Small things - Monday evening

It’s been great to meet up with a couple of students and a couple of teachers from Geissen, not to mention a wonderful selection of books from the Geissen seminary.

 

It was because of a partnership arrangement between the theological seminary at Geissen that first Jurgen and then Stefan joined us at Highbury.

 

Over coffee this morning: it had been good to talk with Joel, one of the staff members, and over lunch with Ford, another of the staff members.

 

It was great testing out my views on the interpretation of Luke 10:25-37 and the way in which Jesus was engaging very much in a Jewish way of discussing, and putting forward a willingness to sum up in an over-arching phrase the whole of the Law.

 

Ford was sharing reflections on his studies on the world of Jesus’ day.

 

Our conversation followed on wonderfully from the reflections this morning on the centrality of love in a hermeneutic, a way of reading the Bible that shapes our ethics.

 

Our conversation led on equally wonderfully to the final paper for our discipline group on the New Testament.

 

As Peter V Legarth was to give the paper he asked me to chair the session.

 

Do this and you will live – Luke 10:25-37 was the subject of his paper.

 

It was the first passage I ever preached on 42 years ago and more.

 

Recently, I have come to  a very clear understanding of the way the parable works, shaped in large measure by Tom Wright.

 

I had been warned at a recent training weekend by a colleague to beware of adopting a single reading of passages of Scripture, and particularly warned to be a little wary of seeing the New Testament simply through Tom Wright’s eyes and his over-arching narrative of the Jesus of history.

 

This was a timely paper.

 

Peter offered us five different ways of approaching what was in Peter’s view a key part of the conversation with the expert in the Law, and then went on to offer an alternative view.

 

A heated discussion followed with Sylvan, from a French seminary, himself a Jewish.  From a reformed institute he took a more Lutheran view than our Lutheran speaker.  But it was all interesting.

 

The point I took away from a fascinating discussion was that it’s good to be reminded that there are more ways than one of reading a passage!

 

One of the most interesting thoughts that made me think afresh was the observation that the conversation with the lawyer is followed not only by the Parable of the Good Samaritan but also by the story of Mary and Martha.

 

Love your neighbour … as the Good Samaritan does

Love God – as Mary does

 

It was excellent to have had the opportunity to share in discussion with people who were prepared to put forward their ideas and then have others subject those ideas to very rigorous questioning.

 

From our New Testament group we moved on to the final paper of the day.

 

It was given by someone who was a Medical doctor and had then studied theology and missiology to Ph D level.  Working a life time

 

Mr Hannes Wiher spoke on the theme.  The Bible Mission and Contextualisation.

 

A Swiss speaking from the perspective of Africa he challenged Christians in Europe suggesting they are comfortable Christians who do not go the roots and are not radical.

 

He suggested the challenge was for us to do three things:

 

1.       Reflect the missional dimension of the church in theological reflection, in biblical exegesis, in systematic theology …. At every point.

2.       Have the reading of the Bible and prayer at the heart of your personal life

3.       Have the courage to witness

 

Thomas Schirrmacher of the Martin Bucer Seminar, Bonn, Germany who had been doing our Bible readings, and who had shared in producing a joint declaration on mission bringing together the World Council of Churches and the Vatican spoke of the way in which that joint statement spoke of mission as the essence of the church.

 

There were things that challenged and made me think both in the context of teaching on our course and also in the context of church at Highbury.

 

In the queue for supper I got talking with Prof Pierre Berthoud who had been one of the founders of FEET back in the mid 70’s with John Stott.  He spoke of the enthusiasm they had all shared, an enthusiasm he clearly retained.

 

It made me think of the enthusiasm we had back at that very same time in going into ministry and in setting up the Congregational Federation’s training course.  I recalled at that time reading a little pamphlet by John Stott, Your Mind Matters.  It had made a big impresionon on me convincing me of the need for the church to be served by teachers and preachers who have something to say that is worth while and that comes not only from the heart but also through the mind.

 

I had often referred to the booklet … but not seen it for many years.   Until only a couple of days before coming away on the conference when in a tidying up spree I have had in my study I had come across it.  It felt like making the acquaintance of a long-lost friend!  I am prompted to revisit the book once more.

 

The conference has been remembering John Stott who died since the last conference.

 

Over supper I sat with the two friends who had come from the Bulgarian Congregational churches and a third colleague of theirs who now teaches in the Belfast Bible College and had given one of our earlier papers.  I made a point of saying how much I have valued what he had to say in his paper.

 

It then transpired that he had met up with Janet Wootton, our Director of Studies, and knew about our International Congregational Fellowship.

 

More networking to be done as we exchanged contact details.

 

Supper over, I joined Stefan for a lovely walk up the river from our conference centre – it turned out to be a much more beautiful walk than the one we had taken earlier in the week.  We exchanged thoughts on preaching and the conference and the impact it had made.

 

We reached another lake and joined another member of the conference.  An American, studying for a PhD in Edinburgh he had just completed three months in Berlin researching a fellowship of churches that Stefan knew well.

 

We ended the evening comparing notes on the subject of his thesis and the process of writing a thesis.

 

After the beautiful sunny day we had enjoyed, it was glorious under a starry sky with a beautiful moon, thinking of friends back home at Greenbelt!   I had glimpsed pictures of muddy boots only this afternoon!!!

 

And so our conference is coming to an end.

 

I have to say, it has been a wonderful experience – great to share with others in some serious study.  Great to network with so many interesting people.  Great to share wonderful ideas.  Better still, was to have such a good amount of time with Stefan and to range over so many things together.  IT was a real surprise to find so many students and teachers from the Geissen Seminary Stefan had attended … and great to find myself on a wave length with them in all sorts of ways.

 

I take home with me all sorts of things.  A renewed enthusiasm for the need to think through the faith if we are to share it as I do in a teaching ministry.  A renewed enthusiasm for teaching on the course as that is a way of touching the heart of many diffefrent churches through the ministry people share in those churches.  The challenge to prayer in this afternoon’s session and to the reading of the bible and to witness too came across strongly to me.  Coupled with that the need to reflect on our own context and the call to be in essence a mission church.  This is very much something I want to return to at Highbury and also in the context of our course.

 

Most of all, I take home with me the very moving experience of visiting Berlin, the Church of Reconciliation and seeing that the impossible can happen … and if that wall could come down, other walls can come down too!

 

This will be my final thought before returning home, though I hope to round off my reflections when I get back.  I come back to that piece of art work Stefan pointed out from the coach as we drove past a stretch of wall that had been preserved.

 

Many small people

Doing many small things

In many small places

Can change the face of the world.

 

 

 

 

Love is the Key! Monday Morning

A fascinating array of speakers!

After prayers led by the chair of the Congregational churches of Bulgaria we went into a Bible reading led by Professor Thomas Schirmacher, so very involved in the world evangelical alliance, and in issues of human rights with people of other Chrisstian traditions and other faith groups.

He led us through an exposition of II Timothy 3:14-17 pointing out the way Timothy draws on his mother and grandmother and on Paul to value the scriptures: their authority leads to a life of good.

 

This morning Patrick Nullens of the Evangelical Theology Faculty at Leuven spoke on the theme

The Moral Authority of Scripture and the hermeneutics of love   2 Timothy 3:16-17

 

If, as Jesus suggests in Matthew 22:34 the whole of the law and the prophets hang together on the two commandments, Love God, love your neighour,

 

If, as I John 4:7ff suggests, God is love and there is a need for his people to love

 

Should not ‘love’ be the over-arching theme to guide the way we read the Scriptures?

 

He invited us to think what would happen if it were!

 

Very powerful stuff!

 

Professor Schirmacher reflected on the recent occasion when the Lausanne Declaration that had brought together evangelism and social action in mission in the evangelical world.  Whereas, first time round the disucssions had been lengthy focusing on the nature of evangelism and the nature of mission, this time round the starting point was the twofold command of Jesus on which the whole law and the prophets hangs together.  He commented that taking that as the starting point there was little time spent on arguing the pros and cons of that approach to evangelism and social action … the precious time was devoted, on the other hand, to working out the way in which those two commands can be worked out in practice in thewhole range of issues facing us in the modern world.

 

It’s the white space that counts at such gagtherings as this.

 

During the coffee break I shared in conversation with Joel from the Geissen Seminary, reflecting on his approach to Revelation.  A wondkerful conversation in which I shared, to his amusement, my use of the same two arm movements in my two recent sermons on Revelation.  It was good to check out my reading of Revelation with someone who has giv en it such study and to find someone app;roaching it in much the same way.

 

He suggested two hermeneutical principles in coming up with a reading that are most appropriate in Revelation – two ways of reading the Scripture that’s helpful. 

 

One to ask whether your reading of the passage (especially in Revelation) would speak to the original readers helpfully.  What help would it be in Ephesus when  facing trials and tribulatijons to know that something was going to happen in 2000 years time?  Not much, he suggested.  Rather Revelation is about the here and now in Ephesus and then the here and now in every subsequent generation facing trials and tribulations.  Up to chapter 16 or 17 it’s about what’s going on – and only then about the hope of glory and ultimate things.  Even then they have something to say to the here and now.

The second help is when stuck to see if there’s any help in the Old Testament (eg Ezekiel or Daniel)

 

He referred to Richard Bauckham who suggests that apocalyptic writing such aS you find in Revelation is about what’s ‘actually going on’ in a world of troubles. See it that way and it will speak powerfully into any and every situation that faces trials and tribulations.

 

All powerful stuff!

 

But now it’s time for lunch!

 

Sunday Evening in the Book of Revelation

It’s the space around the sessions at a conference like this that is so valuable!

 

This evening’s meal was spent in the company of three from Denmark.  What did you make of your visit to Berlin? Was the question they asked?  I found myself retelling the story of No Walls Within.

 

Then it dawned on me just how significant it was to be here.  For the first part of my life the thought that the berlin wall should come down and the iron curtain be drawn aside was simply beyond the bounds of possibility.  And then the miracle happened.

 

That’s the hope in those part of the world where walls play such a part now … the miracle CAN happen.

 

As we had driven in the coach along one particular lstretch of the wall that had been preserved our attention was drawn to art work along the wall.  One in particular caught Stefan’s attention and he pointed it out.

 

Many small people

Doing many small things

In Many small places

Can change the face of the world!

 

That’s it!

 

Be it the largest of issues or the smallest of concerns, it’s the tiniest of things that matter!  That’s the inspiration for the work of any local church, of our church at Highbury in particular.  It’s the inspiration for the teaching Stefan does in Brazil and I do with the Federation.  Those small things really do count.

 

The evening meal over, it was into the one session of today.  A paper read by Joel White of the Geissen Seminary, where Juergen and Stefan had studied before coming to Cheltenham and to Highbury.

 

The Tale of the 144,000 in Revelation 7 and 14.  Old Testament and Intra-textual clues to their identify.

 

It excited me to find Joel right at the start using his hands to draw attention to the world of Revelation in exactly the way I had been using my hands in the couple of sermons I had preached on Sundays leading up to the Conference.  In reading Revelation how important it is to think of the world [up there!] of the vision and the world [down here!] that the vision is referring to.

 

The paper and the ensuing discussion circled round the Jewishness of the world of Revelaion and the world of the early church.  It was good to share a whole range of insights.

 

Great to have a proper conversation afterwards with Roland Dieness who is Professor in the theology and religious studies department at Nottingham University.  It would be great to get in touch later and build on that relationship in the context of our course.

 

The evening finished off with a great conversation with Stefan.  We recalled those words on the wall, made plans for the family’s visit to Highbury and rounded the evening off with a choc ice!

 

Our final sessions tomorrow.

A Day in Berlin

An early start today with breakfast at 7-30 and on to the bus at 8-00.

We were given a warm welcome at the Schonfelde Baptist Church were we shared in a service with instantaneous translation that my set could not receive.  No matter, it was good to share in the spirit of worship.

Responsible for a network of hospitals since reunification, a home for elderly people, a sports hall and a great deal of social activity there was a wonderful moment when the pastor after the service was talking to our group.  He was asked what evangelism they did.  He responded by saying they were simply being ‘church and living the love of God in their community.

We then went on a three hour tour of Berlin by bus with a pastor working in a ministry bringing many churches together in the city.  He had a passion for the city and took us to many sights telling the story of Berlin.

Driving through some of its many different cultural quarters he told us of initiatives for prayer in the city that had impacted on the community, not least at times of tension and riot in demonstrfations that had taken place over the years.

We visited sites associated with the reformation, with the history of Germany and the German church in the nineteenth century.  We then saw a museum on the site of the wall and on the site of nazi interrogation cells called A Trajectory of Terror.

Most moving was to see the holocaust memorial.

We saw more stretches of the wall and heard of the work of reunification.

One of the Bulgarian friends from the Congregational churches of Bulgaria was remembering his last visit to Mary’s church back in 1972 – he spoke of those difficult times, of the records kept on himself from that period that he had seen, and of the issues faced by the churches in recent years as it became apparent that among their congregations were those who had been informants.

An architect he spoke of the way he had been visiting Berlin to see some of its architecture.  Next to Mary’s church was a TV tower that must have been of the same era as our Post Office Tower.

From a certain place in the heart of the city the sun created a cross – it was known as the President’s cross – maybe a sign of hope.

We stood in the spot he described … and there was the pattern of a cross as the sun shone on the globe.

From our guide, from our friends from Bulgaria it was moving to hear of the work of reconciliation and the importance of the churches in rebuilding.

A number from Eastern Europe spoke of the vacuum at the end of the communist years and the power of the atheism that is the consequence of those years.

Once again it has been the conversations that have made the day.  Someone reading a paper on the poetry of Genesis 1 going on to speak of translation and its impact on our understanding of the text.

Many things to mull over and to bring home with me.

Saturday FEET

A fascinating day that’s been very full!

An early morning start with prayers at 7-30 and then breakfast

And over breakfast a fascinating conversation with someone teaching systematic theology in the Belfast Bible College.  Having done her PhD on Emil Brunner, she was explaining the need, she felt to help students recognise that the way they read the Scriptures is through a lens.  And then maybe to discover there are other ‘lenses’ through which they can read the Scriptures.

I shared some thoughts from my thesis about the way in the very earliest years of the Reformation people on opposite sides of the divide found a point of contact and conversation reading Scripture.

We went on to a Bible reading looking at Romans 12:1-2 led by Prof Thomas Schirmacher who spoke of the way he had been involved in drawing up a statement collaboratively with members of the World Council of Churhes, repreentatives from the Vatican on approipriate frameworks for mission.  He reflected on the way it was in using the Scriptures that they all hold in common that they were able to come up with a common statement.  Interesting to make the connections with the conversations over breakfast.

He reflected on the emphasis Paul makes in those verses on the transformation of the mind – and the importance of thinking through our faith as we read the Scriptures.

We were then in to the first main paper of the day.

Dr Tchavdar Hadjieve of Sofia, Bulgaria, originally from a Congregational church in Bulgaria, now teaching in the Belfast Bible College.

Reading the Old Testament in Christian Scripture

He reflected in a fascinating way on the need for Christians to read the Old Testament with the help of the New Testament.  He made a study of I Kings 20 and 21, suggesting that within that text there is a transformation of meaning.  Within the Old testament there are moments when meaning is transformed.  He then suggested that Jesus then transforms the way the Old Testament is read.  And we need to read the Old Testament with a willingness to recognise that its meaning is transformed by Christ.  He then suggested three setting we might imagine this text being read in – from a context of judgment, from the margins and from the context of power.  In each instanced we might see the text through a different perspective.  It was fascinating to hear the discussion it provoked and interesting to see connections with the previous evening’s theme.

Over coffee I shared more with the person who chairs the Congregational churches of Bulgaria and spoke of our links with Bulgaria through the International Congregatinoal Fellowship.  A later converfsation with someone else from Bulgaria was an excellent piece of networking for our Congregational links.

Over lunch there were more interesting conversations with someone from the Geissen seminary we had links with through Jurgen and Stefan who had both been at Geissen.  He is exploring the significance in Matthew’s gospel of the ‘twelve apostles’.  And interesting discussion on ways of reading the Bible.

After lunch some welcome free time saw Stefan and me walking along the river that runs by the conference centre and flows into a small lake.  A lovely walk, good to set the world to rights with Stefan.

At the end of the afternoon Prof Roland Deines of the University of Nottingham gave a fascinating lecture in which he suggested that Matthew wrote his Gospel kowing that he was writing Scripture.  That too prompted lively discussion, turning to issues of canon with Roland suggesting we need to be open in our attitude to the canon.  It was all fascinating stuff – it prompted me to reflect on the way the Jewish Hebrew Scriptures come to a climax in II Chronicles and the way the final couple of verses seem then to be taken up at the beginning of Mathew.  Hopefully, an interesting contribution to al fascinating discussion.

Interesting afterwards to find myself in conversation with someone who was disturbed at Roland’s rejection of inerrancy and infalilibility, as a denial of what evangelicals are about; I felt almost the opposite that his view on the writing of Scripture was very much an evangelical point of view.

There are moments in the conference when there is an emphasis on retaining an ‘evangelical’ identify in doing theology.  I feel uncomfortable with the use of such labels, preferring simply to do theology.

It is interesting to hear different markers people put down.  One speaker has spoken of ‘evangelical’ being to do with the ‘good news’, no speaker, but this one participant felt being evangelical has to do with inerrancy and infallibility of the Scripture.

Roland Dieness made the interesting comment that it was the King James Bible that introduced the notion of ‘the Holy Bible’.  Prior to that published Bible s had been Holy Scriptures.  To think of our holy text as ‘The Holy Bible’ leads towards the inerrancy of each word and letter.  To think of our sacred text as ‘the Holy Scriptures’ leads towards a more open approach to canon.

He sugggsted in the Christian Biible we should think of Old Testament and New Tesatment.  The Old Testament is the ordering of the Septuagint Greek translation and is adopted by thye early Christians because it culminates with the prophets and Malachi and leads on to John the Baptist and the arrival of Jesus.

He suggested that in the days of Jesus the scrolls of the Law, the Prophets and the Writings were in boxes and not in an order.  Though the Torah is in an order.  Then like circles rippling out from a stone thrown into a pond the prop;hets and the writings have their place as well.

When the Jewish people put the Hebrew Scriptures into the order of the Tanakh they quite deliberately bring the scripturfes to a climax in II Chronicles because that leads to return from exile and building of the temple – almost a deliberate counter to the Christian reading of what has come to be for us the Old Testament.

All fascinating stuff – stimulatking interesting discussion and lots of food for thought.

Supper gave me the opportunity to share with one of our speakers from Friday evening and explore more thoughts about his approach to reading the Scriptures.

The day came to an end as we divided into discipline groups.  I joined a group of New Testament teachers.   Peter from the Czech Republic read a short paper on Philemon and stimulated a fascinating discussion on the radical new society the church is as Paul sees slave and master as one in Christ and Onesimus becomes a brother of Philemon.

It was great to revisit Philemon and I shared something of my project in exploring the world of the New Testament in the Cotswolds in this instance in Chedworth Roman villa.

All in a great time.

Two other members of staff of the Geissen seminary were in that group.  That gave rise to a great conversation that has only just come to an end about the links between Geissen and the university of Gloucestershire that led Jurgen and then Stefan and Birgit to join us at Highbury.

Great to have an opportunity to say thank you to Geissen for the contribution they have made indirectly to Highbury.

We reflected together on the involvement of people who hAve come through Highbury in theological education.  Ford, who runs the bookstore at Geissen and here at the conference, said that it is a wonderful mission area as it multiplies the contacts you have with people.  Involvement with theological education shapes those who are going then to be the ones playing key roles in many churches.

It was a wonderful encouragement.

Stefan and I have just got back to our room and Stefan has given me the new book mark he and the family have to give out.

It captures the identical theme.  There’s a picture of a dandelion seed head with all the seeds blowing in the wind, almost through Birgit’s hair!!!!  The heading is Multiplication – Theological Education in Brazil.

That’s what Stefan is about in Brazil, Jonathan in Truro, Graham in Manchester, Christina in India and I through our integrated training course – our vision in being involved in theological education is that the seeds may blow and take root in many places.

An even earlier start in the morning as we are off to church in Berlin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Friday - the Church of Reconciliation and the start of our conference

Friday, The Church of Reconciliation and the start of our conference

 

It’s been some day!

 

We headed straight for the church of Reconciliation.

 

Our journey by underground led us to a station that was sealed off when the wall was built – stories were disturbing and moving.

 

Emerging into a wet Berlin we found ourselves at the start of what has become a memorial park marking the place of the wall.  Some stretches of the wall have been preserved, one in particular in its entirety re-creating the wall and the stretch of no man’s land as a memorial to those who had died.  A viewing platform gave us a panoramic view.

 

And immediately beyond the church of reconciliation.

 

I first encountered it long ago when I read Eric Burton’s ‘No Walls Within’.  When Eric arrived as minister of Highbury he wrote this little book outlining his vision of a church without walls where all were welcome.  It is very much the ethos of Highbury that this very month we have been celebrating.

 

On the front cover was a picture of the church of reconciliation; over the door a statue of Christ as if Christ is saying, Come to me …

 

But preventing access to the door is a wall – the Berlin wall.  Published in the mid 60’s the horror of the wall was very much in everyone’s minds.

 

When I arrived in Highbury in 1991 the wall had just come down and that story was still very much in everyone’s minds.

 

I wanted to find out what had happened to the ‘walled’ off church!  Eric hadn’t given it the name it is known by and so I failed to find out anything about it.

 

It was when Rene Nixon and then Anne and Malcolm Hopkins visited Berlin that both tracked down the church and I found out its moving story.

 

I was here to visit the church myself and it was wonderful.

 

Outside I spotted the sculpture by Josefina de Vasconcellos, Reconciliation – I read again the poem she had written in the mid 50/s when creating her small sculpture, Re-union.  Two refugees kneeling and embracing each other.

 

Quakers in the early 70’s in setting up the Bradford School of Peace studies at what was then the new Bradford University commissioned a larger version of the sculpture and renamed it reconciliation.

 

In the late 90’s Richard Branson funded another version of the sculpture that was placed in the ruins of Coventry Cathedral.

 

And then he also funded the placing of another version in Berlin – they wanted it to be on the site of the wall.  And in exploring a possible venue learned the story of the church of reconciliation.

 

J de V herself came to dedicate the sculpture and added something to this one – a cast of the bible that had been found in the ruins of the old church surrounded by barbed wire.

 

It was wonderful to be there.

We went into the wonderful, earthen chapel of reconciliation as it is now known, and at mid-day shared in a most moving time of worship led by a member of the Parish.

 

Stefan met friends and I suddenly realised I had missed my opportunity to chat with the leader of the service.  I left the church and some him on the other side of the park.  I raced across to catch him, and out of breath asked if he had five minutes.

 

He gave me twenty.

 

And I have our conversation on camera.

 

He told of the demolition of all the houses around the church of reconciliation at the building of the wall leaving it a solitary building in no man’s land butting up tio the wall.  He told of its demolition in 1985, of the people’s defiance, and of the wall’s demolition in 1989.   And he spoke of the re-building of the Church of Reconciliaion, the story of the sculpture.

 

It was wonderful to present him with a copy of Eric’s book and to draw attention to the wonderful vision Eric shares at the very end when he speaks of the church in the picture and expresses the hope that church can truly be church when there are ‘no walls within’.

 

I wrote an inscfription in the cover and presented it to the one who had led worship in my name, the name of Highbury Church … and also from Eric.

 

He shared with us the vision the church of reconciliation has that wherever there are walls that divide they can come down and the church can play its part in that work of reconciliation that is so fundamentally important.

 

The memorial to the victims of the wall was in the parish rooms built by the congregation on the west of the wall.  A wonderful exhibition with ‘walls’ you could walk through.

 

Our visit over, we had a traditional German sausage with a traditional German bun for lunch.

 

We then headed into central Berlin, visiting the Brandenburg Gate and seeing a demonstration outside the American embassy about people held in Iran – only to be reminded of the walls there are in our world today.

 

We arrived back in time for tea and the start of our conference.

 

Over tea I got talking with an Old Testament specialist, an American teaching in Belgium, developing an on-line course.  He has just completed work as a consultant on a new translation of the Bible published by Nelsons, called ‘the Voice’.

 

Written by people from the world of the arts, writers, poets, song-writers and the like, it attempts to bring the bible to life.  When asked to write advertising blurb he quoted an article he had just read about Keith Richards.  The Rolling Stone had been asked what he thought of the Bible and had replied he had tried reading it but gave up because he found it boring.

 

In his blurb my friend suggested this was the kind of bible Keith Richards would be able to read and so he said, Don’t give up Keith.  With a smile he said the advertisers for the Voice had picked on this quotation and it has become the strap line for the advertising of this new translation.  Try googling ‘Don’t give up, Keith,’ he suggested.

 

Our conversation ended up as he shared reflections on the way in which there will always be variety in translation, and it is not possible to arrive at a definitive translation.  And yet within all that variety we can see and hear God’s word.   Christianity is quite different from those other faiths whose holy book is said to have come straight from heaven.  Our Scriptures are not only brought to us through people, but also people who are creative in the way they write.  And that creativity means a definitive translation will always be impossible.

 

On to the first of our sessions.

 

A welcome and introduction by Prof Pierre Berthoud from Aix en Provence, France.

 

He whetted our appetite for the theme of the conference … Beyond the Bible – moving from Scripture to Theology and Practice.  It was a theme prompted by comments and a recently published book by Howard Marshall.

 

The first session proper was a paper read by Dr Richard Briggs who had taught New Testament, more recently teaches Old Testament and is now at the University of Durham.

 

Beyond the Bible – Within the Canon: Scripture as Canon in Evangelical Hermeneutics Past and Present.

 

Quite a mouthful … and quite something to digest at the end of a long day.

 

He ended up at a thought provoking point suggesting he had moved from feeling that it should be possible to arrive at a clear single interpretation of a text.  But even on matters of key doctrine there will be different ways of reading a text.  How important it is to live with that variety.  That’ snot to say ‘anything goes’.

 

He suggested there was something special about Scripture as the Word of God and therefore it called for a special way of interpreting it.

 

Often, he suggested, the church has got it right in its worship while those who seek to be analytical in their reading of a text miss its richness.

 

 The lecture and question time over, I found myself in conversation with a Hungarian scholar who had won a scholarship from the Hungarian state to study at Cambridge in pursuit of his research.

 

He was studying the way the book of Job, or at least Job 3, was interpreted in antiquity.  He was studying Jewish readings of the Scripture, Syriac, Greek and Latin readings too.  A fascinating conversation

 

I asked in antiquity whether any writers had considered Job to be a drama.  Yes, one had.

 

Theodore of Mopsuestia.  An interesting comment I will no doubt come back to some time.

 

It was absolutely fascinating to see what had become for me the theme of the evening emerge and take shape.  He spoke of the way there were very many different readings in antiquity of the book of Job.

 

Greek writers drew on the Greek translation, one sixth shorter than the Hebrew the Jewish writers used.  What’s more an additional handful of verses at the end identify Job as a figure in patriarchal times descended from Esau in the Greek text shaping the reading of those who used that text.

 

He spoke of the difficult of translation the Hebrew because there were so many words that occurred only in the book of Job.

 

He spoke of the rich variety of readings.  And then spoke of his frustration that many modern scholars simply disregarded the scholarship of the ancient church.  He seemed to suggest again there could be no definitive reading of such a book.

 

That led on to my sharing my explorations into the way the history of art touches the history of the interpretation of the bible.

 

Maybe for my friend from Hungary and for the speaker this evening there is value in learning today from the wisdom of the ancient interpreters of the Bible how to live with a variety of ways of reading the bible.

 

Evern Orign with his determination to read the scripture allegorically and to see its spiritual meaning honoured the historical, was systematic in his study of the text and with his production of an edition of the Bible setting out six translations side by side (sadly now lost) he was a great scholar.

 

There were rich pickings here for future reflections too!

 

But now is not the time at the end of a busy, but fruitful day.

 

An early start in the morning with prayers at 7-30 and then a full programme through till 9-00 at night.

To Berlin

14 years ago Jurgen Riek came to study at the University of Gloucestershire and asked around the churches of Gloucestershire to find out whether he could do a pastoral placement in preparation for ministry while he was here.

We at Highbury offered him a placement ... and we have never looked back.  It was a wonderful year.

As it came to an end he told us of another student from his seminary in Marburg who would be coming over for three years to do a PhD.

So it was that we were put in touch with Stefan Kurle who was also looking to do a pastoral placement while studying with Gordon Wenham at the university of Gloucestershire.

Stefan and Birgit joined us for three years and became very much part of a team ministry, sharing with our Time for God volunteers and with me in the ministry and mission of the church.

German speaking Stefan completed his PhD in English has gone on to learn Portuguese and now teaches Biblical studies at the South American Theological Seminary in Londrina in Southern Brazil.

While he is a Professor of Biblical Studies, Birgit is working among people with drug problems and as a teacher of English.

Having been in Brazil for four years they returned home to Marburg at the beginning of July to have a break of six months.  They will be joining us in Highbury for  a few days from Friday 12th October.

When Stefan invited me to join him in Berlin for the biennial conference of the Fellowship of European Evangelical Theologians it was an invitation I could not turn down!

Particularly so as the theme of the conference relates directly to the course I teach on, the Congregational Federation's Foundation Degree in Pracitical Theology in partnership with the University of Winchester.

Beyond the Bible:  Moving from Scripture to Theology and Practice  is the theme of the conference and it promises to be a stiumulating few days.

Stefan suggested meeting up a day early and so it was that I found myself leaving the house at 4-00 this morning to catch the coach for Heathrow and the 8-50 flight for Berlin.  After all the excitement of the Olympics it was great to see the Olympic Park, albeit from a few thousand feet!!

Meeting up with Stefan, we went by bus on a route that took us past the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag to the Pergamon Museum and a remarkable collection of Ancient Near Eastern artefacts.

It was a museum I had wanted to visit for more than 40 years.

My one adventure as a student had been to accompany friend Paul on the Orient Express to Istanbul and then down the Turkish coast to Kusadasi near Ephesus.  We visited four of the seven churches of Revelaion in the days before they were on the tourist trail:  Ephesus, Sardis (Salihli),  Smyrna (Izmir) and Pergamon (Bergama).

It was a thrilling place to visit.  A taxi took us up the windy steep hill to the ancient ruins of the Acropolis with its wonderful theatre and many ruins.  The one disappointment was that the centrepiece of the wonderful Pergamon Altar was nowhere to be found.

It had been excavated at teh end of the nineteenth century and taken to Berlin where the Pergamon museum had been built to display it in all its splendour.

Forty years on I found myself explring the wonderful Pergamon altar.

In the museum a number of things caught our eye ...

• the sheer scale of the architecture from the world of the New Testament - what would it have been like to have been a follower of Jesus over against the sheer splendour of the religions of that place?
• a wonderful inscription "to the Imperator Caesar Son of God Sacred God Custodian of all the earth and the sea" dating from the time of Augustus and found in five pieces.  Another example of the cult of the emperor ... but a very speical one nonetheless.  At the very point between the words 'son' and 'of God' someone in the ancient world had carved a cross.  A statement of defiance in the face of the Emperor's claims and of allegiance to Jesus, Son of God.  A wondelrful moment!
• Then there were the Amarna Letters with receipts given to the Babylonians by the exiled Judean King Jehoiachin.  How real the story of exile seeemed.
• And then the sheer power of the Babylonian empire.  The Ishtar Gate was immense leading to a processional route finishing at the five courts of the king, Nebuchadnezzar the Second.  What struck me was the as you walked through the processional way originally 180 metres long and three times as wde as in the museum the way was lined with wonderfully ornamental but life-like lions.  And the throne room likewise was flanked by lions.  These, so our audio guide informed us, were the symbols of Ishtar, goddess of love and war.  They were designed to intimidate anyone walking along that way.    Daniel is set in this time.  When we read of Daniel being thrown into the lions den I have always thought of some den of lions.  Is this an allusion to the processional way, the very heart of power and its symbol the lion.  How powerfully alive the message of Daniel becomes in any age where the one of faith is called to walk the corridors of power in defiance of the powers that be!
• Then the remarkable model of Babylon, the tower of Babel abnd its dedication to Marduk.  Dating from the sixth century it's a reminder of how powerful the Tower of Babel story is when told against the background of the Babylonian power ... how powerful that story today in the face of the powers that seek to control the world of God's creation today.  As in the British musuem the Gilgamesh epic is a reminder of the way ancient stories resonate in subsequent generations.
• A wonderful water cistern from the Assyrian king Sennacherib - with streams of water flowing into the priests hands and through to the earth.  Echoes of the later Ezekiel and the vision of the living waters streaming out from the temple through the city into the world.

A wonderful time in the Pergamon Museum; we couldn't help but think with feeling of all that is happening in the world today as we marvelled at the Aleppo room and caught a glimpse of the wonderful culture that is so threatened in Aleppo today ... and that was in Islamic art galleries that we only glimpsed.

Our day at the musum over, we made our way across Berlin by cycle rickshaw, train and tram and I couldn't help but think of one of the very earliest books that was read to me, the wonderful Emil and the Detectives.  Yes, I have got my money hidden away deep inside my clothing ... and yes, Stefan and Birgit have read the book to their children.  Only recently, I noticed David squirreling it away to keep up the family tradition and pass the story on to Lake!!

We found our way to our conference centre, run by Christian Endeavour, a key chrisitain youth movement still in Germany and ended the day with a surprise meal, putting the world to rights.

Having been supporting Stefan and Birgit, Marit, Simeon and Jacob in Brazil and sensing a real partnership in theological education not only with Stefan but also with Jonathan Rowe (formerly principal of SEUT the protestant theological seminary in Madrid and now Director of Studies on the South West Ordination course in Truro and in partnership with Exter University, and also knowing that Highbury's services on Sunday are to be taken by Graham Adams recently appointed to the staff at Northern College in Manchester, and occasionally enjoying fellowshi;p with Christina Manohar, teaching in a theological seminary in India ... it has been wonderful to think of the way the years we have been at Highbury have seen the development of our Federation Training Course and a very real partnership with so many in theological education.

More than that talking to Stefan makes me realise that the oldest of the 40 children we named recently as having a real involvement in the church at Highbury is 12 ... and it's 12 years since Stefan was with us at Highbury.  And yet it was in that time that he worked with us on drawing into Highbury the experience at Witney of the Noah's Ark servife, which led to the start of the Fish Club and the real push once again at Highbury to build up our work with children and families.

What fruit there has been ... and how encouraging to share those reflections with Stefan.

And so our day has come to an end.