The Ramsden sermon, preached before the University of Oxford at St.Mary’s Church on 19 May 1985; first preached in Bulawayo Cathedral, Zimbabwe, on 28 October 1984.

‘He must increase, but I must decrease’ (John 3.30). These words are offered to us in the fourth gospel as a comment by John the Baptist, not only on his relationship with Jesus, but also on the relationship between two groups of people—his own disciples and those of Jesus. Both had been baptizing. While Jesus himself had earlier been baptized by John, he had now developed a separate movement and more and more people, it seems, were transferring from one to the other. While the two movements were thus distinct, there remained a loose communion and much sympathy between them. Yet, as Jesus’ group advanced, so John’s declined. This can hardly not have been painful for John and bewildering for some of his more staunch disciples. But he accepted it.

I would suggest that this relationship, as also the appositeness of John’s comment upon it, provides a model for the interpretation of a number of subsequent crucial turning points within Christian history.

There is, first, that of the late apostolic period. On the one side was the senior church, that of Jerusalem. ‘You see, brother,’ Paul was told on one of his visits to the city, ‘how many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed; they are all zealous for the law’ (Acts 21.20). Here was a considerable group of Christians, some of whom had undoubtedly known Jesus personally, some of whom were related to him by family ties, and all of whom were immersed in the scriptures.