13. Look at text:
Symbols inspire thought
Creative metaphor refigures reality
Relational: I say it, you interpret it
Surplus of meaning
Can’t be translated into descriptive
language
14. Narrative configures reality
the plot asserts cause
history tells us why things are as
they are
fiction tells us how things might be
Understanding lies between text and
reader
15. Reading in the hermeneutic circle for
fuller understanding
1. naive reading
2. explanation –internal coherence
3. suspicion – does it mean what it
seems?
4. understanding – seeing the world
it projects
5. appropriation – buying into that
world
What it means depends (partly)
on who reads
17. Challenge
set aside belief-systems
and read as educator
Rich fund of Take distance:
stories hear it afresh
metaphors let it speak
symbols Learn
told over centuries in encounter between
world of text and
our world
interfaces between
fields of knowledge are
loci of creativity
18. Teachers:
128 references to
Jesus
teachers and teaching
43 references to Paul
learning mediated by text
Teaching is relational the text itself is
and student-centred teaching
Expect principles rather than technical solutions
19. Uses many forms and
genres
metaphors
stories (parables) Jesus and Paul
principles pull crowds
exhortation Different from
poetry traditional teacher
action Tyrranus?
letters
Relational and
interactive
20. The light shines in the darkness
but the darkness has not overcome it
21. What might it mean
Jesus tells stories that to someone in
invite the listener to distance learning?
find meaning efforts are scattered
(parables) widely
“A sower went out to much is wasted
sow...” still yield huge
What does it mean returns
to you? A story of
encouragement...
22. Identify with them
“puts his tent in their camp”
Homes
Gatherings
Targets the socially excluded
Goes to “the other side”...
23. Double story
crossing the lake in a storm; and
encounter with Gadarene man with demons
Story told three times
(by Matthew, Mark and Luke)
Apart from words of Jesus, every word is different
But same steps
Any story can be told in many ways
24. The storm on the lake
Facing trouble and danger to do the job
Echoes of Jonah, who ran away; and
Julius Caesar, who turned back
Asks a question:
Not “How did he do this?” But
“Who is this?”
25. At the other side...
Man with demons prefers the dead to the
living
world is upside-down
distinguish man from demons
demons in one man v demons in crowd
political subtext
Man pleased to have world put right-way up
Townspeople preferred things as they were
26. Tension maintained between
building on what we have
“not to abolish, but to fulfil”
so work in stages; and
turning the world upside down
“puts down the mighty... and exalts the humble”
breaking in
A method, not an answer
27. Travelled to lay
foundations
Lectured and debated
could be long-winded Built an organisation
sometimes hard to Placed key leaders and
understand managers
could be lyrical Sent colleagues to run
Wrote letters tutorials
his metaphors cross
cultural barriers
adapts what is familiar
28. Theology is about relationships
Where we are in the order of things
How to relate to others
Learned in community
Needs someone to
exhort, guide, encourage, accompany
παρὰκλητὸς
parakletos
29. Traditional Jewish festival
celebrates gifts to Israel
Pentecost in New Testament
turns towards others
And provides us with...
30. ὑμῖν τοῖς μακρὰν καὶ τοῖς ἐγγύς
To those far off
and
to those who are near