{"id":18144,"date":"2013-10-09T09:19:21","date_gmt":"2013-10-09T13:19:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?p=18144"},"modified":"2013-10-09T09:19:21","modified_gmt":"2013-10-09T13:19:21","slug":"sola-iesus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/10\/sola-iesus.html","title":{"rendered":"Solus Iesus?"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/nakedpastor\/2013\/10\/is-it-really-jesus-only\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">David Hayward shared<\/a> this cartoon of his:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/nakedpastor\/files\/2013\/10\/jesus-bundle-550x550.jpg\" class=\"alignnone\" width=\"550\" height=\"550\" alt=\"\"><\/p>\n<p>The question of whether Christianity should be community-focused, Bible-focused, or Jesus-focused is itself the focus of a lot of ongoing debate. Most would acknowledge, at least in theory, that Jesus should be the center. But it is debatable whether one can really have \u201cJesus alone\u201d any more than \u201cScripture alone.\u201d Human thought is not so easily disentangled. And just as we cannot get at the Scripture independent of our human minds and cultures and assumptions and prior beliefs, we cannot get at Jesus in a manner that is completely independent of the Bible, unless we are happy to have a Jesus that is purely a construction of our imaginations, a projection of our values.<\/p>\n<p>But some unfortunately try to use this point as a means to sneaking the Bible back into the center. But what is needed in order to get at Jesus through the Bible is not an <a href=\"http:\/\/twofriarsandafool.com\/2013\/10\/3-doctrines-that-never-should-have-been-invented\/?utm_source=feedly\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">inerrant<\/a> Bible, but the historical study of the Bible.<\/p>\n<p>And the community should not be ignored in this either. Paul speaks of Christ having become a more-than-individual reality, the church being the body of Christ. And this is important. When we ask \u201cWhat would Jesus do?\u201d we are not merely asking what he <em>did<\/em> in his ancient context. To assume that what he would do in ours is simply what he did in his is to once again put the Bible, understood in a rigid legalistic fashion, back into the center. \u201cIt is written\u201d and \u201cwhat I have written, I have written.\u201d A well-informed, vibrant, and reflective community can often serve as a useful antidote to that.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>David Hayward shared this cartoon of his: The question of whether Christianity should be community-focused, Bible-focused, or Jesus-focused is itself the focus of a lot of ongoing debate. Most would acknowledge, at least in theory, that Jesus should be the center. But it is debatable whether one can really have \u201cJesus alone\u201d any more than [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,39,43],"tags":[1140,5677,11538],"class_list":["post-18144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible","category-historical-jesus","category-inerrancy","tag-bible","tag-jesus","tag-sola-scriptura"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Solus Iesus?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"David Hayward shared this cartoon of his: The question of whether Christianity should be community-focused, Bible-focused, or Jesus-focused is itself the\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/10\/sola-iesus.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Solus Iesus?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"David Hayward shared this cartoon of his: The question of whether Christianity should be community-focused, Bible-focused, or Jesus-focused is itself the\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/10\/sola-iesus.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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