• Tales of the City #9

    The scene is Great Western Road, at 10 am – just after morning prayer. A street cleaner in a council jacket runs down the street hollaring at me after morning prayer

    Street Cleaner: “Oi, oi!”

    I turn wondering what I’ve done.

    Self: “Um, yes?”

    Street Clearner: “Was it youse that was in the paper? It was, it was youse”

    I wait expecting a stream of Glasgow invective.

    His eyes light up, he beams a toothless smile and responds: “Hey man, hey, that was just great.”

    He’s referring to this piece in the Herald.

20 responses to “Which bits of the Bible do you miss out?”

  1. Bro David Avatar
    Bro David

    I think that I’m with you Father K, there is a time and place for everything and a service where the problems of a problematic passage can’t be addressed easily is not the place to read it, lectionary be hanged.

  2. Vogelbeere Avatar

    My favourite bits of the Bible are the Song of Songs (which, in the medieval period, was interpreted by both Jews and Christians as an allegory of the soul’s relationship with God); the book of Ruth; the book of Esther; the story of David and Jonathan; Amos & Micah. Most of the New Testament leaves me completely cold, and some of it is actually offensive, especially the account of the silver-smiths of Ephesus, and the way that Paul appropriates pagan poetry in the marketplace of Athens.

    I think the solution to your problem is not to read the “difficult” bits without some sort of homily about a better way to understand them, and how to read the Bible in general as a collection of texts situated in a particular historical situation.

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