In the beginning, the Word

THINK about the answer to this question: A car was speeding in a residential area and smashed into a tree. How fast was the car going?

Here’s another question: A car was speeding in a residential area and it bumped into a tree. How fast was the car going?

When I was a trainer I used this exercise by dividing participants into two small groups and giving each one of the two questions.

The answers usually were biased towards the car smashing into the tree as going faster than the car that bumped into the tree.

Some people said that you couldn’t tell how fast either car was going, which is true. People trained in questioning witnesses will be familiar with this principle. You can influence the answer by the words you use in the question.

Home Secretary Suella Braverman was accused of being “inflammatory” when she described the arrival of asylum seekers on the UK’S southern coast as an “invasion”. According to the House of Commons Library in 2018, 37,453 people applied for asylum. This number has been roughly constant over the past five years and is substantially lower than in 2002, when the number of applications peaked at 103,000.

Do recent events constitute an invasion? The reaction to the description was strong on both sides; some were outraged and others were not.

Words are powerful. Insults, compliments, contracts, speeches. We use them to attack, defend, compliment and express joy. Those final words we speak to someone just before they die are important and memorable.

The Christian believer understands the Bible to be the Word of God, that is the truth; not just passive but an active truth that continues to be potent.

St John’s Gospel starts with the famous words, “In the beginning was the Word”, and Jesus refers to the Word as “being a lantern to your feet”, lighting the path before us.

The Bible conveys the Word of God as being a constant active power. It is full of drama, betrayal, redemption, war, sex and many more themes. We see the constant drama of humanity played out, and when we reflect on it we can also see the same human drama played out over and over in subsequent centuries.

For the believer, the Word of God is not only a source of comfort but teaches us how to avoid many of the catastrophes we inflict on ourselves and others.

It contains what politicians often call “lessons learned” – except from what we see in the world we haven’t learned those lessons yet.

■■Denis Tully is CEO of Emmanuel House Support Centre, Nottingham.