Christianity in Action: Lesson 16: Control of the Feelings

Lesson 16: Control of the Feelings
By G.R. Balleine

[Warning: Balleine was writing in the 1920s and 1930s, and his views and language reflect many at that time. However, as a time capsule of the prevailing beliefs, this can be very useful for the historians of that period.]

LESSON FOR THE FIFTH SUNDAY IN LENT.

PASSAGE TO BE READ : St. Luke xxiii. 23-33.
TEXT TO BE LEARNT : " In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength " (Isa. xxx. 15).
HYMNS : Fierce raged, the tempest " and " Lord, as to Thy dear Cross." COLLECTS for Seventh and Ninth Sundays after Trinity.

AIM :- To warn against the dangers of emotionalism.

I. OUR EMOTIONS.

(a) I have seen at a circus a rider driving twenty high-spirited horses. He stood on the bare back of one. He held the reins of all in his hand. They galloped round the ring under perfect control. He made each one obey him. We should be like that rider. We have seen during Lent how many things there are that we must control. Mention some. Our tongues, our temper, our desires. To-day we look at some more of the horses that we have to control.

(b) We all have within us some curious influences which we call our feelings or emotions. A thought comes into our minds, and touches our feelings. At once we grow tremendously agitated and excited. Often our emotions have most curious effects upon our bodies. For example, fear is an emotion. When we are really frightened, the face grows white, the heart beats violently, the skin perspires (a cold sweat), the muscles tremble (shivering with fear), the tongue refuses to act (cleaves to roof of mouth). Under the influence of emotion people do the most extraordinary things. Clearly here is something that needs to be kept under strict control.

II. OUR FEARS.

(a) Fear is an emotion. A large steamer was sinking in the Indian Ocean. There were plenty of boats. The sea was calm. There was plenty of time to launch them. The captain had no doubt that he could save every person on board. Suddenly a girl began to shriek, " We shall all be drowned." Then some of the passengers made a rush for the boats. All the others lost their heads, and followed in blind panic. They pushed one another into the sea. They upset the boats. Hundreds were drowned. And all because one girl had not learnt to control her fears.

(b) A very different kind of girl was little Alice Freeman. She was only eight years old when she was kneeling near the window at family prayers. In came a great buzzing flying beetle, and, oh, horror it got entangled in Alice's curls. She longed to scream, but she knew that she ought not to disturb the prayers. She could feel it wriggling its way up one of her long curls, but she set her lips close together, and remained as still as a mouse. We are not surprised to find that she grew up into a very strong and useful woman.

III. OUR PAINS.

(a) Pain is another emotion. What a fuss we sometimes make about a little pain ! A girl named Mary Allett, who lived close to Banbury Cross, was busy cooking, when her clothes caught fire. She clenched her teeth, and wrapped the hearth-rug round her, and fought the flames in silence. She would not cry for help, because she did not wish to disturb her mother, who was lying dangerously ill in the next room. Her first words, when she recovered consciousness, were, " Did I wake mother ? "

(b) The Commune was a rebellion against the French Government, which was quickly put down. Soldiers were hunting for the leaders to shoot them. They came to the house of one, and tried to force his little daughter of twelve to tell where he was hidden. She refused ; so the officer began to chop off her fingers one by one ; but she did not utter a sound, for her father was hidden in a secret cupboard in the same room, and she knew that, if she cried in pain, he would come out to rescue her.

(c) Think of our Lord upon the Cross. When prisoners were crucified, they usually shrieked, and yelled, and cursed with pain. Of our Lord's seven sayings from the Cross, four were prayers to God ; two were loving words to those around ; only once did He mention His own sufferings, and that was when He asked for something to drinks " I thirst."

(d) If we cannot rise to the spirit of Christ, let us at any rate rise to the spirit of the baby who said : " I bumped my head, but I didn't cry."

I. OUR LOW SPIRITS.

(a) Then there is another kind of feeling that sometimes comes upon us. We get " down in the dumps " ; we get " a fit of the blues " ; we feel awfully sorry for ourselves, and go about hunting for sympathy, like little walking miseries. In Egypt they have dug up thousands of dainty little glass bottles. Each is shaped at its mouth just like an eye. They are tear-bottles, which ancient Egyptian ladies used to wear by a gold chain round their necks. When anything upset them, they began to cry, and they took the stopper out of the tear-bottle, and caught all the tears. When one bottle was full, they added another to the chain. The woman with the biggest number of bottles would feel quite proud of herself. " See," she would say, " how many more troubles I have had than Mrs. So-and-So." The tear-bottle was the badge of self-pity. Are we not sometimes as foolish ? Do we never feel inclined to wimper and to whine ?

(b) St. Paul showed the right spirit of Christian cheerfulness. He had been arrested on an altogether false charge. He had been kept in prison for many years waiting for his trial. He was disappointed with the Christians in Rome. " All seek their own, not the things of Jesus Christ " (Phil. ii. 21). But he wrote, " I have learned in whatsoever state I am, therein to be content " (iv. 11).

(c) Our Lord rebuked the women on the road to Calvary. Read Passage. Mere wailing was doing no good to themselves or to anyone else.

V. OUR DISGUST.

(a) Another feeling is disgust. Sometimes we see things that make us feel quite ill. Some children feel like this at the sight of blood. A small girl was left alone in charge of her baby sister. Baby put her arm through the window, and blood came gushing from the wound. The sight made the older child sick, and she felt that she was going to faint. But she pulled herself together, and mastered her nausea, and bound up the baby's arm. Later she became matron of a large London hospital, and often stood by • a doctor's side helping in some horrible operation. She showed that disgust of this kind can be easily conquered.

(b) St. Francis of Assisi, when a young man, met a leper. The poor man looked so horrible that St. Francis turned his horse down a side street rather than pass him. In a moment he thought that he had no right to show his disgust in this way ; that very possibly he had hurt the leper's feelings. He turned back, and dismounted, and kissed the leper's sores.

VI. OUR IMPETUOSITY.

(a) Sometimes we get " carried away by our feelings," and feel that we must do something, whether there is any sense in it or not. A lady walking on a river-bank saw a little boy drowning. She got so excited that she felt that she must jump in, although she could not swim. Then there were two people who had to be rescued, and the man who saved her nearly lost his life. She did no good, and gave an immense amount of trouble, just because she had never learnt to restrain her feelings.

(b) The Knights of St. John have a rather fine legend. The home of their order was in Rhodes. One day, they say, there came to the island a fearful dragon. Many knights tried to kill it, but were overcome and devoured ; and at last the Grand Master issued an order that no more knights should make the attempt. But one young knight, when he saw the dragon, could not refrain from attacking it; and he succeeded in killing it, and was led back in triumph by the people. But the Grand Master met him with a stern face. It was a great deed to have slain the dragon, but it was a bad deed to have broken the discipline of the Order. If knights began to do as they liked, and disobey orders, the whole company would soon fall to pieces. The cross was cut from off his breast. His sword and shield were confiscated, and he was expelled from the Order. It is not always right to do on the spur of the moment what our feelings prompt us to do.

VII. THE SECRET OF SELF-CONTROL.

(a) A strong motive is a great help. We can, most of us, control our feelings, if there is a strong reason why we should. Mary Allett did not scream, because she knew that, if she did, it might kill her mother. The little French girl did not scream, because she wanted to save her father's life. Our motive. " We are soldiers of Christ." He does not want His soldiers to be weak, hysterical, emotional creatures. He wants us to be at our very best for His sake.

(b) A strong helper is even better. Refer to teaching given in previous lessons about God's Grace. Grace is heavenly power for earthly living. An American said that the four things essential for successful life are Grit, Gumption, Go and Grace, and the greatest of these is Grace.

The Textual Transmission of the New Testament

The Textual Transmission of the New Testament

When people hear the phrase “textual criticism”, it can sound intimidating, but the idea is simple. It’s the careful work scholars do to understand how the Bible was copied and passed down through the centuries before printing existed. For most of Christian history, every copy of Scripture was written out by hand. That means mistakes sometimes crept in — a skipped line here, a repeated word there — just as they would if any of us tried to copy a long document by candlelight. Textual criticism is the process of comparing all the surviving manuscripts to work out what the original wording most likely was.

One of the strengths of the New Testament tradition is the sheer number of manuscripts we have. There are thousands of them, in many languages, copied in different places and at different times. This means we don’t rely on a single fragile chain of transmission. Instead, we have a whole family tree of manuscripts — cousins, second cousins, and distant relatives — that allow scholars to cross‑check the text from many angles. When a scribe made a mistake in one place, other manuscripts usually preserve the correct reading. In most cases, it’s quite straightforward to spot the odd one out.

But it’s also important to be honest about the limitations. Our earliest substantial manuscripts — the ones containing most of the New Testament — date from the fourth century, a few hundred years after the originals were written. Earlier fragments do exist, but they are small and incomplete. And in the first few centuries, copying was not always done by trained scribes. Some early copies are wonderfully careful; others are clearly the work of ordinary Christians doing their best. This means the early period of transmission was a bit more uneven than the later, highly disciplined monastic copying that people often imagine.

Even so, the overall picture is reassuring. Most of the differences between manuscripts are tiny — spelling variations, word order changes, or small slips of the pen. Only a handful of passages raise real questions, and modern translations are transparent about them, usually noting the alternatives in the footnotes. There is no hidden conspiracy or secret text. Everything scholars know is printed openly for anyone to see.

So textual criticism is not about undermining the Bible. It’s about taking the Bible seriously enough to study its history with care. It helps us appreciate the remarkable way Scripture has been preserved through the centuries, while also being honest about the human hands that copied it. For a parish community, the key message is simple: we can trust the Scriptures we read today, not because they dropped from heaven fully formed, but because generations of believers have treasured them, copied them, and passed them on — and because scholars continue to help us understand that story with clarity and integrity.

So how do variants arise?

For most of Christian history, Scripture was copied by hand — line after line, page after page — by people who loved these texts and believed they were passing on something precious. And because they were human, sometimes they made small mistakes. Sometimes they added a word to make a sentence clearer. Sometimes they repeated a line by accident. And sometimes they preserved a story they had heard in church and wanted to make sure wasn’t lost. Textual criticism is simply the gentle, careful work of noticing these differences and asking, “What did the earliest manuscripts say?”

Most of the time, the differences are tiny — a spelling change, a word in a different order, a line skipped or repeated. But there are a few places where the variations are big enough that modern Bibles put a note in the margin. One example is the ending of Mark’s Gospel. Our earliest manuscripts end with the women at the tomb, afraid and amazed. Later manuscripts add a longer ending with appearances of the risen Jesus. It’s a beautiful passage, but it almost certainly wasn’t part of Mark’s original text. The church has kept it because it reflects the wider resurrection tradition, but we’re honest about where it came from.

Another example is the story of the woman caught in adultery — the moment when Jesus says, “Let the one who is without sin cast the first stone.” It’s a story that rings true to the character of Jesus, and Christians have treasured it for centuries. But it doesn’t appear in the earliest manuscripts of John’s Gospel. It seems to have been a beloved story that floated around the early church and was later written into the text. We keep it because it speaks grace so powerfully, but we also acknowledge its unusual history.

There are smaller examples too. A verse in 1 John that sounds like a ready‑made Trinitarian formula appears only in very late manuscripts, so modern translations leave it in the footnotes. The King James Version includes the Trinitarian formula in the main text of 1 John 5:7–8 — even though it does not appear in any early Greek manuscripts.

A confession of faith in Acts — “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God” — seems to have been added by a scribe who wanted the Ethiopian eunuch’s baptism to sound more like the baptisms in his own church. Even the famous number of the beast in Revelation has two early versions: 666 and 616. None of these variations change the heart of the gospel, but they remind us that Scripture came to us through real people, in real communities, with real pens and real limitations.

So when we read the Bible in church, we are not reading a fragile whisper passed down a single line. We are reading a text preserved by a great cloud of witnesses — scribes, monks, translators, scholars, and ordinary believers — all doing their part to pass on the story of God’s love. The variations don’t undermine the message. They remind us that God has always chosen to work through human hands. 

Appendix 1: Dates of Manuscripts

The truth is that we do not possess a complete manuscript of any individual New Testament book until the fourth century. Before that point, what survives are fragments and partial collections — some of them very early and very precious, but none of them containing an entire Gospel or an entire letter in one continuous piece. The first time we encounter a manuscript that preserves whole books from beginning to end is with the great parchment codices of the fourth and fifth centuries.

Codex Vaticanus, produced around 325–350 CE, is one of the earliest and most important of these. It contains most of the Old Testament and most of the New Testament, although it is missing the end of Hebrews, the Pastoral Epistles, Philemon, and Revelation. For the books it does include, Vaticanus is the earliest complete witness. Alongside it stands Codex Sinaiticus, dating from roughly 330–360 CE. Sinaiticus is the first manuscript we have that contains the entire New Testament in one place, along with a few early Christian writings such as the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas. A little later, in the early fifth century, Codex Alexandrinus appears, offering another nearly complete Bible, though with a few missing leaves in Matthew, John, and 2 Corinthians.

Before these codices, our evidence is earlier but far more fragmentary. The famous Rylands Fragment (P52), dating from around 125–150 CE, contains only a few verses of John 18. P46, from roughly 175–225 CE, preserves most of Paul’s letters but not all of them. P66, from around 200 CE, contains much of John’s Gospel but with significant gaps. P75, from the late second or early third century, gives us large portions of Luke and John, and P45 offers pieces of all four Gospels and Acts, though in a very fragmentary state. These papyri are invaluable because they are early, but none of them gives us a complete book.

When we ask, “When do we first have a full copy of each New Testament document?”, the answer is straightforward. The earliest complete copies of the Gospels, Acts, Paul’s letters, the General Epistles, and Revelation all appear in the fourth century, preserved in Codex Sinaiticus. For a few books missing from Vaticanus, the earliest complete witness is Alexandrinus in the fifth century. But the key point remains: no New Testament book survives in a complete manuscript earlier than the fourth century. What we have before that are earlier fragments and partial collections that help us reconstruct the text with considerable confidence.

This timeline does not need to unsettle anyone. The gap between the original writings of the first century and our first complete manuscripts of the fourth century is real, but it is bridged by hundreds of earlier fragments that show the text already stabilising long before the great codices were produced. The fourth‑century manuscripts confirm that the New Testament had been copied and circulated widely enough for its wording to be recognisable and consistent. The result is a picture that is both historically honest and theologically reassuring: the text travelled through human hands, but it did so in a way that allows us to read it today with clarity and trust.

Appendix 2: The Case of the Pastoral Epistles

The absence of the Pastoral Epistles (Timothy and Titus) from our earliest substantial manuscripts is not the result of a single cause but a combination of historical factors that make good sense once we understand how early Christian texts circulated. Unlike Paul’s major letters, which were addressed to whole communities and quickly copied, shared, and gathered into collections, the Pastoral Epistles were written to individuals — Timothy and Titus — and were shaped by very local, practical concerns. Letters of this kind tended to travel more slowly and were copied less frequently in the earliest generations of the church. They simply did not have the same immediate, wide‑ranging audience as Romans or Corinthians, and that narrower circulation left a mark on the manuscript tradition.

We also know that the earliest collections of Paul’s letters did not always include the Pastorals. The famous papyrus P46, dating from the late second or early third century, contains a substantial set of Pauline letters but omits 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus. This does not mean the letters were unknown or rejected; it simply shows that different Christian communities had different collections, and the Pastorals had not yet become universally attached to the Pauline corpus. In the early church, there was no fixed New Testament. Texts circulated in clusters, and some clusters were more complete than others.

Another factor is that the Pastorals raised questions even in antiquity. Early Christian writers noticed that these letters use different vocabulary, a different style, and reflect a more developed church structure than Paul’s undisputed letters. Because of this, some communities hesitated before fully embracing them as Pauline. They were eventually accepted into the canon, but that early hesitation may have slowed their copying and distribution. A text that is copied less often is naturally less likely to appear in the earliest surviving manuscripts.

It is also important to remember that the absence of the Pastorals from Codex Vaticanus — our earliest major manuscript — is partly an accident of history. Vaticanus is missing several books at the end of the New Testament, including Philemon and Revelation, because a physical section of the manuscript was never completed. The missing books cluster together, which strongly suggests that the scribe simply did not finish copying the final quire. The absence of the Pastorals in this codex therefore tells us more about the state of that particular manuscript than about the status of the letters themselves.

Finally, our earliest manuscript evidence is fragmentary by nature. Before the fourth century, we possess papyri that preserve portions of the Gospels, Acts, and Paul’s letters, but none of these early manuscripts contain the entire New Testament. It is therefore not surprising that some books — especially those with narrower early circulation — do not appear in the surviving fragments. When the first complete New Testament finally appears in the fourth century, in Codex Sinaiticus, the Pastorals are included without hesitation.

Taken together, these factors explain why the Pastoral Epistles are missing from the earliest manuscript tradition. Their absence reflects patterns of early circulation, the gradual formation of the Pauline letter collection, early questions about authorship, the physical incompleteness of certain manuscripts, and the fragmentary nature of our earliest evidence. Nothing in this pattern suggests suppression or controversy; it simply reflects the complex and very human history through which the New Testament reached us.

Appendix 3: Codex Sinaiticus

When we look at Codex Sinaiticus, the first complete New Testament manuscript we possess, it is striking that the Pastorals appear there without any sign of hesitation or marginalisation. They sit alongside the other Pauline letters as though they had always belonged. Yet the same manuscript also includes two works that the later church did not consider canonical: the “Epistle of Barnabas” and the “Shepherd of Hermas”. Their presence reminds us that, in the fourth century, the boundaries of the New Testament were not yet fully settled. The canon was still a living conversation rather than a fixed list.

The inclusion of Barnabas and Hermas reflects the reality that early Christian communities valued a wider range of texts than the ones that eventually made it into the canon. Both Barnabas and Hermas were widely read, used for teaching, and regarded as spiritually edifying. Some early church fathers even considered them candidates for Scripture. Their presence in Sinaiticus shows that the scribe was copying a collection of books that his community found useful and authoritative, even if later generations drew the line more tightly.

So by this point, the Pastorals had found their place within the developing New Testament, even as the outer edges of the canon remained porous. In other words, Sinaiticus reflects a moment in Christian history when the core of the New Testament was solidifying, but the perimeter was still open to debate.

This manuscript therefore offers a window into a church that was still discerning its scriptural identity. It shows us that the canon did not drop from heaven fully formed, nor was it the product of a single council or decree. It grew gradually, through use, consensus, and the lived experience of Christian communities. The presence of Barnabas and Hermas alongside the Pastorals is not an embarrassment but a reminder of that organic process. It tells us that the early church valued a rich library of texts, and that the New Testament we know today emerged from that wider landscape through centuries of reflection, prayer, and communal judgment.

Living in Harmony: A Case Study of Harmonisation Techniques and Weaknesses

Living in Harmony: A Case Study of Harmonisation Techniques and Weaknesses

The Faith of the Centurion

Matthew 8:5 - 13

When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. 6 “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed, suffering terribly.” Jesus said to him, “Shall I come and heal him?” The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! Let it be done just as you believed it would.” And his servant was healed at that moment.

Luke 7:2 - 10

There a centurion’s servant, whom his master valued highly, was sick and about to die. The centurion heard of Jesus and sent some elders of the Jews to him, asking him to come and heal his servant. When they came to Jesus, they pleaded earnestly with him, “This man deserves to have you do this, because he loves our nation and has built our synagogue.” So Jesus went with them.

He was not far from the house when the centurion sent friends to say to him: “Lord, don’t trouble yourself, for I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. That is why I did not even consider myself worthy to come to you. But say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” When Jesus heard this, he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd following him, he said, “I tell you, I have not found such great faith even in Israel.” Then the men who had been sent returned to the house and found the servant well.

Harmonisation by Matt Slick

https://carm.org/who - brought - the - centurions - request - to - jesus

Who brought the Centurion’s request to Jesus as is depicted in Matthew 8:5 - 13 and Luke 7:2 - 101? It clearly states that the Centurion came to Jesus in Matt. 8:5, but it also says that the Jewish elders came to Jesus. The order of events seems to be that the Centurion first sent the Jewish elders (Luke 7:3). Jesus then agreed to go. Then the Centurion came to Jesus (Matt. 8:5). Jesus walked everywhere he went. Centurions commanded hundred - men groups in the Roman legion. “Such men were prestigious members of a relatively small class governing the military.”(Achtemeier, Paul J., Harper’s Bible Dictionary, San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1985.) Therefore, the centurion most probably had a horse upon which to ride to and from where Jesus was. If this is so, then he probably returned to his home, checked on the servant, and then sent friends (Luke 7:6) to speak to Jesus and say that he, the Centurion, was not worthy for Jesus to even enter his home. Jesus continued on. Then as Jesus neared the home, the Centurion himself approached Jesus (Matt. 8:8) to tell Him that he was not worthy for Him to enter his house.

My comments and discussion

The CARM article is a perfect illustration of what critics mean when they say harmonisation can become strained, convoluted, or even hermeneutically backwards. It’s not that harmonisation is always wrong - it’s that sometimes the effort required to preserve “no contradiction” ends up doing more violence to the text than simply letting each evangelist speak in his own voice.

Let’s look at why this particular example is often used in biblical‑studies classrooms as a case study in the limits of harmonisation.

It requires inventing events that neither Gospel mentions. To reconcile Matthew’s “the centurion came to Jesus” with Luke’s “he sent elders,” the harmoniser must propose:

The centurion sent elders (Luke)
Then he sent friends (Luke)
Then he personally rode to Jesus (not in Luke)
Then he personally spoke to Jesus (Matthew)

None of this sequence is stated in either Gospel. It’s a reconstruction built only to avoid contradiction. If your interpretation requires adding multiple unmentioned events, the text is no longer leading the reading - the harmonising impulse is.

Matthew and Luke are not trying to report the same event with journalistic precision. They shape stories for theological emphasis. Matthew often compresses stories and has characters speak directly to Jesus to highlight faith and authority. Luke emphasises intermediaries, social structures, and the humility of Gentiles approaching a Jewish holy man. Each version makes perfect sense within its own narrative world. Forcing them into one timeline can erase those distinct emphases.

When someone insists that the Gospel accounts must be reconciled as if they were CCTV footage, they’re applying a modern expectation to ancient texts that simply weren’t written with that aim. The CARM - style defence is a classic example of what happens when that expectation is taken to its logical extreme: the interpreter ends up constructing an elaborate, unmentioned sequence of events purely to preserve literal synchronisation.

A few things become clear when you look at it through a historically sensitive lens. Ancient biography wasn’t trying to be “filmed as it happened”. Matthew and Luke are not journalists. They’re ancient biographers and theologians. They shape stories to highlight themes. They compress or expand scenes. They use representative speech freely. They’re not concerned with whether the centurion physically stood in front of Jesus or spoke through intermediaries. Expecting them to behave like modern reporters is anachronistic.

We might say that we don't know which story accurately depicts events. Did Matthew compress the narrative so it was not what happened literally? Or did Luke adjust it to put the gentile Centurion at one remove from Jesus for his readers even if that was not what happened literally? We don't know.

That’s exactly the sober, historically responsible place many scholars land - not out of scepticism, but out of respect for what ancient texts are and what they’re trying to do. We don’t know which version is “what literally happened,” and the Gospels themselves don’t seem to care about that question in the way a modern historian would.

The question “Which one is literally accurate?” may be the wrong question. It’s a modern question, born of post‑Enlightenment expectations about history and reportage. The evangelists are not competing journalists. They’re theologians, storytellers, and community - shapers. Their aim is not to give us a single camera angle but to give us insight.

If Matthew shows bold Gentile faith approaching Jesus directly, and Luke shows humble Gentile faith approaching Jesus through Jewish intermediaries, then the two portraits together give us a richer understanding of the centurion’s character and of Jesus’ ministry. You don’t need to decide which one “really happened” to receive the theological gift.

Some things are contradictory, but trusting that the authors knew what they were doing has not erased the contradictions; it has transformed them into a doorway to deeper understanding.

I have heard these kinds of difficulty described as “so - called contractions”. Calling them “so‑called contradictions” often smuggles in the assumption that the tension is only apparent, only superficial, only waiting for the clever reader to dissolve it. But once you acknowledge that some things genuinely are contradictory at the level of surface detail, you’re finally free to read the texts as the evangelists actually wrote them, rather than as modern harmonisation expects them to be.

When that attitude about “so‑called contradictions” is coupled with the statement ““The Gospels were intended to be read as history” which is often the case, there is a clear misunderstanding at work between modern and ancient history. It is reading back into ancient texts a modern understanding which simply is not there.

Ancient “history” is not modern “history”. When a modern writer says “history,” they usually mean chronological precision, factual reconstruction, eyewitness verification, consistency of detail, and a single coherent timeline.

Ancient writers — including the Gospel authors — did not share those expectations. Ancient historia meant shaping events into a meaningful narrative, arranging material for rhetorical or theological effect, using speeches, summaries, and compression, prioritising significance over sequence and presenting truth through literary artistry.

The phrase “so‑called contradictions” usually signals a refusal to acknowledge genuine narrative differences, an assumption that ancient authors aimed at literal precision and a defensive posture rather than an interpretive one. But the Gospels do contradict each other at the level of surface detail — order of events, who speaks, what is said, where things happen, how many people are present. These contradictions are not errors. They are the natural result of ancient biographical practice. To deny them is not faithfulness — it’s anachronism.

The evangelists shaped material for theological reasons. Matthew and Luke rearrange the temptations. Matthew may compresses the centurion story; Luke may expand it. John relocates the Temple cleansing. Mark doubles Bartimaeus into two blind men in Matthew. These are not mistakes. They are deliberate narrative choices. To insist they must all be literally harmonised is to miss the artistry.

The Gospels are “history” in the ancient sense — theological biography. They are rooted in real events, shaped by memory and tradition, crafted for communities and arranged for meaning, not chronology.

Calling them “history” is fine — as long as we mean ancient history, not post‑Enlightenment historiography. When someone collapses those categories, contradictions become “problems” rather than “features.”

Eyewitnesses in the ancient world - as described by Luke do not mean eyewitnesses as we would understand it providing material to be presented exactly as it happened. When Luke speaks of “eyewitnesses” (autoptai) in Luke 1:2, he is not describing the kind of eyewitness testimony that a modern historian, journalist, or court of law would expect. To put it bluntly: ancient “eyewitness” does not mean “I saw it with my own eyes and now I will give you a verbatim, chronologically precise account.” It means something far richer, and far less literal.

Ancient historians shaped eyewitness material freely. Writers like Thucydides, Polybius, and Josephus — the gold standard of ancient historiography — routinely rearranged events, composed speeches, summarised long episodes, omitted details, emphasised theological or moral meaning. And they still called their sources “eyewitnesses.” Luke is working in that same world.

Luke 1:1–4 is often read through modern eyes, as if Luke is promising: “I will give you the exact sequence of events as they happened.” But what he actually promises is a carefully ordered account, based on traditions handed down, from eyewitnesses and ministers of the word, so that the reader may have certainty (i.e., confidence, stability). “Ordered” (kathexēs) does not mean chronological.

It means “arranged meaningfully.” Luke is offering interpretive, theological biography, not CCTV footage. It’s not that Luke is unreliable. It’s that he is reliable within his genre, not ours.

Singing Truth to Power: The Songs of Sidney Carter

Singing Truth to Power: The Songs of Sydney Carter

There are hymns we sing because they are familiar, hymns we sing because they are beautiful, and hymns we sing because they tell the truth. Sydney Carter’s songs often do all three, though not always in ways the church finds comfortable. They have a habit of slipping past our defences. They sound simple, even playful, yet they carry a fierce clarity about what it means to follow Christ in the real world. They remind us that faith is not something we think but something we live, something we embody, something we move with.

This may be why they are sung so little in churches. They are a challenge to a more rigid orthodoxy, and especially the more evangelical wing of the church.

Take “When I Needed a Neighbour”. On the surface it feels like a children’s song, gentle and repetitive. But the question at its heart is anything but gentle. “Were you there?” It is the question Christ asks in Matthew 25, the question that cuts through every creed and every liturgy. Were you there when someone was hungry, or lonely, or frightened. Were you there when compassion was needed?

Carter refuses to let us hide behind doctrine or identity. He reminds us that the Christian life is measured not by what we say but by how we show up for one another. And in a community like ours, where neighbourliness is not an abstract idea but a daily practice, the song becomes a mirror. It asks us to look honestly at the ways we respond to need, and at the ways we sometimes turn away.

The repeated question “Were you there?” is a moral interrogation disguised as a lullaby. There’s no doctrinal scaffolding, no Christological explanation, no ecclesial identity. Just the raw demand of compassion. The line “and the creed and the colour and the name won’t matter” is beautiful, and for some, too boundary‑breaking. It implies that belonging is ethical, not confessional. Some churches fear that this flattens Christian distinctiveness. And yet is essentially just the same message found in Matthew 25 sung as a children’s round, which is brilliant, but also quietly confrontational.

For churches that want discipleship framed in doctrine, creed, or sacrament, Carter’s stark humanism feels too bare.

But we must listen in context. When the song says “the creed won’t matter,” evangelicals hear something like: “belief doesn’t matter”, “doctrine is optional”, “all faiths are interchangeable”. That’s not what Carter meant. He was talking about compassion, not relativism, but the phrasing brushes against evangelical instincts. But for me, this goes to the heart of the gospel.

"To love another person is to see the face of God" is a famous quote from the musical adaptation of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, and Carter’s song points us to that – against the painted, all too often white depictions of Jesus, it asks us to see the face of Jesus in the downtrodden, the disabled, the poor, those at the bottom of the heap. Whenever I am asked what God looks like, the image – scarred, fragmentary, broken – is the neighbour of Carter’s song. If we cannot see that but only the curated centuries old images, we have lost sight of God. That is why the crucifix, with Christ impaled on cross is there to show us, and it is not supposed to be pretty and ornamental.

Then there is “The Bells of Norwich”, Carter’s great hymn of resilience. Julian of Norwich’s words, “All shall be well,” is often treated as a whisper, a private reassurance for the contemplative soul. But Carter sets them ringing through the streets like a procession after a long night. His version is not quiet or cautious. It is defiant. It is the sound of a community stepping out of the rubble with banners raised, choosing hope even when hope seems unreasonable.

For a place like Jersey, with its own memories of hardship and renewal, this song feels strangely close to home. It speaks to the kind of hope that is not naïve but hard‑won, the kind that rises after storms, after losses, after seasons when the world feels fragile. It is the hope that says: we have been through darkness before, and God has not abandoned us. All shall be well, not because life is easy, but because God is faithful.

It is winter as I write, but the yellow daffodils of Carter’s song show that renewal is coming, that hope is important. In a world beset by cruelty and suffering, of wars and countless deaths, of so much that seems lost, of so many that seem lost, that hope is important.

And then we come to “Lord of the Dance”, perhaps Carter’s most famous and most controversial hymn. Some churches shy away from it because it feels too earthy, too joyful, too un‑churchlike. But that is precisely the point. Carter gives us a Christ who moves. A Christ who dances creation into being, who dances through suffering, who dances out of the tomb. A Christ who refuses to be pinned down by solemnity or fear.

Resurrection, in this hymn, is not an idea but an energy. It is something that pulls us forward, something that invites us to join the steps. And perhaps that is what unsettles people most: the sense that faith is not a static possession but a rhythm we must learn, a movement we must enter, a life that will not let us stay where we are.

“I danced for the scribe and the pharisee” is not a historical comment on ancient times. Carter consistently portrays Christ as earthy, joyful, subversive, close to ordinary people and uninterested in religious gate keeping. That portrayal implicitly critiques any church that polices boundaries, fears joy except on its own terms, and prefers order to compassion. So when Carter sings about the scribe and Pharisee refusing the dance, he is warning against certainty that cannot move.

Every religious movement is tempted to become what it critiques, something Joy Davidman saw very clearly in “Smoke on the Mountain”. Carter’s Christ is hard to domesticate. He dances away from our categories. He is like Aslan, “not a tame lion”. That challenges any movement that believes it has captured the “right” way to follow Jesus. Carter’s lyric suggests that Jesus may be dancing with people who don’t fit your discipleship model at all. That’s uncomfortable. Carter’s lyric asks: Can you still follow Christ when he dances off the map?

When we place these three songs side by side, a pattern emerges. Carter is reminding us that the gospel is not a theory. It is a way of being in the world. It calls us to compassion, to resilience, to joy. It asks us to be neighbours who show up, people who choose hope after hardship, disciples who are willing to move with Christ into places we did not expect to go. These are not small things. They are the shape of a life transformed.

And perhaps this is why some churches hesitate with Carter. His songs do not let us hide. They do not let us retreat into safe abstractions or hide behind creeds. They ask us to live the faith we sing. They ask us to recognise Christ in the person in front of us. They ask us to trust that all shall be well even when the evidence is thin. They ask us to dance, which is to say, to risk joy, to risk movement, to risk being changed.

But in a parish like ours, where community matters, where resilience has been learned through experience, where hope is not a luxury but a necessity, Carter’s songs feel like gifts. They speak to who we are and who we are becoming. They remind us that the gospel is not only something we proclaim but something we practise. Something we embody. Something we move with.

So perhaps the invitation today is simple. Be a neighbour. Choose hope. Join the dance. For Christ is already moving ahead of us, calling us into a life that is deeper, braver, and more joyful than we imagined. And if we dare to follow, we may find that all shall indeed be well — not because we are strong, but because God is good.

The Sunday Archive: The Pilot, August 1997 - Part 7

The Sunday Archive: The Pilot, August 1997 - Part 7

Parish Letters

St Clement
JOHN OULESS
Ministre Desservant

My dear Friends,

News at last! By the time you read this, it will have been announced that the Rev David Shaw has accepted the offer of this living, and that he has been appointed to this benefice. He spent eight years in business before ordination, and comes to us from the parish of Wotton-under-Edge with Ozleworth and North Nibley in the Diocese of Gloucester. He hopes to move over here with his wife, who is a solicitor, and their two young children in September and to begin work among us in October - but more of that later, when we have a definite date for his induction.

Several members of our church joined the merry band of early risers from our Island to catch an early chartered flight to Southampton on 21st June for the Deanery Day at Winchester Cathedral, where a long, exhausting but very enjoyable day was experienced, and where they were also joined by Malcolm and Mary Beal, our former Rector and his wife, who had come up from Devon for the occasion, to share the fellowship and the Cathedral worship.

As I shall be away for the first two Sundays of August, the 8 and 9 am services will be taken by the Rev Michael St John Nicolle; on 3rd August the 10 and 11 am services will be taken by the Rev Michael Halliwell and the 6.30 pm service by Mrs Sue Halliwell, while the following week (10th) Canon Lawrence Hibbs will officiate at 11 am and Mr Brian Clarke at 6.30 pm.

Two urgent pleas for your assistance: please contact our Churchwarden Mrs Jean Chapman if you can help with the voluntary work of keeping our Parish Church bright, sweet and clean; and contact Mrs Pat Br& if you can offer to do the altar flowers on various dates.

HOLY BAPTISM. 15th June, Luke Anthony Vetier, Alisha Louise Vetier; 29th June, Liam Andree Gicquel; 6th July, Leah Marie Barrot.

HOLY MATRIMONY. 28th June (at St Lawrence), Martin Peter Emmanuel and Brenda Doreen Rondel.

FUNERALS AND BURIAL OF ASHES. 18th June, Percy John Gosling; 19th June, Eline Gertrude Burman; 23rd June, Jeane Brown Willicombe; 1st July, Leslie Nickels; 3rd July, Edgar Le Vesconte; 10th July, Gwendoline Helena Frampton; 11th July, John Bertram.

All Saints and St Simons

From
GEOFF HOUGHTON Priest-in-Charge

THE month of August traditionally sees many visitors at All Saints, who we look forward to welcoming. In reality, the influx is often matched by the exodus of our own families getting "off the rock" during school holidays, so on the surface it would seem to be a quieter period. But behind the scenes (and in front of church) there will be much activity.

The Late Miss Bessie Pilkington, remembered by many with great affection at All Saints, very generously left a bequest to the church, for which we are very grateful. The amount goes a long way toward meeting the cost of providing a wheelchair and pushchair ramp at the front of the church, which many will recall was part of the redevelopment begun with the 'Link' building. The ramped access will provide a fitting and lasting memorial to Bessie who would surely rejoice at the number of young children currently being wheeled into church! If anyone would like to make a contribution towards this specific project please contact the Vicar in confidence. It is very much hoped that this work will be completed by the end of August.

The Vestry is also long overdue for a fresh coat of paint and general re-organising of a very busy space. Your Church Officers are also keen to take this opportunity to set it up as a proper church office and equip it appropriately with a computer. This will hopefully allow those who are working at home on a variety of machines to work centrally, more efficiently and in the same format. Volunteers with paint brushes would be welcome!

In a growing and increasingly active church, where many of the "new faces" over recent years are very busy people, there is an increasingly evident need for some part-time secretarial and administrative work at the church. Already many people do an enormous amount of much appreciated work for the church in this area, but we need to be sensitive in discerning what is offered with goodwill and what becomes taking advantage of people. On the one hand there would be a cost, but the benefit of taking on such help would lie primarily in the freeing up of your priest to do what he has been trained to do — be priest, rather than administrator. Your Church Officers are currently exploring the costing and practicalities, and would very much welcome your opinions and ideas, please.

Church Photograph. In September 1937, the then Vicar of All Saints and his Church Officers gathered in front of the newly-built church hall for a photograph. Sixty years on, it seems very appropriate to have a fresh photo-graph taken in front of the refurbished church hall, this time to include all the fellowship, young and old. So please make a date in your diary to be with us for a shortened service and fun photograph on the morning on Sunday 7th September.

Gouray Church
From
BILL MATTHEWS
Honorary Curate

PLEASE look out for the visit to Jersey of the Apollo Male Voice Choir in the week beginning 5th October. They are one of the finest choirs in the UK and will be singing in Gouray Church at the 10.15 Morning Service on 5th October. There is also a Concert together with the wonderful Harmony Men at 8 pm that same evening in the Great Hall at Victoria College. Other concerts and events have been organised during the following week.

Keep an eye open for the events of One World Week (19th-25th October). Please join in the spirit and fun of this special week. There is more about the 'Week' in the first part of this edition.

RECENT ENTRIES FROM GOURAY

REGISTERS

HOLY BAPTISM. We welcome into the family of God Lucy Hope Lacey Banks (29th March); Jenessa Star Vickers (24th May); Lucy Maria Jouault (1st June); Thomas Edward Wagstaffe (27th July).

HOLY MATRIMONY. Congratulations to Christopher and Karen Clark (14th June) and Paul de la Haye and Natasha Gilmour (21st June).

FUNERALS. We offer our love and condolences to the family of Thora Phyllis Uniacke and especially to Joe, her husband, to whom she was happily married for 65 years.

The Cailleach at Imbolc

Rather like the legend of St Swithun's Day, there is an old Pagan story about the 1st of February, traditionally called "Imbolc", and here it is presented in a poem.

The Cailleach at Imbolc

I saw her, an old woman in a black shawl:
And there was swift silence, no bird call,
But all was still, a moment within time,
In which I watched her slowly climb,
The hill, shrouded in leafless trees;
After a mighty storm, the branches fell,
And even whole trees, so they do tell;
And she wonders, gathering firewood,
This old women, dark dress and hood;
And I remember the tales long told
Of Imbolc, kept in winter’s iron hold;
Of the Cailleach, and her gathering:
For it is now, at the very dawn of spring,
If she makes weather bright and good,
She will gather plenty of the firewood;
And the winter will last cold and long:
So I was told by druids in bardic song;
But if Imbolc weather is very foul,
She will be asleep, and never prowl:
That means winter is nearly done,
And we can welcome lambs and sun

The Victorian December 1983: Activities Section

The Victorian December 1983: Activities Section

ACTIVITIES SECTION

THIRD YEAR INTRODUCTORY COURSE

DESPITE intense pressure from the Follies, attempts at sabotage by the Skins and the Woodpeckers, and even a late dash by the Mobeymen who carried off the honours on our last field day, Fortun's Multiracial Morons managed to hang on to their position at the top of the table and finally proved to be decisive winners of the cup.

The year began with an interesting lecture by Mr. Derek Hart of the Le Geyt Centre explaining the aims of the Centre and describing the work done by the trainees. Subsequently each group visited the Centre on five separate occasions during the year, accompanied by Mr. du Feu, and took a very active part in their Friday afternoon activities. Our weekly football matches have become a sporting highlight at the Centre and since our visits began almost seven years ago the Centre has started taking touring sides to Guernsey for annual championship matches. The team are eagerly awaiting fresh opposition from our new groups in the coming year.

This year saw the end of Mr. O'Donovan's reign as the master in charge of visits. Over the years he established and maintained a wide and varied programme of trips to local firms and places of interest. Mr. Hamel takes over from him in September and will no doubt seek to maintain our contents and expand their scope still further.

After the success of her course last year, Miss Sheila Squibb, the Health Education Officer, returned to College with an extended series of talks. This time each group followed a two-week course in basic first aid which included a tape-slide presentation on safety in the home. This was later supplemented by a joint session in the Science Lecture Theatre with the States Ambulance Service. After a very informative lecture on resuscitation, all 50 boys were given the opportunity to put into practice what they had learnt with the life-size mannequins which had arrived in the States ambulance.

The following term Sheila presented two well documented films graphically illustrating the dangers of smoking. After some disturbing scenes the boys were treated to a lengthy discussion on the harmful effects of tobacco. This was complimented in the summer term by a visit from the Police Duty Squad whose film and illustrated lecture gave an even more disturbing picture of drug abuse. We are again grateful that the Chief Inspector of the C.I.D. was able to send his man to us for an afternoon.

This year saw the introduction of a new activity. Miss Jan Wheeler, Yoga instructress at Highlands College and the Jersey Arts Centre, gave a number of talks and practical lessons in the art of Yoga. Anyone passing the de Carteret Building on a Friday afternoon would have been delighted to see some of the 'louder' elements in Year 3 grimly endeavouring to untangle their knotted limbs as they silently writhed across the floor.

Mr. Shaw again welcomed us into Eden and each group benefited from a three-week course in computing. Field days were enjoyed by one and all and the overnight camp as always provided staff and boys with an excellent excuse for a weekend in bed. My thanks to all who helped, especially Messrs. du Feu, Simpson and Gilson. Thanks also to Edward Devenport for conducting the groups in their lunatic antics across the fives courts and for running 'observation and memory', a truly audio¬visual delight. And finally to Messrs. Fortun, Fauvel, Skinner, Woolley and Postlethwaite, the group leaders, who grinned and groaned their way through some horribly dangerous activities! It warms the wrinkles of my heart to see a new batch of smiling, eager sixth formers each year ready and willing to take up the challenge.

G.D.B.

Computing

THE computing activity is now run by Mr. Simpson; I have transferred to the Naval section of the C.C.F. I am sure new blood is a good thing!

Boys new to the activity have spent time recently getting to grips with the Video Genie and its graphics capabilities whilst old hands have continued advancing to better things.

It is hoped we will follow up recent Science Fair successes and that we will get some enthusiastic entries to this year's Fair.

The Hubbard report has now been approved and we can look forward in hope to more central support and finance.

P. B.

COMPUTING CLUB

THE club started well this year with many Year 2 lads coming to join in spite of (or because of) their introductory computing course last year.

The BBC machine continues to be a great success and we all look forward to a proper monitor and disk unit for it.

Despite providing three sessions a week after school and lunch-time use, overcrowding remains a problem: we try to ensure all pupils have a fair time on a computer during a club session so numbers do have to be restricted.

Mr. Le Quesne has also started a "Computing for Electronics" club, especially to get programs written for peripheral devices — this is both important and exciting.

P.B.

Cine/Video Group

THE group wishes to record its thanks to Mr. R. A. N. Biggar who has always supported its activities with the loan of equipment and has now made a donation to help with the cost of nine film processing. The group is also indebted to Mr. A. L. Le Masurier for the loan of his portable video recorder on Field Day. This enabled all members of the team to try their hand at 'cameraman', under careful supervision with such valuable apparatus. The results, viewed later, showed some of the C.C.F.'s activities, including 'abseiling' at St. Catherine.

Modelling

SADLY the group has contracted considerably this year and we are almost devoid of experienced modellers. Nevertheless, we are hoping to resurrect the model railway board from its state of confusion arising from numerous changes of plan; two radio-controlled boats are nearing completion and we are indebted to Mr. Rothwell for the first completed model this year — a beautifully finished sailing yacht. Control-line flying is still in the picture with a scale model Fokke-Wulf 190 under construction.

Sadly the technology revolution has brought sophisticated radio-controlled 'toys' within the scope of most young people and the satisfaction of a long-term modelling project is becoming less attractive.

AB.L.

Electronics

THE summer term is traditionally a quiter one, with the outdoors providing a greater attraction. The majority of projects in progress were completed and a number of devices for attachment to the BBC microcomputer were constructed and tested. We shall be sorry to lose Andrew Binnington, Ian Wilson and David Speight, all members of the activity since it started, but look forward to the new generation of enthusiasts in the autumn.

E.G.LeQ.

Sailing

AS the sailing season comes to a close we now have time to reflect on a reasonably successful year.

The navigation activity have undertaken a number of cruises throughout the summer term. The longest was a week's cruise around the Brittany coast on board the Nantucket Trader. On the theoretical side a 100 per cent pass was achieved by those who took the R.Y.A. Dayboat Skipper theory examination.

Now that dinghy sailing has moved to St. Helier we are able to go out in most weather. Unfortunately the problem of damaged boats has also come to a head, so a new system of two people being responsible for a boat for the year has been introduced.

Once again we achieved a fine victory over Elizabeth College to win the Brennan Transom for the eighth year running. The race was held in Wayfarers in St. Aubin's Bay in light winds, with Elizabeth College determined to win. This led to some very close racing which showed that next year we will have to be on our guard.

G.M.J.H.

Bookshop

SUPPORT for the bookshop continues to grow, perhaps in response to the widening range of stock. The junior school, as always, is most enthusiastic, but there is a pleasing increase in the number of browses from the upper school. Best sellers at the moment are undoubtedly the 'Fighting Fantasy' books, latest editions of which sell out within a day of appearing on the shelves. Over 100 boys have accounts, and anyone else who would like one should see Mr. Thorp. The bookshop is open Monday, Tuesday and Thursday lunchtimes near the sixth year changing rooms.

Chess

JONATHAN DAVIS prefers playing himself, Martin Grimshaw distracts attention with his chess computer and young Buesnel never wins. Ten chess players, of varying abilities, snarl at each other over chequered boards every Friday afternoon and some lunchtimes. Despite the wide range of standards some good games are had by all.

Physical Education and Recreation

A WIDE range of activities were covered by the group of about 25, culminating in a new experience for many in the performance of an interpretation of "I Don't Like Mondays" by the Boomtown Rats in the form of educational movement.

This course is run for fourth year boys and above and includes many different aspects of physical education including fitness and health, competitions and serious lectures, all of which combine to make a very entertaining Friday afternoon activity.

Good performances throughout the year were maintained by D. Omissi and M. Gallichan (Year 7), G. Manger and K. Henley (Year 5). However, it is unfortunate that many of the older better boys are taken out of the activity before the end of the course in order to help with other activities.

Photography

THIS will be my last report for 'Photography' in The Victorian, but no doubt Chesham Grammar School's equivalent will soon be ringing with pleas for colour printing facilities! The last six years have put the College well and truly in a forefront position in this activity. Standards have fluctuated with pupils' abilities, but always excellence has had its place.

Recently we have seen the charming unflux of a dozen ladies from our sister college to our activity group. We have, therefore, had to expand our facilities. With five black-and-white enlargers, and our colour processing, we are stretching our darkrooms to the limits. It would be of tremendous help if another darkroom could be established. This would be my hope for the future. A couple of interested staff will be taking over from me —and believe me it certainly is a two man job! I wish them, the club, and activity group every success and look forward to reading of your winning entries in the national Press.

A.J.V.