A Pilgrimage Of Faith, J.B. Toews, 1993

unchanging character of God.23 Henry D. Wiebe (1889-1949), in a 1925 article on the teachings of Scripture, began with the statement, "The Bible is the history of divine revelation on this earth." As a guide for 21 A PILGRIMAGE OF FAITH the interpretation of the Bible he offered the following steps: (1) The basis for all interpretation of Scripture was to be faith- ful to the text. (2) The etymology of the key words needed to be established. (3) The passage was to be read in its histori- cal context- (4) Each passage was to be viewed in the ran* text of the book of the Bible in which it appeared. (5) The passage was to be studied in relationship to other Scripture references that spoke to the same subject. Scripture was to be compared with Scripture. It was self-interpretive. (6) Also to be considered was the time of history and culture in which the text was written,* Nickolas N. Hiebert (1874-1957) spoke emphatically to the Christocentricity of Scripture in pointing to the history of reve- lation recorded in the Bible. He saw the New Testament as the culmination of the revelation of God in Christ, thus recog- ni2ing the principle of progressive unfolding revelation. For Hiebert, as for other Mennonite Brethren, the Bible was not merely a collection of common events of history. Although he recognized its great variety, the content of the whole was an account of the acts of God leading to culmination in the New Testament-God manifested in the flesh, the sacrifice for the sins of the world, the resurrection from the dead and the ascension into glory. The recitation of these divine acts, which took place in the frame of time, inspired the faith of the early Mennonite Brethren in God's power as sufficient for the needs of the present.25 The understanding that Christ was the culmination of di- vine revelation had definite implications for how Mennonite Brethren interpreted Scripture. The New Testament stood above the Old Testament in the progress of revelation. By presenting the perfection of Christ it took precedence over the Old Testament in formulating principles of doctrine.26 All of God's dealings with humanity in the Old Testament were seen as a preparation for redemption. The Old Testament prophets looked forward to the revelation of God in Christ, of which 22 A PEOPLE OF BIBUOCENTRIC FAITH the Old Testament, the Mosaic economy, was but a shadow of things to come (Heb. 8:1-7; 10:1-6). Jesus Christ established a new covenant that was not na- tionalistic and temporal in character, but was universal in pro- visio