.
To the extent that people receive teaching that others read in the Bible, that would seem to me to fall in the same category as receiving it from the Bible.
JohnH wrote: ↑Tue Oct 29, 2024 10:32 am
I do not see how anyone can separate Jesus from the Bible. Without the Bible we would not know much of anything about Jesus' life or even what he taught us. And without Jesus, the New Testament would not have much meaning...
Both are equally important and equally the foundation of Christian life
For thousands of years, literally, most Christians didn't even have a Bible. They did have Jesus and his Spirit.
No one is denying Jesus authority.
I'm against the "either-or" scenario you have created (and others via their so-called "Christocentric Hermeneutic") that really doesn't need to be their.
The idea we need to choose between "Bible" and "Jesus" is a either-or question that philosophers like to create but really has no business being there. We can chose both (Bible AND Jesus) without basing our decision on hypothetical scenarios of "what if the Bible didn't exist...?" Or "what if Jesus never said this or that...?". We are on shaky ground if we are basing our decisions without scripture. Its much more solidly grounded to take the Bible as a whole contextually rather than saying some scriptures meaning disappears in Jesus because we can't understand them. We need to try to understand them...not try to make them vanish.
Ernie wrote: ↑Fri Oct 25, 2024 5:48 pm
....
Other Anabaptists placed God/Jesus as the foundation below the Bible upon which everything else was built upon. This posture made them Christ followers rather than Bible fundamentalists.
Although others do not seem to have this problem, I am confused as to what you are saying here. The part about others placing Jesus as the foundation below the Bible.... Do you mean to say that these anabaptists regarded Jesus as the foundation of the Scripture, or that they put Him below the Scripture, in authority or prominence?)
The reason we even know about Jesus is because of the Bible. Hearing the word preached from the pulpit, reading the Bible in our homes, even having Bible stories read to us as children.
JohnH wrote: ↑Tue Oct 29, 2024 10:32 am
I do not see how anyone can separate Jesus from the Bible. Without the Bible we would not know much of anything about Jesus' life or even what he taught us. And without Jesus, the New Testament would not have much meaning...
Both are equally important and equally the foundation of Christian life
For thousands of years, literally, most Christians didn't even have a Bible. They did have Jesus and his Spirit.
Do you mean to say that most Christians didn't have a personal copy of a Bible, or that most never had access to read the Bible or to have it read to them?
I think your comment could be interpreted to imply that you think most Christians learned everything they knew about Christianity directly from Jesus and the Holy Spirit. I'm pretty sure that's not what you meant.
To the extent that people receive teaching that others read in the Bible, that would seem to me to fall in the same category as receiving it from the Bible.
What I was trying to note is that until books became really common (a hundred years after the printing press) and until literacy became really common (not until 19th century) - Christians weren't able to have/afford Bibles, and also, in most cases (until literacy was common everywhere) wouldn't have been able to read them. However they were still guided by the Spirit, led by Jesus, discipled at church using the scriptures, etc.
Yet they could hear the word preached from the pulpit. Or we are to believe that until the Printing Press was created, nobody ever heard any of the scriptures???