Chuck,
Have no problem with a Christocentric approach depending on “how big” your Christ is.
The OT points forward through covenants to Christ the Lamb and Son of David that would sit on the throne. The NT, including the gospels, portrays that Lamb has come, the kingdom Has come and Christ as the expected Son of David now sits enthroned on the Throne since His ascension. He will put all His enemies under His feet.
He will come again and destroy the wicked and create a new heaven and earth wherein dwells peace and rghteousness.
Some choose to limit Christ’s total mission to a Christ that would be obedient to His to His call and healed and fed the less fortunate and died for the sins of the world. This He did but this limited view does not show all He did or would do as a result of His earthly sourjourn.
Regards
Sirje –
Yes, the Great Advent Movement no longer relates to our Theology.
Now, it is the Advent Movement because members move around
from place to place a lot. [LOL!!!}
Sounds a little like a BM to me. :))) Very special to John Harvey.
Kate rightly points out the crux of the issue.
If you have the “right” interpretation method, and if you have already applied that method, and if you have codified your interpretation into a set of belief statements, aren’t you done? There’s nothing left to do. Just always start with what you already know. (Deductive reasoning)
Alden Thompson was taken to task by esteemed and offended theologians because he didn’t start with what “we know” when he wrote “Inspiration.” He started with observations of evidence from Scripture and life. (Inductive reasoning) DIDN’T HE KNOW YOU CAN’T DO THAT IN THIS CHURCH? YOU MUST START WITH WHAT YOU KNOW! Or, at least, what the church fathers know.
Not long ago, I set out to read the Bible through in chronological sequence with a mindset that I didn’t know anything about it - or as close as I could get. I’ll tell you that the experience changed a lot of the ideas I held from lifelong indoctrination. I think we all have an obligation to just start with fresh eyes and attitudes whenever we go into the Bible - every single time. I don’t think we should waste a lot of time reading just to confirm “what we already know.” We are not automatons directed by hierarchy or orthodoxy. We can think for ourselves and let the chips fall where they may.
Had the same experience.
ezbord
ROBIN VANDERMOLEN … Why should texts written to a small cultural demographic ( at best several hundred thousand ) have to still apply to the current nearly eight billion on this planet, now that two millennia of cultural advancement has occurred ?"…
Robin V,
In the 20th century, given the holocaust, the use of nuclear weapons on civilian
populations, the Gulag Archipelago, the Chinese cultural revolution, etc … and,
furthermore, the spate of current ongoing global atrocities, the highlighted part
of your reasoning above (in particular), to me, seems to lack credibility.
Have I read you correctly, Robin?
ECCLESIASTES
If you read my post, I was referring specifically to the two aspects of Scripture that are causing division in Adventism ,
WOMEN’S ORDINATION and LGBT RIGHTS.
With most European countries having enjoyed multiple, ( sometimes consecutive ) female prime ministers and presidents, with Australia having elected a women prime minister, and with.New Zealand now on its third female head of state, women’s rights have indeed accelerated in the past two millennia.
In Paul"s time women were mere chattels.
Simarlarly with an increasing number of countries legalizing same sex marriage, gay rights have advanced considerably — except that is, in Adventism and other fundamentalist sects.
Kenneth Wood, when editor of “Review”, in the August 31, 1978 issue, wrote a relevant editorial titled “Ideas should be tested, not feared”. Read it at http://documents.adventistarchives.org/Periodicals/RH/RH19780831-V155-35.pdf
Angus McPhee
Jesus is portrayed in the NT as the one who not only fulfills the OT and the story of Israel, but is the lens, so to speak, through which to view that story and the Hebrew scriptures. This is what the NT writers were almost all driving at from different directions.
Matthew shows Jesus as the authoritative interpreter of the Scriptures as he both expands, and at points even overturns what the OT taught…“You have heard it said, but I say to you…”
Jesus rebukes the disciples’ desire to call down fire upon their perceived enemies , in concert with an OT pericope, telling them that they don’t know what spirit they are of. John portrays Jesus as the logos, the embodied wisdom of God that was the true workman at God’s side in creation…as opposed to the Torah. He also reveals Jesus as the one who inaugurates new creation in his gospel prologue. Paul shows Jesus to be the total fulfillment of the Old Covenant, saying that it is obsolete and fading away in the light of the new covenant and new creation that Jesus has established.
There is so much more. I get the sense that the NT writers went back and totally reshaped their understanding of the Scriptures after encountering Jesus. He was their hermeneutic, so to speak. If he isn’t ours, we simply aren’t thinking and reading the bible in a fully Christian sense.
Thanks…
Frank
Hello Guys,
There are many ways to think about our position front of the Bible, as there are many ways to consider our relationship to Jesus, to God.
The difference we put between power and empower allows us to choose what kind of God we decide to see in the Bible.
Did Jesus represent power or empower?
Do we want to hold power or embody empower?
What do we choose to allow the Bible to exercise as an influence on ourselves and our children? : power? or empower?
I am happy to see the issue of Bible interpretation, and the obscurantist attitude of Adventist Power on this issue, emerge in this place. I am no less surprised that it comes so late.
I understood this problem a number of years ago. And I chose after long torments, to read the Bible as a free man, to be an adult and informed interlocutor of this collection of human writings, and to pass the whole of this library to the relentless scanner of the Jesus’ teaching.
Is there another way of Christian faith to be reborn, live, and grow “in stature, wisdom, and grace” before God and men? I love the Bible. And I am extremely severe with her. I chose not to be his slave.
As one of my former teachers said, “The gospel is in the Bible, but the whole Bible is NOT Gospel word, you must prune, dig and seek to find this Gospel”.
Jesus does not want us Adventists, he wants us power of life for the world. Adventist or not.
Kind regards
Hmmm… Will I ever allow ANY person to interfere in the way I understand the Bible myself? I would certainly be significantly dumb if I did! And the best, this is not North Korea (yet!..) so we don’t have to be pressed toward subservience to some so called “leaders” of the Church.
This is one thing that has always bugged me: Why do people sell their souls to other humans just because they have the title of “pastors.” This is absurd. No pastor or theologian should be allowed to mess with anyone’s liberty of being an unique believer, a truly free Christian. We don’t “belong” to any Church; we are Christians who decided to worship God in the company of a certain group of our preference.
I know that those black suited people upstairs may fume if they read what I just said. Well, bad news for them, because my response would be just, “Who cares what you think?” They are not our judges, they should do their bureaucratic work quietly without spreading the impressions that they are managing our spiritual (or financial!!!) life. Though they would surely like to do that!!!
I know that when I “dare” to share my opinion so openly I am not making new friends at the GC. But, again, who cares?
Can this be Adventism? Well, we make Adventism, Adventism does not make us!!! Let’s be Christians who attend a Church that was named Adventist. Or, we can always look for the options around… 
If there is an unwillingness among Adventist leadership to have an open conversation about Biblical hermeneutics, that is very sad because, as is evident from this article, there are many dangerous ideas floating around about what to do with the Bible.
We ask all the wrong questions when it comes to studying Scripture. Instead of asking, “Can this be true?” or, “Why was this written?” we should be asking, “What does this mean?”
One could start with the verse quoted in the article: Jesus Christ is “the same yesterday and today and forever.” What does this mean? I can think of a myriad of ways He is not now the same as He was a few millennia ago. What does it mean to say He is the same? What has remained the same, like an unmovable anchor, amidst all the chaos and flux and change of a universe in crisis?
The only thing about Jesus Christ that has remained the same is His Love for all His creatures. And that is not a statement that reveals how He should act; it’s a statement that regulates the motivation behind all His actions. And those actions—the necessary actions that are required to live out Love for a universe in crisis—are ever-changing.
To really Love your child, you do whatever is in their best interest, and whatever is in their best interest is dictated by the circumstances at hand. For anyone who has had a child in crisis, you know that this may mean you do things as a parent you would NEVER EVER do under normal circumstances. But it’s the motive that governs your behavior, not your behavior that determines the motive.
In fact, that was Jesus’ own objection once to His disciples, when they asked if they should call down fire on a certain village. I have heard many people claim that Jesus’ response condemns the action the disciples were proposing, yet Jesus’ own words were about their motive, not their action: “You don’t know what spirit you are of.”
Scriven writes that “no one sees in the Jesus of the Gospels someone who would endorse violence,” and that’s true. But the Jesus of the Gospels is not the only Jesus in the Bible: the Jesus of the Gospels declared that Himself many times; Paul and Peter also affirm it in their letters. So, if “Christocentric” somehow means reducing the revelation of God through Jesus to 4 books out of 66, we had better save ourselves a lot of time and just chuck out the whole thing right now.
Ellen White, if you can appreciate her, reserves some of her toughest language for those who seek to elevate one part of the Bible over another. Either we take it all, or we take none.
George,
I am first a Christian that chooses to be Protestant and at one time an active member of the SDA church.
We do in fact “belong” to a church when we have membership in it. They don’t technically own us but it is assumed when we join we are in agreement with a majority of what it teaches. Overseeing the members is a biblical duty of the Elders.
The wonderful thing about freedom of religion or “from it” is we can disagree or leave what becomes untenable to us. When most of our efforts are simply arguing against the present order, it seems to become a definition of some form of insanity. That is doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome.
Forming a new fellowship of like minds can be very productive. All the energy of arguing can now be placed towards pursuing those goals of the like-minded. It is both healthy and makes sense. That was the intent of my comments to Chuck. To remain regardless of grievances seems to promote the idea that indeed “a church institution” has the “keys to the Kingdom.”
So if the differences are tolerable then learn tolerance and stay. If not, with no real possibility of change because of varying hermeneutic or governing style. Leave.
Actually, I think some personalities are only comfortable disagreeing and fear tolerance and acceptance at any level. They really fear being out of chaos and wonder if they could maintain a reason to survive.
Regards
Not sure that is true. Biblical evidence is just what it says, how what it says and means is interpretation. Easy to say you ignore the evidence of a couple 1000 page document but that does not really mean anything. I am not addressing the SDA authority not talking…not anything too new there!
Christians did not likely envision a nation founded by Christians, I do not expect that anyone accurately predicts the future. But that just points out that what was written way back then was for way back then with their understandings. So a nation which was dominated by a foreign nation (Rome over Israel) the information giving them is best applied to them not to a nation starting out 1700 years later with an entirely new understanding of the role of government. So the sermon on the mount is really good advice for a nation ruled by another national power. It is less applicable when it has to deal with me giving my coat to a meth head so he can sell it for more meth. (or after all this is Seattle heroin but meth is easier to spell.). So the Bible and the Bible’s stories of Christ have the same problem when it comes to interpretation of meaning for yesterday today and tomorrow.
Very well said, Patrick!
Thank you Carol. I actually enjoy a modicum of peace. But not peace where there is no peace. 
I think one needs to be careful how they use words.
An adventist is anyone who believes in the second coming of Christ.
A Seventh-day Adventist is a member of a particular denomination.
The term Adventist is used as a short form of Seventh-day Adventist. To which group is the title of the article referring?
Further clarifying, a Seventh-day Adventist is one who believes in the second coming of Christ and worships on the seventh day. To be a seventh day adventist you don’t need to believe the 28 fundamentals. That only comes into play if you want to formally belong to the denomination based in Silver Springs.
Let’s throw one more term into the mix - Sabbath day Adventist, one who believes in the second coming of Christ and who enjoys a Sabbath days rest, the day not being specific.
So, to which “adventist” is the article referring?
U forgot – Seventh day Baptists. Believe in baptism by immersion. 
I presume they also believe in a second coming?
The point I am trying to make is that we use the inclusive term “Adventist” to refer to a rather exclusive group. Adventist by definition can (and does) refer to a much broader group than just SDA but we use it almost as if other groups do not believe in a second coming of Christ. Muslims believe in the second coming of Jesus, but few would include them when using the term “adventist”.
Thank you for commenting. As for the point quoted above, let me clarify:
First, elevating one part of scripture above another is all too commonplace. Adventists typically do this with respect to Daniel and Revelation, books I love but which, in popular Adventism, get much more attention than, say, the Sermon on the Mount. I think this is an error, and I think it misleads us. (But the issue here is complicated. Does Nahum, say, matter as much as Paul’s Letter to the Romans?)
Two, and more importantly, the question is not which books matter most, but whose authority matters most. Christ’s authority rises above that of any individual or written document. If that is not so, then the New Testament is surely false.
Chuck