Start with a Ladybird

If you can, start with a Ladybird.

Currently I’ve been ploughing through Tom Holland’s excellent book, Rubicon: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic. Excellent, except that I didn’t quite follow the plot, for the simple reason that my prior knowledge of the Roman Republic — even that it existed as a republic — was zilch.

At no time in my education had I ever learned about this period of world history, essentially the century or so before Jesus was born. In fact, all I knew about Rome was a little during his lifetime, up to the sack of Jerusalem by the Romans in AD 70.

Sad, I know — but that’s life. We all have huge gaps in our knowledge.

The problem in reading Rubicon was that Holland, without really realising it, was assuming a very basic knowledge of the period — above all, that Rome was heading towards becoming an Empire, ruled by a Caesar, an emperor. News to me.

As it happened, by sheer coincidence Holland’s podcast, The Rest is History, covered this very same period last week. So I stopped reading and started listening. Here Holland, together with his co-podcaster Dominic Sandbrook, assumed no prior knowledge — and that made all the difference.

So yesterday I decided to fill a gap in my knowledge of Roman history by buying Ancient Rome for Kids: Explore the Empire, Meet the Caesars, and Step Inside the Roman World. It’s aimed at 8–12 year olds.

Very simply, at this stage I just need the basic facts and a simple overview — and well-written books for children, like the old Ladybird series, provide exactly that service.

In fact, in ministry I often remind myself of a quote which appeared in the TV Times in the late 1960s, from Sidney Bernstein: “Broadcasters usually overestimate their audience’s knowledge and underestimate their intelligence.”

I may have mentioned before that, when staying with friends from my university years, who were not Christians, their teenage son was intrigued by my being a vicar. He knew that the Bible was in two parts and so asked me in which part the life of Jesus appeared — the Old or the New Testament?

“When you know something,” writes the Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker, “it’s very hard to imagine what it’s like not to know it.” In fact, he calls this the curse of knowledge.

It’s important, especially when we are seeking to communicate the Gospel, that we never confuse a lack of knowledge with a lack of intelligence. Sometimes we all need somebody to start at the beginning.  Or tell a story.

That is why the parables of Jesus are so brilliant. They can be understood at different levels and from different standpoints. He takes events and observations from everyday life, common to us all, and challenges us to see God and his ways in a new light.

These short stories and observations make the Gospel memorable and concrete. Instead of giving abstract lectures about the kingdom of God, Jesus spoke about seed, bread, sheep, money, weddings, fathers and sons. People could carry the story away with them and keep thinking about it.

His starting point was with what people already know — a farmer sowing, a woman baking, a shepherd searching — and used it to lead them towards something they do not yet understand. That is almost the opposite of beginning with specialist knowledge and assuming everyone can follow.

But strangely, his parables can have the opposite effect on those who are not prepared to enter into the story, or who resist where the narrative is taking them. And so we read in The Message, as Jesus explains to his disciples:

“You’ve been given insight into God’s kingdom—you know how it works.

“But to those who can’t see it yet, everything comes in stories, creating readiness, nudging them toward a welcome awakening. These are people—

Whose eyes are open but don’t see a thing,

Whose ears are open but don’t understand a word,

Who avoid making an about-face and getting forgiven.”  (Mark 4:10f)

For parables were not merely illustrations, giving us life-changing information. They also demanded a response.

A parable often leaves the hearer asking, “Where am I in this story?” The Good Samaritan does not simply define “neighbour”; it forces the listener to reconsider whom they are willing to love.

Or whether we are prepared to forgive our prodigal brother?

Or whether we allow the seed of God’s word to germinate in our hard hearts and produce a fruitful harvest?

Here is the challenge for all Christian communication: never to assume too much, never to talk. Start where people are, use what they already know, and invite them to take the next step.

Jesus did.

Sometimes the best theology begins with a story — or even a Ladybird book.