Knowing Jesus

KNOWING JESUS is a new book by T. Ralph Morton, co-author with Mark Gibbs of the widely-acclaimed works God’s Frozen People and God’s Lively People. He now poses the question ‘Can we really know Jesus today ?’ More people than ever before seem to use his name and claim to know him. But do we know him, and how ? Knowing the facts about him enters in to the question, but we need to know more than that. Indeed, the mystery of how we know someone is at the very foundation of human life. So when we discuss how we know Jesus we have to begin by considering how a child knows his mother, how a man knows his wife, how friends come to know each other. This is the only way in which we can know someone else. Does it apply to our knowledge of Jesus ? The argument of this book is that it does. Dr Morton discusses the stages by which we come to know Jesus : through learning about him, through the recognition that he is of the same stuff as we are and yet distinct, through play, art and action. The book deals with the difference and at the same time the similarity between knowing about someone and knowing him, by showing how you cannot have the one without the other. Dr Morton relates his subject to the ordinary experiences of men and women. He ends with a chapter on ‘The Mystery of Knowing’ which draws out the implications of our knowing Jesus for our knowledge of God. T. RALPH MORTON served as a missionary in China (1925-37). From 1937 to 1943 he was Minister of St Columba’s Church, Cambridge and after that was very closely involved with the lona Community, first as Warden of Community House, Glasgow (1943-54) and then as Deputy Leader of the Community.