Jesus: God's final word – Hebrews E1

Who wrote the Letter to the Hebrews? What did they want their readers to understand about Jesus?

Welcome to series five of The Rooted Podcast in which we'll be looking at the Letter to the Hebrews. In this episode, we give a quick overview by considering what we can know about the author, audience and context of the letter, before diving into chapter one. We discuss the supremacy of Christ as God’s Son, appointed as heir of all things; the cosmic nature of his role in creation; what it means for Jesus to be the exact representation of God; and his superiority over angelic beings.

Timestamps

• (00:00) - Intro
• (01:10) - An overview of Hebrews
• (01:50) - Who was Hebrews written to?
• (02:55) - Who wrote Hebrews?
• (05:19) - Hebrews 1: the superiority of Jesus
• (08:10) - Hebrews 1.1–4: God has now spoken through his Son
• (14:11) - How was Jesus involved in creation?
• (18:26) - What does it mean that Jesus is the radiance of God's glory?
• (25:11) - Jesus is better than the angels
• (27:26) - Are we preoccupied with angelic beings today?
• (29:46) - Focusing on lesser things draws us away from Jesus
• (31:06) - What God says about Jesus vs what he says about angels
• (33:01) - Personal reflections

Rooted:
Rooted is our devotional journal that helps make the Bible available to everyone, everywhere. Every other month, you’ll receive a new 80-page journal filled with insightful devotionals, thought-provoking prompts, and lots of opportunities to reflect, journal and be creative. Sign up today to receive your first journal for free.

Bible a Month
Could you put the Bible in someone’s hands every month with a regular donation of £10 or more? Find out more about how you can share God's word today.

Send us your questions!
We'd love to hear from you.
Submit your question

Bible Society:

The Rooted Podcast is brought to you by Bible Society, a Christian organisation that translates, publishes, and distributes the Bible. We communicate its relevance and invite people to experience the transforming power of the Scriptures in today’s world. Visit our website to find out more.

Bible Society socials: 

Facebook
Instagram
X (formerly Twitter) 

Disclaimer: 

This is a Bible Society podcast, but it’s also a conversation between people exploring the Bible together. We won’t get everything right, and we won’t always agree! Please be patient with us and join us on the journey.

#Hebrews #AuthorOfHebrews #Jesus #JesusIsSuperior #Hebrews1 #ChristianLiving #ChristianPodcast

Creators & Guests

Host

Esther King

Esther is part of Bible Society's Communications team.

Host

Mark Woods

Mark is a Baptist minister and sometime journalist, who now heads up Bible Society's comms team.

Host

Noël Amos

Noël is the editor of Rooted, Bible Society's devotional journal.

What is The Rooted Podcast?

Listen to The Rooted Podcast for in-depth conversations about the Bible and how we can apply it to our lives. Join the team behind Rooted, Bible Society's devotional journal, as we dig deeper into a theme or book of the Bible in each series and explore its message for us today.

Bible Society (00:03.916)
You're listening to The Rooted Podcast from Bible Society. In each series, we take a closer look at a theme or book of the Bible and explore its relevance in our lives today. This is our series on Hebrews. Hey everyone. Welcome back to The Rooted Podcast. I'm Noelle and I'm here again with Mark and Esther. We're really excited for the fifth season of the podcast. In this series, we're going to be talking all about Hebrews. Hebrews is the most recent Rooted journal. It was just released last week.

and to subscribers to Rooted are reading that now. If you want to subscribe to Rooted, you can do that at biblesociety.org.uk forward slash Rooted and you'll get your first journal for free. We're going to right into it really. We're going to focus this episode on Hebrews 1. There's so much in this chapter that we want to talk about. A lot about Christ being higher than the angels and a lot about Christ and sort of his role in creation and

being the exact representation of God, the Father. So there's a lot in that that we want to talk about. But before we get started, we thought we would do a quick sort of bird's eye view over Hebrews and talk about sort of the author, the audience, what kind of a letter is this. It sort of stands out from other New Testament letters in a lot of ways. And Mark is going to tell us a bit about that. Yeah, it's such a fascinating book. And in some ways, it's not a very easy book either.

As far as we can tell, it was written to Jewish Christians, Jewish followers of Jesus. It was certainly written before the destruction of the temple in AD 70, because it talks about the sacrificial system as something which is continuing and all that stopped after AD 70. So we know it was written at some point before then.

The actual context of it, well, you know, we don't know much about it actually. You know, we don't know where these people were, for instance, to whom the author was writing. It looks as though his sort of target audience is Jewish Christians who were sort of relapsing back into Judaism and moving away from Christianity. That's just an indication of how intertwined these two things were at the time, you know. They were quite

Bible Society (02:23.342)
chorus, I think, the divisions in some ways. And that just reflects something of what was going on in those days. As far as the author is concerned, in older versions of the Bible, it used to say the epistle of Paul to the Hebrews. And nobody actually thinks it was by Paul nowadays or very, very few people. The language is different. The ideas are quite different. It's not Pauline. Who was it?

Some people say it might have been Apollos, some people say it might have been Barnabas, for instance. There's an early Church father Tertullian who refers to a letter to the Hebrews under the name of Barnabas, which might imply that, you know, and that might be our letter to the Hebrews, but it sounds as though he wasn't sure it really was by Barnabas. Martin Luther thought that it was Apollos. He was somebody who knew

the apostle Paul and he was a Jew, he was very learned and this is a very clever bit of writing. Yeah, nobody knows basically. One thing that we do know, this is one of those anonymous books, but we know it was written by a man. Okay? And how do we know this? Well, because of a clever bit of Greek. In Hebrews 11.32, it says something like...

time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and all that sort of thing. So literally in Greek, the construction is time would fail me for telling of Gideon, Barak and Samson. And in Greek, you can tell the gender of the person by the form of that word for telling. Okay, you can't do that in English. It doesn't work like that in English, but in Greek you can.

And it's a masculine form. So the writer of Hebrews is male. So there we go, Hebrews, most interesting book. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, I think there are a things that stand out in it too, in that there's no greeting at the beginning. It seems to just start out as a sort of speech or almost like a sermon even. And at the end, it's a bit more letter-like. But really, it's just missing a lot of things that come in most of the New Testament letters.

Bible Society (04:47.554)
So yeah, it's different, definitely interesting. And I had never heard about the masculine thing you just said, Mark, so that's great. And so what about the first chapter? We're sort of going into focusing just on this. And in a way, it's sort of the beginning of the writer's argument. He sort of starts out with saying that Christ is higher than the angels, but he's definitely trying to tell people something about Christ in this first chapter. But is there...

maybe some sort of overview over the chapter itself that we should know about before we start. Yeah, I can talk a little bit about that if you want. I mean, this is basically all about Jesus. I mean, the whole book is about Jesus, but the first chapter is basically underlining how superior he is to every created being. So it starts off with this contrast to

between how God spoke through the Old Testament prophets and now he spoke to us in Jesus. He tells us that God made the universe through him and I think that has some really interesting implications. He tells us that Jesus is exactly like God and there's an interesting Greek word there which we might come onto as well.

He tells us that Jesus is better than the angels to the extent that they're not really in the same league. So, I think overall, this is a kind of counterbalance to the humanity of Jesus, which is so important to us. This is kind of the cosmic Christ, you know. It's not really like John's gospel, but it does make us think back to the beginning of John's gospel. He says, the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God and the Word was God. That's the idea which

the writer of Hebrews is drilling into here. I think there's that, you know, just his superiority to, in all those ways that you've already mentioned, but there's also, it's just sort of dropped in and it's easy to kind of miss as you read, in verse three it says, after making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. And I think that's a very key element.

Bible Society (07:06.434)
Jesus' work of salvation that he's done. So it's not only that he's superior in these ways, but he is key to our salvation. There's nowhere else we can turn for salvation. Yeah, I think that's good because it's also kind of the mindset of, yes, he made that sacrifice, he was the sacrifice, but he's also now exalted. So they're not just thinking about Christ in terms of his...

sort of earthly life and His sacrifice and His resurrection, but that now He's on the same level as God, the exact representation. Yeah, and now exalted above the angels. So we just take a few minutes just on these first four verses because there's so much in them, even just starting with verses one and two. So God spoke through the prophets, but now He spoke into us through His Son. Just that contrast. There's so much in it. Esther, what do you think? First and second verses, any thoughts?

Well, I just think looking at this whole first section, it's, mean, I'm not actually one for, to, who kind of does a lot of meditation, but these kind of verses, they're so rich that you kind of do need to chunk them up and meditate on each one to really grasp like how amazing Jesus is, how, you know, how incredible, well,

Maybe I shouldn't use word incredible because that means unbelievable, you know, how just how special, unique, amazing Jesus is. When you just, when you think about the fact that the God, God who created everything, revealed himself to his creation and he did that, as it says, many times and in many ways, we're thinking Old Testament and he spoke through all of these prophets. People.

revered the prophets, didn't they? Because they were special and they had the Spirit of God, they were speaking the words of God to the people, they were special messengers. And Jesus, it's saying, is even greater. He's spoken to us now, like this complete, final, of perfect revelation. So the things that you saw in bits and pieces through the prophets, the bits of information they had, the parts of the puzzle that they were, now you've got

Bible Society (09:24.834)
The key piece in Jesus and what He says to us, He's the final word, the final revelation that we're going to get. He's the most important one to listen to, to follow, all of that. I think, I guess I just kind of paraphrased exactly what it says there. I've not added anything, but it's just really trying to think that through and grasp it because we can become really complacent, can't we, about Jesus? Yeah.

I think that's absolutely right. And I think it's worth mentioning as well how this would have sounded to the readership at the time if they were Jews, know, Jewish Christians, because for Jews then and now, the Word of God, you know, the Bible, the Old Testament as we call it,

is absolutely unique and that is God's highest revelation. That is where God speaks. That's how God comes into the world is through the Bible. Here you have this writing of the letters to the Hebrews saying, but Jesus is even better than that. That is really, really challenging. That's really, really challenging for his audience.

And that's the big point of departure between Jews and Christians today. We have so much in common, but we go back to Hebrews and yes, it is Jesus who is the supreme revelation of God. It is not the Bible as such. It's Jesus who is above everything. Obviously, we know Jesus through the Bible, but there is a difference there and we mustn't lose sight of this idea of Jesus being supreme above everything.

Well, do think there's also something about lineage here? Because there's that mention of, you know, God spoke to our fathers. And obviously in the Jewish tradition, you trace yourself back, don't need to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, all of that. And you're part of this big covenant family of God. But here we also, we kind of have this introduction of the idea of a different lineage. God, his son, who is kind of,

Bible Society (11:47.758)
you know, preeminent, he's appointed the heir of all things. But he's also, he was through whom, also he created the world. So he was there right at the beginning. He's also the primary heir. So is it starting this kind of new family and new lineage? Is this Hebrews way of kind of addressing the new covenant? that's really interesting. So not just the heir of Israel, but the heir of

Gentiles as well of the whole world. That's interesting. reminds me of in Colossians, I think it's Colossians 1 where it says that he's the firstborn of all creation, meaning that he would have been the inheritor of the air. I was also thinking about in verses 1 and 2 how the prophets brought messages to the fathers, but that Jesus, while he did bring a message

while he was on the earth, he's also superior because he is the message, right? Like what you were just saying, Mark, he's not actually bringing one, but he is just it. That's what God wanted to say was Jesus. What do think? Well, and you get this idea, don't you? As we go through this book, we'll see it again and again. So here we've got a connection with prophets, but we've also got Jesus, the priest, Jesus, the king.

So it's prophet, priest and king. He's like the fulfillment and the embodiment of all of these different roles.

Yeah, that's good. So then we have this line, through whom also he made the world, which is really interesting way of saying it. It doesn't say he was there or he made the world, but that it was through him that the world was made. Interesting way of saying it.

Bible Society (13:41.794)
Yeah, it's very interesting, isn't it? And I did spend some time thinking about this. And it seems to me that he was saying, and obviously there are these questions about the nature of the Trinity and how it all works and all that kind of thing. Nobody will ever fully untangle, frankly. But I think we can say that Jesus was the agent of creation. know, God made the world through him.

And that just made me wonder kind of what that meant really and what the kind of practical implications of it were. And I think for me, one of the interesting things is that it sort of gives creation a human face because we think of Jesus not just as the second person of the Trinity, but as a human being. And so the idea that the world was made through him

kind of humanizes creation for me and it kind of underlines that we have a place in it and that it is for us. And I think there's a kind of attitude of mind nowadays which sees human beings as the problem in the world. You know, we are responsible and I don't deny this at all.

We are responsible for so much that's wrong with the world, know, the pollution, the waste of natural resources. I always remember years ago, I had a holiday, I went to Borneo and I remember flying in this small plane over miles and miles and miles of palm oil plantations and they had cut down just miles and miles and miles of

ancient forest and there were wild pigs, there were monkeys, there were amazing birds, there were orangutans and they'd been trapped, shot, killed, driven out. And it was also that we could have peanut butter, shampoo, whatever, the sort of things that palm oil gets used in. And we are responsible for this and there's no doubt about that. we are not the problem because this world

Bible Society (16:05.73)
belongs to us and we're part of it. And I think for me, the idea that creation has a human face because Christ was there at the beginning of it, I think is an idea that's really worth thinking about and drawing out. And I've really just begun to think about this, I think. That's such an interesting sort of thing to draw out because I guess I was thinking,

a lot more along the lines of like how it really emphasizes his divinity and his power and his like control over nature too. You know, just because later it talks about him sort of sustaining and upholding and without that human face on it, or even with the human face on it, that's quite a hard thing to picture and grasp, you know, how Jesus, how God like

upholds and sustains what he's created and keeps it in balance, even as you kind of say, as we mess things up. But there is this thing, isn't there? I think this is what lies behind Hebrews. It's this whole thing about the cosmic Christ. He's much more than just the man of Nazareth. There's much more going on there. It really brings home as well how he, you know, limited his power, he limited his power in order to be

fully human as well as fully God. Yeah, available to us, accessible to us. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So then in verse three, the writer says that he's the radiance of God's glory, the exact representation of his nature and that he upholds all things by the word of his power. When he had made the purification of sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. So a few more things there. Yeah, I find it really interesting.

Just the phrase, the radiance of his glory. If you think about the glory of God, or you think about Moses, right, in his face when he had been with God, it was radiant. I find that such an interesting phrase because they seem separate from each other. So you've got the glory of God and then you've got the radiance of the glory. But I don't think that's what the author means, or maybe I'm thinking about it too much. But it's similar to what we just read, where he says, through whom also he made the world. It makes it seem as if he couldn't have done it.

Bible Society (18:31.5)
without Christ, like through Christ he did it. And then here it seems again, like there's this sort of separation, the radiance versus the glory. I don't think that's what he's saying, but that's something that struck me as I was reading. It's interesting that in the story in Exodus, I can't remember which chapter it is, but there's a story of God hiding Moses in the cleft of the rock. And God says, I will make all my glory pass by you.

as though the glory is somehow separate from God. And it's as though the only way that they can talk about this is to look at what God does and how God seems. And talking about God as God is a really difficult idea. And maybe there's something there.

which of course is back to the incarnation. God's glory is expressed sometimes as almost a synonym for God. know, rather than just talking about God, they talk about God's glory. And if Jesus is the radiance of God's glory, it's the effect of the glory, it's the manifestation of the glory.

You know, you can't think of glory without thinking about radiance. And so the two ideas are so close together, but they are slightly different as well. So Jesus is the radiance of the glory of God, of the nature of God. He's how we perceive God, if you like. Think that might be the idea which is behind this. Yeah, I liked what you said earlier, I think as well about

how this is a writer trying to articulate God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit really and the Trinity and trying to articulate this for his readers. And it's actually not, it's not easy. So saying the radiance of the glory, like it makes sense, but yeah, it's not an easy thing to try and articulate. Would you like a bit more Greek? Just for nerds? Yes, go for it.

Bible Society (20:56.726)
No, Esti, did you pick up this as well? Because you've been looking at commentaries, I think, as well. The word character. No? Okay. So in my version, it says that that is the exact representation of God's being. And the word for exact representation is the word character and character is a Greek word. So it's literally the Greek word character. And the character...

is it means a mark, a distinguishing mark, but it was also used for the mark, which was made by a stamp. So if you're making a coin, for instance, you would stamp it with the mark that you had designed. So the image of the King, for instance, would usually go on that. And that was the character. So the idea is that Jesus is the exact, he is the

that the stamp of God, he is the image of God in that sense. What's on the stamp is exactly what goes onto the coin. So that's quite interesting, isn't it? It is, yeah, it's good. I read something about this next part as well, and upholds all things by the word of his power. But another way you could say it instead of upholds, sort of sustains. So it's not just as if he sort of

You get the image of someone physically holding something up, but that all of life is sustained in Christ. The reason it can keep going and continue on is because He's sustaining it. It's another parallel. I think it's to the Colossians passage as well, where it says that He's holding all things together. So yeah, there's this idea that the reason that everything can continue, we can continue living and breathing, is because of Christ, which is beautiful.

This made me think and it hadn't struck me before you said so, do you remember the myth of Atlas, one of the Titans whose doom it is to have to support the world on his shoulders for all eternity? I wonder if that was in the writer's mind, I don't know, because in this it's Jesus who just sustains things by his word, isn't it?

Bible Society (23:24.386)
Instead of by physical might. Instead of by physical force, yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. And then when he had made the purification of sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. The thing I thought about when I read that was, is it when Stephen is martyred, he looks up and it says that Jesus is standing at the right hand, right? And I thought about that and now he's seated.

And I know there are different points in scripture where he's seated or he's standing. I don't know if there's some significance in that. But I guess in my mind, I thought maybe after he's done what he was to do, right? He died and he resurrected and now he's seated. But I suppose that would have been the same for Stephen. I don't know. I thought about that. I thought it's interesting. It's definitely something that I saw in the commentaries that I was looking at, that it was kind of saying that this could, you know, this detail of him sitting down.

could be saying like his work is done, it's finished. And then in verse four, having become as much better than the angels as he has inherited a more excellent name than they. The thing that struck me first is it doesn't say that he is better, but that he has become better, which strikes me as strange.

because it implies that at one point he wasn't better. But the only other thing I could think of that I read that the author of Hebrews talks about Jesus changing is where it says that he learned obedience from the things that he suffered, which is also this idea. I know that's later on, but it's also this idea of Jesus changing, which is interesting. But yeah, I just thought that word become was really striking. mean, it seems to me that we're back to the incarnation.

here, aren't we? We'd want to say that Jesus is eternally one with the Father and he's eternally the second person of the Trinity and that sort of thing. But at the same time, he emptied himself and so on and so forth. And I think, you know, deliberately limiting himself to become genuinely one of us. And I don't think we'll ever really know what that means. You know, but I think we can say that

Bible Society (25:48.11)
as Jesus of Nazareth, there were things that he didn't know. There were things that he couldn't do. He never sinned, but at the same time, he was limited. He was a first century Jew and he did have to learn from Mary. He learned from Joseph, all the things that a normal child would do. yeah, I suspect that's what's behind this line. I mean, we've kind of got to the mention of angels now, haven't we? Am I saying

Even the kind of extended comparison that goes on to be drawn for the rest of this chapter, angels must have been a big deal for this audience. must have, you know, and I mean, be honest, if an angel did appear to me in this room, like an angel appeared to Mary or to the people, the women at the tomb, for example, I would, that would be an incredible supernatural experience, wouldn't it? You would be in awe of that. If you saw that.

fire of angels in the sky, that the shepherds... But I don't know, are we as preoccupied with angelic beings today? Because I don't know that this hits in the same way as it maybe did for the original audience. No, I think you're right. I don't really think we think about much, think about them much or talk about them much.

can't remember the last sermon I heard about them. Don't think I've ever preached about them to be perfectly honest. maybe, are we a bit embarrassed by the angels? The idea of angels, don't know. All those, you know, flying feathery things. I don't know. Yeah. I don't know that I'm, I wouldn't say embarrassed. I guess I just, I don't...

I mean, later in Hebrews, it talks about, know, remember to entertain strangers because some by doing that have entertained angels. You know, so there's an idea that maybe an angel might be in disguise. So you're not necessarily going to be this angel and know in that moment, this is an angel. But you know, we definitely, we are interested in the supernatural elements of faith today.

Bible Society (28:08.85)
So it's not that we kind of rule that out or, and it's not, don't believe in angels, it's just that don't know that I've seen one. Whereas maybe for them, it was a much closer thing and perhaps they were looking around every corner wondering if there would be an angelic messenger, you know, coming to them or. Or maybe it's just that this was part of their, you know, it's part of their worldview, part of their sort of mental furniture.

the idea that there is this host of angels. I mean, maybe they didn't expect to see angels, but you know, in their minds, these things existed and these things were the sort of pinnacle of creation. You know, certainly far more important, far more powerful and glorious than ordinary human beings. And here's the writer of Hebrews saying, you know, angels,

Jesus is far superior to angels. Again, a very challenging idea for them. I think it's a good challenge too for us to think about how lesser things, if we focus on them and pay attention to them, can become more important to us than greater things. So maybe for us it's not the angelic. Maybe for some of us it's something like fear. Yeah, I don't know.

being busy or our schedules or entertainment or things like that. And they are lesser things, but they can easily draw us away from things that matter. I do think it's interesting because you've got right at the end, it's talking about the angels being ministering spirits who are actually sent to serve us, know, sent to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation. So even it's not just saying

Jesus is greater and these angels serve and worship Him, but they do have a role in serving us. So perhaps there is some teaching here to help reorder the importance of things and how people perceived angels. Yeah, I think that's good.

Bible Society (30:26.476)
Yeah, so once we sort of get through verses one to four, verses five through 14, are really a contrast between the things that God has said to the Son and the things that God has said to angels. I think the main thing that I like about it is the fact that the Son's value or who the Son is, is being determined by the Father's words about the Son.

the things that the father says and same with the angels. And that's what the writer is playing on. So God, the father is the one speaking about Jesus. He doesn't quote Jesus or he doesn't quote things that the son has said, but what the father says about the son, which of course reminds me of how when we read scripture, we think about what the father says about us as his kids. There's so many old references, reminds you of the audience again, who would, you know,

be familiar with obviously the Jewish scriptures and it's really drawing out different elements here in this. know, so that first bit, verse five, you are my son today, I've forgotten you. think it links back to Psalm two. And there's just so many more references like Psalm 104 is referenced, Psalm 45. So it's really, the writer is like switching on all these lights, I guess, that will, you know, just light up.

for that audience to be like, yeah, so it's that idea of Jesus being a fulfillment of what has been promised and, you know, so that they will identify him with this Messiah that they've been waiting for. It really is him for anyone else. He's it. I think it's really interesting how well he knows his audience, isn't it? You know, he's really scratching where they're itching. He's talking their language.

And just with some takeaways from this chapter, what has this made you think about? How do you think it will change you? What did you love about it? Okay. Well, I love the gospels and I love thinking about Jesus and how he sort of interacted with people. love, you know, the stories and the parables and all that kind of thing. But they are quite

Bible Society (32:48.786)
human focused. All of that is quite human focused. And to me, think just thinking about Jesus as this cosmic Christ is very exciting actually. And I think if you want a practical application, if I tend to get lost in the weeds a little bit of life and living and faith and

how irritating church can be and how irritating Christians can be as well as lovely, of course. I think I might go to the first part of Hebrews and think, yeah, well, just get things in perspective, Mark. There's a lot more to it than you sometimes think. Yeah, I would say completely honest with you, this is like a reminder to look up, isn't it? To look up, look at.

God look at Jesus to think about that relationship between God and Jesus and what Jesus has done for us. And just kind of sit there for a while with that and really think through what are of this. You know, we've got this comparison with angels and how they're, you know, let all God's angels worship Him, but this should make us want to worship Jesus. You know, this should lead us to be absolutely

on our knees in awe of Jesus. I don't do that enough. Yeah, I think for me it's verses one through four. I really enjoyed how we just spoke about those. I think there's so much in them and so much depth and richness. I liked reading them through and just focusing on Jesus and the things that they tell us about Jesus. We're going to end there for this episode and we will be back.

next week for episode number two. We've got a guest, Sarah Hindley, who is amazing. We love her and she wrote for the Rooted Journal. So she's going to come on and speak with us about the next couple chapters of Hubris. So we're looking forward to that. If you'd like to subscribe to the podcast, you won't miss any episodes. You'll get notifications for that. And I think that's it. Thanks so much for listening and we'll see you next week.

Bible Society (35:11.224)
Thanks for listening to this episode of The Rooted Podcast. To find out more about Bible Society's mission to invite people to discover the Bible for themselves in England, Wales and around the world, visit biblesociety.org.uk.