Blog on the Learig

  1 June 2026 The Great Commission at the end of Matthew’s Gospel needs to be tempered by the other two commissions which Jesus made. Interestingly, they are both recorded in St. John’s Gospel. The first is the great prayer which Jesus makes at the Last Supper.   It is the prayer which defines our relationship with the world. We are in the world but not of the world. The world’s definitions of success and failure are not ours! Jesus prays that ‘they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.’   We find our true home in the Holy Trinity. Through the Spirit, we are drawn to Christ and into his relationship with the Father. This is the place where we are truly at home and at one with each other. It’s through our unity that the world will believe. The second is the commission which Jesus gives the disciples in the Upper Room. He appears to them after the resurrection and say...

  31 May 2026 Walking from the East Sands up to the clifftop above the water, I met a man with his dog. I noticed the dog first. It was a golden labrador and it had something hanging from its mouth. At first, I thought it was a woolly toy but, no, it turned out to be   a young rabbit. I passed and walked to the top of the cliff. I looked back down the hill and noted that the labrador had dropped his prey on the ground – and it had tried to make its escape. He was unsuccessful. The labrador cornered him and began to make sport. He swung the rabbit from side to side, hitting the helpless creature on the ground. All the while, the dog’s owner walked on without any concern for the welfare of the rabbit. They   exited the path onto the sandy beach. I followed behind. At this point, the dog dropped the beast on the sand and his owner called him away. This was his first and last intervention. I was first on the scene and could see that all life had been knocked out of th...

30 May 2026 In her poem, ‘Tyndale in Darkness’, UA Fanthorpe tells the story of William Tyndale in beautiful blank verse. In particular, she exposes the humanity of the disciples whom Jesus calls. She imagines them aboard the boat in the storm: Why did he ask them to stay awake When He knew they couldn’t? Because He always does. He picks the amateurs who follow Him For love, not devout professionals With a safe pair of hands. Look at Peter, A man permanently in hot water, chosen, Perhaps, for that very thing. God sets his mark On us all. And then her Tyndale reflects on his own predicament and the unique calling which was his, to use his ability as a scholar to bring the living Word, as he called it, to ordinary people: You start and it’s easy: I heard the ploughboy whistling under Coombe Hill, And I thought, I could do that. Give him God’s Word, I mean, in his own workaday words. And I did, But it got difficult: exile, hardship, shipwreck, Spies everywh...

  29 May 2026 Being able to understand God’s deeds of power was very important to the Reformers. The old Latin Vulgate was superseded with versions of the Bible written in the vernacular. John Wycliffe translated the Latin Vulgate into Middle English at the end of the fourteenth century. William Tyndale translated the New Testament and much of the Old from the original languages into English. This was the precursor to the Authorised Version. It is estimated that 90% of the Authorised Version   has come from Tyndale’s translation and about a   third of the text is word for word. He introduced new words into our language like ‘Passover’ and ‘atonement’ and ‘scapegoat’. Phrases like ‘Let there be light.’ and ‘the powers that be’   and ‘the signs of the times’ and filthy lucre’ all came from Tyndale’s quill. The Authorised Version, which was read in Scottish kirks for four   hundred years, has been superseded by a plethora of modern translations. Tyndale w...

  28 May 2026 This year marks the five hundredth anniversary of the publication of a New Testament by the English scholar, William Tyndale. He came from a village near Gloucester and studied at Oxford and Cambridge Universities. A hundred and fifty years before, John Wycliffe translated the Bible into Middle English from the Latin Vulgate. Tyndale translated the New Testament and much of the Old from the original Greek and Hebrew texts into English. Tyndale was appalled at the ignorance of the clergy and became convinced that ‘it was impossible to establish the lay people in any truth, except the Scripture were plainly laid before their eyes in their mother tongue’. The Bishop of London didn’t agree. He outlawed Tyndale who made his home on the continent   eventually in Antwerp.   When his New Testament was smuggled into London, the Bishop bought them up and burnt them. His New Testament was written in Black Letter font and divided into chapters. It retained some il...

  27 May 2026 Peter Brook, celebrated theatre and film director, wrote ‘The Empty Space’ in 1968. It’s all about the theatre. Among the different types of theatre explored is ‘The Holy Theatre’, the theatre of the invisible made visible. The book made me think about the church and encouraged connections. Whilst giving a talk to university students, he asked for a volunteer. He gave the volunteer a sheet of paper on which was typed an extract from a play about the Holocaust. Whilst the volunteer read the script, the rest of the students began chattering to each other. Because the volunteer was so struck by what he was reading, Brook writes, ‘Something of his seriousness and concentration reached the audience and it fell silent.’ Brook invited the volunteer to read the script aloud. The content was ghastly.   The audience became one with him. ‘Not only did the reader continue to speak in a shocked attentive silence, but his reading, technically speaking, was perfect – it...