N T Wright
Lent for Everyone Year A - Wednesday: First Week in Lent Year A
Lent for Everyone Year A - Wednesday: First Week in Lent Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
WEEK 1: WEDNESDAY Matthew 7; focused on 7.15 –23 One of the great lies of our time is to suppose that because Jesus brings forgiveness, and urges us to be forgiving people, meek and gentle, there is no sharp edge to his message. To hear some people, you’d think the whole of the C…
Lent for Everyone Year A - Tuesday: First Week in Lent Year A
Lent for Everyone Year A - Tuesday: First Week in Lent Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
WEEK 1: TUESDAY Matthew 6; focused on 6.5 –15 At the very heart of Jesus’ vision of the kingdom – of heaven’s kingdom coming on earth – we have a picture of one person, secretly in their own room, praying. Prayer is a mystery. I’ve often heard people saying, with a sneer, ‘It doe…
Lent for Everyone Year A - Monday: Week 1 in Lent Year A
Lent for Everyone Year A - Monday: Week 1 in Lent Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
WEEK 1: MONDAY Matthew 5; focused on 5.1–12 The worst mistake we can make about this famous and stunning passage is to see it as a list of rules (you’ve got to try hard to be poor in spirit, to mourn, to be meek, and so on). It isn’t. It’s a royal announcement that God is turning…
Lent for Everyone Year A - Sunday: Week 1 in Lent Year A
Lent for Everyone Year A - Sunday: Week 1 in Lent Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
WEEK 1: SUNDAY Psalm 32 A long time ago, when I had just learnt to drive, I ran out of petrol on a lonely country road. I gratefully accepted some fuel from a nearby farmer. What he didn’t tell me was that it was a mixture designed not for a car, but for a lawn mower. I got back …
Lent for Everyone Year A - Saturday after Ash Wednesday Year A
Lent for Everyone Year A - Saturday after Ash Wednesday Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
SATURDAY AFTER ASH WEDNESDAY Matthew 4.1–11 It starts with a flicker of thought, a tiny little idea that darts across the mind while you’re doing something else. It seems harmless, just one of the millions of things that the human brain comes up with. But then it returns, a minut…
Lent for Everyone Year A - Thursday after Ash Wednesday Year A
Lent for Everyone Year A - Thursday after Ash Wednesday Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
HURSDAY AFTER ASH WEDNESDAY Matthew 3; focused on 3.1–12 1 When a couple get married, there is so much to learn. Not so much the immediate and obvious things – favourite foods, musical tastes, good ideas for holidays, and so on. There are deeper things that make each one of us m…
Lent for Everyone Year A - Ash Wednesday
Lent for Everyone Year A - Ash Wednesday
by SPCK - N T Wright
ASH WEDNESDAY Matthew 1-2; focused on 1.18-25 We know very, very little about Joseph. Some legends make him an old man who died while Jesus was growing up, but we don’t know that for sure. We know he worked in the building trade, including what we call carpentry. We know he could…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The Second Sunday Before Lent Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The Second Sunday Before Lent Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Second Sunday Before Lent - Year A Genesis 1.1—2.3 Romans 8.18–25 Matthew 6.25–34 The project was all set up and ready to go. Creation was more like a perfect studio than a finished painting; everything was there, paints, canvas, artist, and all. It had its own inbuilt rhythm…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Proper 3 Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Proper 3 Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 3 - Year A Leviticus 19.1–2, 9–18 1 Corinthians 3.10–11, 16–23 Matthew 5.38–48 There are two basic mistakes people make about the command to love your neighbour as yourself. The first is to forget the last two words. We aren’t told to love our neighbour with all our heart,…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Proper 2 Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Proper 2 Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 2 - Year A Deuteronomy 30.15–20 1 Corinthians 3.1–9 Matthew 5.21–37 A real choice with real consequences. The great temptation today is not so much to cast off all moral restraint – few would actually advocate that, though many act from time to time as though that were the…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Proper 1 Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Proper 1 Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 1 - Year A Isaiah 58.1–12 1 Corinthians 2.1–16 Matthew 5.13–20 Isaiah’s stinging rebuke contains the seeds of the Sermon on the Mount. True piety must be part of the outward movement to share your blessing with the world. Fasting is useless if injustice goes unchecked. L…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The Fourth Sunday of Epiphany Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The Fourth Sunday of Epiphany Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Fourth Sunday of Epiphany - Year A 1 Kings 17: 8-16 1 Corinthians 1: 18-31 John 2: 1-11 The third day; it would be. John does nothing by accident. New creation bursts in upon a village wedding, itself a sign of hope. Wine is to water as the new world is to the old; bubbling u…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The Third Sunday of Epiphany Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The Third Sunday of Epiphany Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Third Sunday of Epiphany - Year A Isaiah 9: 1-4 1 Corinthians 1: 10-18 Matthew 4: 12-23 Was Jesus waiting for a signal? The Gospels agree that he didn’t begin to announce the Kingdom until he heard that John had been arrested. Something about that sinister moment told him tha…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The Second Sunday of Epiphany Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The Second Sunday of Epiphany Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Second Sunday of Epiphany - Year A Isaiah 49: 1-7 1 Corinthians 1: 1-9 John 1: 29-42 Our question to Isaiah is always, ‘Who is the Servant?’ Israel, replies the prophet (Isaiah 49.3). But the far harder question is, ‘Who is Israel?’ To this, Isaiah gives three concentric answ…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The First Sunday of Epiphany Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The First Sunday of Epiphany Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
The First Sunday of Epiphany - Year A Isaiah 42: 1-9 Acts 10: 34-43 Matthew 3: 13-17 John’s baptism can easily seem a mere introduction, the soon-to-be-forgotten starting point. The early Church clearly didn’t see it like that, since John continues to haunt the story in all four …
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The Second Sunday of Christmas Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The Second Sunday of Christmas Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Second Sunday of Christmas - Year A Jeremiah 31: 7-14 Ephesians 1: 3-14 John 1: 1-18 C. S. Lewis said that it sometimes seemed an anticlimax to move from the broad poetic sweep of the Old Testament to the narrow focus and seemingly mundane concern of the New. No chance of tha…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The First Sunday of Christmas Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The First Sunday of Christmas Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
The First Sunday of Christmas - Year A Isaiah 63: 7-9 Hebrews 2: 10-18 Matthew 12: 13-23 More Isaianic translation problems. Fortunately here the meaning is not in doubt. ‘In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them’? – or is it ‘He became t…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The Fourth Sunday of Advent Year A