The life and work of Jesus of Nazareth as told by The Gospels is capable of application to people in this century. Your interpretation of the Gospels obviously is different from those adults who were trying to confine, control, limit things that they didn't and couldn't understand, accept, or know fully, completely, specifically, etc. . Your thoughts are free, and you can control who is to be permitted to influence you.Lacewing wrote: ↑Tue Jan 18, 2022 6:55 pm Thank you for your response. I'll answer your post in small bites to try to help keep my statements and meaning simple and clear.
I say it because I see that everything/everyone in our world/life/view evolves and there are many dimensions/facets to be seen/realized from many angles/perspectives. So, a singular, unchanging perspective does not reflect some kind of 'full truth', and it shouldn't claim to. That seems obvious to me. Do you disagree?Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Tue Jan 18, 2022 2:07 pm I am reminded that you once described the motto "Jesus Christ, the same then and forever and ever" (paraphrased) on a plaque of the pulpit at your childhood church. It rubbed you the wrong way. It did not seem 'true'. For I suppose you say, and according to your doctrine you must say, that whatever Jesus Christ is must be ever in evolution, ever in development and transformation.
I recognized (even as a child) that the adults were trying to confine, control, limit things that they didn't and couldn't understand, accept, or know fully, completely, specifically, etc. It made much more sense to me that any such creative force would be way beyond our comprehension and our definitions and stories. That was more magnificent and inspiring to me than the caricatures that were being propped up and paraded around in Christianity (or any other kind of religion).
It's probably already obvious to you, Lacewing, that the historical Jesus of Nazareth and the Jesus Christ of myth aren't the same. Some iconic persons move with the times with no lessening of their wisdom, and Jesus was one of those.
Maybe if you think of him as a penetrating and secure needle point on a pair of compasses of which you are the movable hinge.