N T Wright
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 21 Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 21 Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 21 Jeremiah 32.1–15 1 Timothy 6.6–19 Luke 16.19–end Among the many symbolic actions Jeremiah was commanded to perform, this one stands out as a sign, not of judgement, but of hope: hope for God’s restoration the other side of judgement. Resurrection hope, if you like. He i…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 22 Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 22 Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 22 Lamentations 1.1–6 2 Timothy 1.1–14 Luke 17.5–10 Paul, in prison, writes about power. Dangerous stuff, we say – tends to corrupt, and all that. Paul’s setting, and the work that got him there, guards him from misunderstanding. Tyrants speak of God’s power to validate th…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 23 Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 23 Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 23 Jeremiah 29.1, 4–7 2 Timothy 2.8–15 Luke 17.11–19 A sharp-edged summary of Paul’s gospel: King Jesus, raised from the dead, of David’s seed. The word ‘gospel’ itself, in Paul’s world, meant a royal proclamation; this explains why its heralds fall foul of the authorities…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 24 Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 24 Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 24 Jeremiah 31.27–34 2 Timothy 3.14—4.5 Luke 18.1–8 The passages from 2 Timothy and Luke 18 both envisage God’s people hanging on, sustaining their energy and sense of direction, even though things seem to go from bad to worse. By contrast, Jeremiah 31 sees through the lon…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Last Sunday After Trinity Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Last Sunday After Trinity Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Last Sunday After Trinity Joel 2.23–end 2 Timothy 4.6–8, 16–18 Luke 18.9–14 The harvest and the law court are the lenses through which the prophet gazes, wide-eyed, into God’s future. Rain in abundance – easy to forget, in northern Europe, what a relief that would be in the M…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Fourth Sunday Before Advent Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Fourth Sunday Before Advent Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Fourth Sunday Before Advent Isaiah 1.10–18 2 Thessalonians 1.1–12 Luke 19.1–10 Luke cuts Zacchaeus even more down to size, describing him with affected pomposity (‘he was a chief tax-collector! He was rich!’) and then pointing out that he was also a bit too small for his own …
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Third Sunday Before Advent Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Third Sunday Before Advent Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Third Sunday Before Advent Job 19.23–27a 2 Thessalonians 2.1–5, 13–17 Luke 20.27–38 The overall theme (‘resurrection’) is obvious, but the detail is daunting. It seems a shame, as the translators’ footnotes say, that the Hebrew of Job 19.26 is ‘incomprehensible’. The old vers…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Second Sunday Before Advent Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Second Sunday Before Advent Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Second Sunday Before Advent Malachi 4.1–2a 2 Thessalonians 3.6–13 Luke 21.5–19 Warnings against idleness seem irrelevant in our culture. Those who have work seem to have more and more of it; those who don’t seem stuck in a trap. No doubt there are shades of grey, and some man…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Christ the King Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Christ the King Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Christ the King Jeremiah 23.1–6 Colossians 1.11–20 Luke 23.33–43 Shepherds, shepherding stories, and shepherding metaphors abound throughout the Bible, as one would expect in that culture. The creative thing in Israel’s traditions, though, was the development of ‘the shepherd’ as…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Day of Pentecost Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Day of Pentecost Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Day of Pentecost Acts 2.1–21 Romans 8.14–17 John 14.8–17 The Israelites had been aware of certain persons in their midst, unpredictable and untameable, in whom the Spirit of YHWH dwelt. They spoke his word, led his people, encouraged, rebuked, prayed for and agonized over Israel.…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Seventh Sunday of Easter Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Seventh Sunday of Easter Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Seventh Sunday of Easter (Sunday after Ascension Day) Acts 16.16–34 Revelation 22.12–14, 16–17, 20–21 John 17.20–end If Luke had wanted to play down the trouble caused by the gospel, he would quietly have omitted the Philippi story. Healing for one person means loss of money …
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Sixth Sunday of Easter Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Sixth Sunday of Easter Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Sixth Sunday of Easter Acts 16.9–15 Revelation 21.10, 22—22.5 John 14.23–29 No Temple, no sun or moon, and no uncleanness either. A world without evil is, to us, as inconceivable as a world without sun and moon – or, for first-century Jews, a holy city without a Temple. In th…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Fifth Sunday of Easter Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Fifth Sunday of Easter Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Fifth Sunday of Easter Acts 11.1–18 Revelation 21.1–6 John 13.31–35 You only discover the flavour of today’s Gospel if you remember that it comes immediately after Judas’s departure, and immediately before Peter’s rash promise to lay down his life for Jesus – and Jesus’ sorro…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Fourth Sunday of Easter Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Fourth Sunday of Easter Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Fourth Sunday of Easter Acts 9.36–43 Revelation 7.9–17 John 10.22–30 Within the Easter kaleidoscope, the Lamb becomes the Shepherd. John 10 is already complex enough, with Jesus as both ‘shepherd’ and ‘door’, but Revelation characteristically twists the imagery round once mor…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Third Sunday of Easter Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Third Sunday of Easter Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Third Sunday of Easter Acts 9.1–20 Revelation 5.11–14 John 21.1–19 John 21 contains in microcosmic form most of the elements of the previous narrative. We are back in Galilee, with Peter and his friends going fishing. Jesus reveals himself as he had done throughout. He feed…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Second Sunday of Easter Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Second Sunday of Easter Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Second Sunday of Easter Acts 5.27–32 Revelation 1.4–8 John 20.19–end The report of Jesus’ resurrection strikes the chief priests as a threat of God’s judgement. Yes and no, reply the apostles: your guilt is swallowed up in the message of forgiveness, of new Spirit-given life.…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Easter Sunday Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Easter Sunday Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Easter Day Isaiah 65.17–25 1 Corinthians 15.19–26 Luke 24.1–12 ‘It seemed to them an idle tale.’ In Jesus’ world, nobody thought of ‘resurrection’ as happening to one person within ongoing history. It would happen at the very end, when God would raise all his people to share in…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Palm Sunday The Liturgy of the Passion Year C