Читать книгу Living in Love and Faith - Bishops of the Church of England - Страница 21

We have seen that God’s gift of life is given and received in and through relationships, ways of togetherness with God, with each other, and with the whole created order. We have seen how Jesus models what it means to be a friend, and we have explored the Christian understanding of marriage as the Church of England has received it.

We are now ready to think about the many questions that we have as individuals and as a church about human identity, sexuality, relationships and marriage.

How do we go about living this gift of life together in the everyday realities of today? To whom or to what do we go for wisdom, insight and guidance when faced with new contexts and new realities? How do we respond to the questions, challenges and alternative interpretations which the received understanding of marriage now faces? And how do we, as the Church of England, go about learning together about these things in love and faith? In this chapter we describe the thinking behind the learning journey that this book invites readers to make.

In Chapter 1, with the help of John’s Gospel, we met Jesus, the teacher, who teaches us how he will give his own life in order that we might have this abundant, eternal life. But ‘when many of the disciples heard it, they said, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?”’ (John 6.60) and many stopped following him. When Jesus asks the twelve whether they, too, wish to leave him, they reply: ‘Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life’ (John 6.68). As far as the disciples were concerned, there was only one teacher to whom they could or would entrust themselves.