Jesus

Lost and found in translation

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Last night we were greeted with the tragic news that the person killed in Jerusalem by a terrorist bomb was not only a British citizen, but a Wycliffe Bible translator. Mary Gardner was there to learn Hebrew in order to improve her skills in translation work. Our thoughts and prayers are with her family and colleagues at Wycliffe.

Why would someone risk their life, or at least suffer considerable personal sacrifice, for the sake of translation? The answer is that translation of the Bible is at the heart of Christian faith, for two reasons.

The first relates to the Christian faith’s unique global vision. There is no ‘Wycliffe Qur’an Translators’ or ‘Translation Committee for the Bhagavad Gita.’ This is because, from the very beginning, the followers of Jesus had a centripetal (rather than centrifugal) desire to make the good news relevant to others. The roots of this can be found in Jesus’ restlessness to move on to other villages early in his ministry in Mark 1.38, and in John 10.16 in his declaration that ‘there are sheep who are not of this

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Transforming encounters: John’s gospel

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I am working with Celia Kellett at BBC Radio Nottingham on an idea to present most of the books of the Bible, one a week, during 2011 as part of the celebrations of the King James Bible. The plan is to read some verses from the book, to give a one-and-a-half minute summary, to hear a human interest story which relates, and then include a short discussion making the connections.

Here are the key verses and summary for the story of the Gospel of John (‘Transforming Encounters’), to be broadcast this Sunday 13th March from around 8.20 am:

Verses: John 8.3–11

They brought in a woman caught in adultery and made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?”

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Finding our way

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Footprints in the snowIt was the end of a really good week. The snow had been great, the sun had been out, and we had had a lot of fun as a family. The bags were packed, the skis returned, and all we needed to do now was find the car.

Alas, it was parked at the bottom of the hill, quite a long distance below us vertically, and an even longer way by the typically winding Swiss mountain roads. How were we going to get there? Was there a quicker way, a sure route down?

At last, we saw it. Others had had the same challenge as us, and we could see their

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