<p>15:7 <i>I say to you, that even so there shall be more joy in heaven over one sinner that repents, than over ninety nine righteous persons, who need no repentance</i>- There can be no doubt that the Lord Jesus spoke the words of God, and therefore His sayings can be interpreted at the deepest possible level; and yet at the same time, they were so easy to understand by simple, sincere hearts. The sayings of Jesus have been translated back into Aramaic, the language of His day, by C.F. Burney. He was struck by the degree to which they had a rhythmic shape, like many of the prophetic sayings of the Old Testament. Thus a passage like Lk. 7:22 has six two-beat lines followed at the end by a three-beat line; the commission to the disciples in Mt. 10:8 rhymes, both in Aramaic and in Greek. The Lord&rsquo;s prayer is expressed in two-beat lines. The crunch point of the Lord&rsquo;s forgiveness parable in Lk. 15:7, that there is joy in Heaven over one sinner that repents, uses the device of alliteration, i.e. similarly sounding words. He uses three words which feature the guttural &lsquo;h&rsquo;: joy = <i>hedwa</i>; one = <i>hada</i>; sinner = <i>hateya</i>. In passing, I find this kind of thing evidence that we do have in the Gospel records the actual words of Jesus, and not a rough summary of them interpreted by many others, as modern theologians wrongly suppose. Our view of inspiration enables us to return as it were to the actual, living voice of Jesus in confidence. If the record of His words is sure and true, then we can go on to guess in what tone of voice He would have spoken, and seek to define in our own minds ever more features of the Son of Man. This thought alone I find so immensely inspiring- for we hear the real Christ speaking to us down the centuries. The Lord&rsquo;s teaching style thus reflected His recognition that He was speaking to the illiterate, and that many of those who followed Him would need to commit His words to memory; and so He spoke His words in a form which was memorable by them, as well as profitably dissectible by computer-aided intellectuals of our age. In this alone is a marvellous insight into both His genius and also His sensitivity to His audiences, from which we can take a lesson. But&nbsp;on a practical level, it is apparent that He had carefully prepared His sayings in advance, perhaps during His years up to age 30. I don&rsquo;t see His sayings as off the cuff bursts of wisdom, neither words merely flashed into His mouth by the Father. They were God&rsquo;s words, but carefully prepared by Him. He sets a matchless example to any would-be teacher in His church. Jesus spoke to the hearts of the people. He didn&rsquo;t use words like &lsquo;sin&rsquo; very often. He uses <i>hamartia</i> &lsquo;sin&rsquo; in the Synoptics only 8 times, compared to 64 times in Paul&rsquo;s writings. Jesus wasn&rsquo;t talking theology, He didn&rsquo;t speak in abstract terms. Rather did He speak of evil fruit, lost sheep, lost coins, no good sons&hellip; because He was framing His message for the illiterate, who thought in images rather than abstractions.</p>