{"id":31410,"date":"2026-11-01T08:30:13","date_gmt":"2026-11-01T08:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/?p=31410"},"modified":"2026-10-29T14:47:17","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T14:47:17","slug":"letter-from-ruth-edy-llm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/?p=31410","title":{"rendered":"Letter from Ruth Edy LLM"},"content":{"rendered":"

Have you ever wondered what it might have been like to hear and see Jesus first hand, rather than reading his sayings and actions reported in print for us in the Bible, over nineteen or twenty centuries later? Do you think those first hearers went home and discussed what they had heard over their family evening meal, with Jesus\u2019 words still fresh in their ears?  
\nLet\u2019s take the parables as an example. Unfortunately we  have probably become very familiar with some well-known parables and they may have lost their impact. In addition we have been pre-programmed by the way that, over the years, the stories have been processed, packaged and labelled for us by teachers and preachers  (albeit well-meaning, every one of them!)
\nFor example The Prodigal Son – <\/em>does it matter, for the sake of the story, how much the young man spent and what he spent it on? And where else do we regularly use the word prodigal, <\/em>except in this parable? Isn\u2019t this rather the story of a person being at rock bottom and wondering where to turn for help?  
\nOr The good Samaritan <\/em>\u2013 are we to understand then, that most Samaritans were bad? And that this man was an exception? Or is it more important to see that anyone can respond to another\u2019s need, can interrupt his or her planned schedule and be of assistance?  Even, maybe, that this should be the norm?
\nI think, if it is at all possible, we should try to come to the Bible afresh,  with a beginner\u2019s mind. <\/em>We are all so vastly different from each other in our life-experiences, our cultural background, our family circumstances, that we should not be surprised if Bible passages mean different things to different people. In a book that I am reading at the moment (by Miranda Threlfall-Holmes) the writer says that reading is active, not passive. She goes on to say that in reading a Bible passage, we engage with the text, and our reading is a collaboration with God in bringing our own experiences and contexts into conversation with the text.
\n<\/em>Think of the smell and texture of fresh homemade bread, as opposed to processed sliced bread kept in the freezer!  Resist the processed pre-digested food! Enjoy a beginner\u2019s mind!   
\nIf you\u2019re looking for a good book on this subject, you could read David Winter\u2019s But this I can believe <\/em><\/a>and\/or Making Sense of the Bible.<\/a>  <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Have you ever wondered what it might have been like to hear and see Jesus first hand, rather than reading his sayings and actions reported in print for us in the Bible, over nineteen or twenty centuries later? Do you think those first hearers went home and discussed what they had heard over their family…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":31026,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","category-news","ctfw-has-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31410"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31411,"href":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31410\/revisions\/31411"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ducklingtonchurch.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}