Tuesday, October 13, 2020

Thought for the Day

As delivered to the BBC Radio Bristol Breakfast Show just now:

If you found your hotel was on fire and you hastily read the exit instructions on the door you would not like to find this:

'Here beginneth section one of the instructions appertaining to the exiting of this accommodation in the event of a situation of combustion, fire, tempest, storm, wrath, damnation and other such incidences. Thou shalt proceed with all due haste to the end of this corridor, and be ye sure that ye tarry for no man neither greeteth any man on the way, lest thou be consumed and all thy maidservants also.'

No. In case of fire I want to know how to get out. Clearly and quickly. And not in the language of the King James' Bible.

Someone once went up to Jesus and asked him what the greatest commandment was. He said thou shouldst vouchsafe to prioritise God with thy aortic rhythms, ego and id, cerebrally and muscularly. Only kidding. He said that the guy should love the Lord his God with all his heart, soul, mind and strength and love his neighbour as himself.

Which, because Jesus was good at that sort of thing, successfully summarises the first four commandments at a stroke and the last six even quicker.

Is the Bible's big message clear.

How about:

God created
We rebelled
God loved
Jesus died
We live

Ten words. One Gospel. We can talk about the small print later. Track and trace me if you'd like a chat.

So. For what is this a metaphor? Well. If you want to say something important. Say it clearly. Please. And now back to the voice of clarity herself.

1 comment:

Ray Barnes said...

Personally I love the language of the King James version, but would choose when to use the abridged version.
While I'm sure it would be possible to precis the entire 999 pages into 20
it would make for pretty dull reading.