He referred me to "I and Thou" (I have read bits of it but must get hold of a copy to read properly).

Great! You can find it on archive.org in translation by Ronald Gregor Smith that is not so readable (I am told) as the newer one made by Walter Arnold Kaufmann.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer makes a great use of "I - Thou" category within a Christian framework in "The Communion of Saints" - again available on archive.org.

It looks like my local library has a copy of the Kaufmann translation. I'll see if I can pick that up. I like a paper book to read on the bus. Bit worried I'd get mugged for an e-reader but no one's going to bother for an old library book!

I chatted to brother Karam Ram after a Bible class once on this kind of subject. I was feeling frustrated at the time about the lack of real preaching inside as well as outside. He referred me to "I and Thou" (I have read bits of it but must get hold of a copy to read properly).
His conclusion was that the only thing I could do was to truly live my own discipleship and show a kind of God manifestation. That and the golden rule is what it boils down to I think.
Easier said than done.

Hi Janey

I don't speak or read greek or hebrew.

I need language experts to translate the Bible as closely as they can to the original meaning as possible. I have to trust those language experts to tell me what each word means and even sometimes what each phrase means if it's an idiom in the language that would not translate very well literally.

How I chose to interpret and apply the translation is entirely up to me and nothing to do with the language experts.

But in order to make the best interpretation I need to make sure I have consulted the best translators and language experts so I can be sure I am interpreting the right words in the first place.
There is no logical reason to use out-of-date expertise. If I'm ill I expect my doctor to treat me on the best evidence available. I don't just want leeches on my arm because it was good enough for the generation before.
The word of God is unchanging but human knowledge of how to translate ancient languages grows and changes in the light of new evidence.

And we're not terribly worried about hell because we're all going there anyway and God will raise us out of it when Christ returns.

This is why, in matters of linguistic interpretation, I defer to those with expert knowledge.

Exactly. When you spend even a short time learning a foreign language (Hebrew, Greek, in my case also English or Spanish) you will soon realize what it takes to truly master it, and from there it is just a short step to appreciate what the experts in the area have to say.

I work with, and have worked with a lot of people who first language isn't English. Despite many of them speaking very good English and having done so for years I find I often have to explain some of the vocabulary, idioms and colloquialisms I use day to day.

Nice to know the agape/phileo thing in John is stylistic. I always had trouble believing they were significantly different.

Getting my head out of "every word is highly significant and must be examined in great detail to strain out every last drop of possible meaning" has helped me read what the Bible is really saying.

I belong to an ecclesia with a high proportion of brothers and sisters who are getting deaf and require hearing aids. I often wonder how the elderly heard Jesus preach in those big open air crowds when we can't even have a discussion round a table without someone getting fed up because they can't hear a thing.

And we've all heard them all!