N T Wright
Scripture and the Authority of God - Scripture within Christianity
Scripture and the Authority of God - Scripture within Christianity
by SPCK - N T Wright
Scripture within Christianity: the First 1,500 Years The place and role of the Bible within the church’s mission and common life is once again heavily contested. Current ‘battles for the Bible’ in various parts of the church – not least, but not only, within debates about sexual …
Scripture and the Authority of God - Preface
Scripture and the Authority of God - Preface
by SPCK - N T Wright
Preface Scripture and the Authority of God Writing a book about the Bible is like building a sandcastle in front of the Matterhorn. The best you can hope to do is to catch the eye of those who were looking down instead of up, or those who were so familiar with the skyline that th…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 4 Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 4 Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 4 1 Kings 18.20–21 [22–29] 30–39 Galatians 1.1–12 Luke 7.1–10 Elijah calls for fire, but the larger story is about rain. Drought has plagued the land. King Ahab is cross with Elijah, blaming the messenger for the message. Elijah, fresh from his triumph in restoring a boy t…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 5 Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 5 Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 5 1 Kings 17.8–24 Galatians 1.11–24 Luke 7.11–17 Luke has, fairly obviously, told the story of the widow’s son at Nain in such a way as to evoke the similar story of Elijah and the widow’s son at Zarephath – who, interestingly, was already referred to in Jesus’ ‘Nazareth m…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 6 Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 6 Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 6 1 Kings 21.1–21a Galatians 2.15–21 Luke 7.36—8.3 ‘He loved me and gave himself for me.’ These words in Galatians 2.20, coupled with those in 1.4, probably form the earliest written statement of what we know as the doctrine of the atonement. They invite comment at sever…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 7 Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 7 Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 7 1 Kings 19.1–15a Galatians 3.23–end Luke 8.26–39 Elijah went to Sinai, to hand back his commission. ‘I’ve done all this for you, and now they’re going to kill me. I’ve had enough.’ Fear and exhaustion generated self-destructive depression. What was he expecting? A volcan…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 8 Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 8 Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 8 2 Kings 2.1–14 Galatians 5.1, 13–25 Luke 9.51–end ‘Leave the dead to bury their dead.’ One of Jesus’ starkest commands, this flies in the face of the sacred Jewish obligation to attend to the burial of one’s father ahead of all other duties, even saying one’s daily praye…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 9 Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 9 Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 9 2 Kings 5.1–14 Galatians 6.1–16 Luke 10.1–11, 16–20 Going out like lambs amid wolves hardly makes sense in any culture. Only Jesus could propose something so apparently hare-brained yet strangely powerful. Only he, knowing himself to be utterly vulnerable, yet protected …
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 10 Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 10 Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 10 Amos 7.7–17 Colossians 1.1–14 Luke 10.25–37 If you like word-development, you’ll love Samaritans. Start with a geographical designation: people who live in the hill country, between Galilee and Judaea. Develop to discrimination: the pre-exilic Judaeans speaking of their…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 12 Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 12 Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 12 Hosea 1.2–10 Colossians 2.6–19 Luke 11.1–13 Part of the prophetic vocation seems to have been to carry the pain of the message in one’s own soul. Thus it was, at least, with Hosea. Married to a prostitute, he felt not only the pain of Israel but also the pain of God, se…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 12 Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 12 Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 12 Hosea 1.2–10 Colossians 2.6–19 Luke 11.1–13 Part of the prophetic vocation seems to have been to carry the pain of the message in one’s own soul. Thus it was, at least, with Hosea. Married to a prostitute, he felt not only the pain of Israel but also the pain of God, …
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 14 Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 14 Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 14 Isaiah 1.1, 10–20 Hebrews 11.1–3, 8–16 Luke 12.32–40 Stories about a master going away and returning would have been interpreted in Jesus’ world as stories about Israel’s God, YHWH. He had ‘gone away’ at the exile, as Ezekiel describes graphically. At no point in the ‘p…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 15 Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 15 Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 15 Isaiah 5.1–7 Hebrews 11.29—12.2 Luke 12.49–56 This Lukan passage is high on the list of Things We Would Rather Jesus Hadn’t Said. It’s not gentle, it’s not meek and mild; it’s not even nice. Parents and children at loggerheads, in-laws getting across one another – what …
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 16 Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 16 Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 16 Jeremiah 1.4–10 Hebrews 12.18–end Luke 13.10–17 Moses said he wasn’t a speaker. Isaiah said his lips were tainted. Ezekiel fell on his face. And Jeremiah says he’s too young. One might, perhaps, be a trifle suspicious if God’s call to prophecy met with too ready a respo…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 17 Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 17 Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 17 Jeremiah 2.4–13 Hebrews 13.1–8, 15–16 Luke 14.1, 7–14 Don’t sit at the top table, declares Jesus; start at the bottom and see what happens. If this is a parable, as Luke says, it isn’t advice about behaviour at dinner parties. In Luke’s wider context, its meaning is cog…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 18 Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 18 Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 18 Jeremiah 18.1–11 Philemon 1–21 Luke 14.25–33 Luke 14 has more than its fair share of ‘hard sayings’. Hate your family; give up your possessions. A nice clear message for the end of the summer holidays. And, to back it up, a solemn warning: such carrying the cross requ…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 19 Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 19 Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 19 Jeremiah 4.11–28 1 Timothy 1.12–17 Luke 15.1–10 In a recent article, a priest from another tradition described the cheerful mixture of spiritualities which made up his regular personal prayer. It was a vivid and moving account of a busy man nourishing and cherishing a s…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 20 Year C