Dear Roy,
“The Lord is my [our] shepherd . . .” (see Psalm 23)
The portions of the Textbook detailing the career and after-effects of the life of Jesus — the “good news”/gospels and “the letters”/epistles — were written by witnesses, or reported to their listeners, at least 30+ years after the crucifixion, but we have none of those original documents, which were later tampered with by well-meaning scribes/”copyists”, as is clearly evidenced in the many hand-copied scrolls and codices of those early times, by comparing them, which reveals variations between them. (Could anybody write accurately of what they heard that long before? — but the point is moot, as we don”t have the originals.) So, if we want to listen for our Tutor’s voice, it’s an asset to have flexibility for reading between the lines of the Text in it’s many translations; and to think with intense curiosity about the words and meanings.
The word logos in Greek means reasoned, principled; we see it in our English word logical — something very different than emotional : moving (Fr. a public disturbance). In John’s gospel, Logos is capitalized as Word in chapter one to represent the Messiah, the Christ, “the Annointed”. Rationality (logos) is a two-edged sword, affirming and denying. It defends truth and cuts down lies. Ancient Greeks wrestled to fathom truth, eventually describing it as “that which is not a lie”. Such a slashing definition! Faith requires logic and appetite — hunger and thirst for right thinking and principled living — to maintain justice and balance in our communities.