31st January 2011

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

1 Corinthians 13

Do we think about childhood as something we must grow out of, or something that we must try to retain.  The Bible offers many familiar tenets about the nature of childhood, but we rarely consider how contradictory these can be. What does it mean the think as a child? George MacDonald, the visionary author of fairy tales and fantasies for children and adults, suggests that ‘Then to receive a child in the name of Jesus is to receive Jesus; to receive Jesus is to receive God; therefore to receive the child is to receive God himself.’  From ‘The Child in the Mist’, Unspoken Sermons, 1885.

26th January 2011

"I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against Heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants. And he arose and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck and kissed him." (Luke 15:18-20).

Here is a tale of the unexpected. The son’s best hope is that his father will take him on as a servant, but the father receives him with joy before a word of remorse can pass the boy’s lips. The absolute restoration to his position as a son contrasts with the boy’s former wilful disregard, the extravagance of the acceptance with the profligacy of the departure. It is beyond measure, yet utterly convincing.

17th January 2011

For Martin Luther King Day

In his famous speech, ‘I Have A Dream’, Martin Luther King used the language and cadences of the King James Bible: "No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream." (August 28, 1963) Here he alludes to Amos 5:24. ‘But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.’

10th January 2011

Gen 1.11 And God sayd: let the erth bringe forth herbe and grasse that sowe seed and frutefull trees that bere frute every one in his kynde havynge their seed in them selves upon the erth. And it came so to passe:
Gen 1.12 and the erth brought forth herbe and grasse sowenge sees every one in his kynde and treses berynge frute and havynge their seed in the selves every one in his kynde. And God sawe that it was good.
http://lookhigher.net/englishbibles/tyndalebible/genesis/1.html

BBC Radio Four is celebrating the anniversary of the King James Bible with selected essays and readings. These are available at this link from Monday, 10 January: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00xh4sm

3rd January 2011

The text reads:

THE HOLY BIBLE,
Conteyning the Old Teſtament,
AND THE NEW:
Newly Tranſlated out of the Originall tongues: & with the former Tranſlations diligently compared and reuiſed, by his Maiesties speciall Comandement.
Appointed to be read in Churches.
Imprinted at London by Robert Barker, Printer to the Kings moſt Excellent Maiestie.ANNO DOM. 1611 .