You Can Be Serious!: Meeting Jesus afresh in John's Gospel

By David Wilbourne

‘Both vintage and fresh David Wilbourne . . . [His] gift is to enable us to see again the face of Jesus delightfully present with us through our Lent journey.’

GRAHAM USHER, BISHOP OF NORWICH

Whatever our church denomination, we all use the same Sunday Gospel from the Revised Common Lectionary. Year A focuses on Matthew, but during the first five Sundays of Lent, four of the Gospels are curiously from John. By basing each of the five sessions in this course on the previous Sunday’s Gospel, David Wilbourne provides a brilliant connection to the preaching and teaching that has just taken place.

Serious yet full of life and humour, the course covers:

Session 1: Temptation . . .

On checking every word that comes out of the mouth of God

Session 2: Strangers in the night . . .

Nicodemus came to Jesus under cover of darkness: finding God in surprising places

Session 3: The winner takes it all

‘You worship what you do not know’: upping our game with worship

Session 4: I was blind but now I see

‘A god who can be understood is no god’

Session 5: Them bones, them bones, them dry bones, hear the word of the Lord!

Contrasting events in John with parables in the Synoptics

The course booklet is accompanied by a lively CD, in which David Wilbourne and guests from various denominational backgrounds, put forward their thoughts on the themes of the course.

This York Course is available in the following formats

Course Book (Paperback 9781915843012)

Course Book (eBook 9781915843029 both ePub and Mobi files provided)

Audio Book of Interview to support You Can Be Serious! York Course (CD 9781915843050)

Audio Book of Interview (Digital Download) 9781915843043

Transcript of interview to support You Can Be Serious! York Course (Paperback 9781915843005)

Transcript of interview (eBook 9781915843036 both ePub and Mobi files provided)

Book Pack (9781915843067 Featuring Paperback Course Book, Audio Book on CD and Paperback Transcript of Interview)

Large Print (Paperback 9781915843722)

• Language: English
• Publisher: York Courses
• Release date: Jan 19, 2023
• ISBN: 9781915843036

David Wilbourne

The Rt Revd David Wilbourne was the Assistant Bishop of Llandaff from 2009 until 2017, and previously worked as chaplain to two Archbishops of York, John Habgood and David Hope. He is a frequent after dinner speaker, radio and TV broadcaster, guest preacher and retreat and conference leader. Renowned for his ability to strike a balance between the humorous and the poignant, the latest of his many books - Shepherd of Another Flock: The Charming Tale of a New Vicar in a Yorkshire Country Town – was hailed by the TLS as 'glorious'.

Book preview

YOU CAN BE SERIOUS!

Transcript of Audio

[1]

INTRODUCTION

[2]

SESSION 1

TEMPTATION . . .

Hello. I’m Jerry Ibbotson, and I’ve enjoyed helping produce York Courses for 16 years, interviewing a fascinating range of people on an equally fascinating range of topics. So, I’m delighted to now be your guide through this latest course on St John’s Gospel, You Can Be Serious! For each of the five sessions, I’ll bowl tricky questions at Bishop David Wilbourne, who’s written the course, and also Olivia Amartey, Executive Director of the Elim Pentecostal Church, and Brendan Walsh, a journalist and publisher, who’s the editor of The Tablet, a weekly Catholic newspaper. So, without further ado, let’s begin the first session, TEMPTATION . . .

JERRY: Every mainstream church, whatever their denomination, shares the same gospel reading of their Sunday worship. David uses the readings for the first five Sundays in Lent, with four drawn from John’s Gospel as a springboard for our five sessions. He reflects on how the Bible in general, and John’s Gospel in particular, impact on us, concluding that John is both a reliable historical source and an arresting spiritual guide.

This week, we look at Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness, wondering whether every word of Scripture really does proceed from the mouth of God.

I was shocked to read in David’s booklet that we have no originals of the Gospels. Instead, we have over 5,700 copies, the earliest of which dates from three or four centuries after Christ lived and walked and talked on the earth. How can we talk about gospel truth when there are 5,700 versions of it? David first, then Brendan, then Olivia.

DAVID: I think, probably like in COVID, we’ve got to trust the science, the science of textual criticism.

It’s a very exact science, and textual critics are a bit like literary archaeologists. They look at all the evidence and then sift through all that and try to get their best shot at the original.

I don’t know if you used to listen to Terry Wogan on an early morning programme on Radio 2, but he always used to show his listeners something, and I’d like to show our listeners a Greek New Testament! Here we are, Jerry, a Greek New Testament. I open it at John chapter 8, and lo and behold, there’s the Greek bit at the top. But there’s a whole two-thirds of the page, which is just other variations, other readings. And the textual critics have shown us their evidence, they’ve said, ‘Look, this is our best shot at the original, but here’s the evidence – you check yourselves.’

And so, you can rely on it, and the fact it was 300 years afterwards, 400 years afterwards, well, that was the way with stuff in the olden days when they were copying. For instance, Caesar’s Gallic Wars, which he wrote at the time of invading Britain in 55 bc . . . the oldest copy we’ve got is from 900 ad, a thousand years later. So, that’s how it went. The Gospels were not texted directly from heaven.

BRENDAN: Well, I’ve got to confess that I’m a Roman Catholic of a certain age, brought up in the ’50s and ’60s. I think back to my very standard Catholic childhood and home, where we said our prayers and we went to church on Sunday.

There was a Bible in the house, but we very rarely consulted it. So, my kind of native Christianity was the parish, of the community, the family, of not quite doing what one senior Thompson told us to.

But