These stories are written in the hope that you have never forgotten just how powerful stories can be. We tell ourselves stories about who we are and about whose we are. Perhaps the most formative stories in your life came from your illustrated Bible, as a child. Perhaps the stories that formed you came from other books or films or TV programs. Perhaps they were the stories told to you by parents and grandparents. But be sure, stories have formed you and continue to form you. The media tells us a story. Politicians tell us a story. Culture tells us a story. The church tells us a story. And our lived faith tells us a story. Which story (or stories) we listen to and believe will shape who we are and what we do in the world. When we published CARAVAN, the companion volume to this book (dealing with the birth and childhood stories of Jesus), we received reports from groups who were studying it. One leader told me how much their group was enjoying the book and how people who had been in the group for years but had never previously spoken were engaging in the discussion because of the stories. One of the questions asked was, “This is wonderful – but are we allowed to do this with the Bible?” Well … yes! We can. We have. We are part of a long tradition of retelling the Biblical story in new ways. Every stained-glass window is an in interpretation of a story. Every sermon is an interpretation. Every shaping of the text that happens in our imagination is an interpretation. Hopefully, each interpretation opens a new door or window on the story so that we can receive it more fully and realise something new. In these stories I deal with events in the adult ministry of Jesus. I prioritise the ‘fleshing out’ of those people Jesus interacted with, in the hope that we can see them as more than just ‘props’ in a narrative that is only about Jesus. Because the Gospels are not just about Jesus. They’re about Jesus and his friends and his enemies and his context – and his mission. The people for whom they were originally written read them as contemporary stories of a contemporary saviour. 2
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTI3ODI1