I recently emailed an American friend because I needed to change our plans.

Naturally, I apologised for the faff.

A faff, he said. What's a fath?

A faff, I explained patiently, is much like a kerfuffle.

What's a kerfuffle, he said?

Oh, come on, I said, you must have kerfuffle. It's like a palava.

A palaver, he said, is that like shooting the breeze? I said, I've no idea what you're talking about.

Why don't you speak English? There's an important Greek word in the New Testament that's similarly

tricky to translate. The word is paraclete, and it's used by Jesus

both as a name for the Holy Spirit and also for himself. Part of the difficulty of translating

the word paraclete is that it has several different senses or meanings. The first sense is helper. In John chapter 14, verse 16,

Jesus says, I will ask the father, and he will give you another helper, paraclete, to be with you

forever. Jesus is talking about the Holy Spirit there, but notice that word another helper.

Another helper?

Who was the first helper?

Well, remarkably, the answer to that is Jesus himself.

How do you feel about being called a helper?

I suspect most of us instinctively think that it's a little bit beneath us, but here is the second

person of the Trinity describing himself in exactly those terms as our helper. As it says in Hebrews

13 verse 6, the Lord is my helper. I will not fear. What can man do to me? The Holy Spirit, because he is,

after all, Christ's spirit, is also a paraclete, a helper. Literally the Greek word paracletos means

someone who is called to come alongside someone else. In Greek culture,

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