Tom Wright

The Gospel of the Messiah 1 Corinthians 15.1-11 The old man made me a cup of tea, and took me through to his sitting room. ‘Now you must see this,’ he said, passing me a much-handled photograph album. ‘This tells you how we came here.’ The pictures told their own story. The happy…

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Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - Final Instructions for Worship

by SPCK - N T Wright

Final Instructions for Worship 1 Corinthians 14.26-40 ‘Last night I stood in awe at a mosaic dating from the sixth century. It is a picture of Jesus himself, ‘coming on the clouds’, and it’s in the domed apse above the altar in a church in Rome. Peter and Paul are standing on eit…

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Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - Signs for Believers and Unbelievers

by SPCK - N T Wright

Signs for Believers and Unbelievers 1 Corinthians 14.20-25 ‘We need to take an adult attitude to this . . .’ ‘Of course, if we are to approach the problem as adults . . .’ ‘Since we’re all adults here, perhaps I could say . . . ’ What do you think these people are talking about? …

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Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - Praying with the Mind as Well as Spirit

by SPCK - N T Wright

Praying with Mind as Well as Spirit 1 Corinthians 14.13-19 Paul for Everyone When you look at another person, what do you see? I don’t mean what shape, what colour, what size of person are you looking at; I mean, how do you think about who they are? How do you observe them as a w…

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Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - Love: The Bridge to God's Future

by SPCK - N T Wright

Love: The Bridge to God’s Future 1 Corinthians 14.1-5 One morning many centuries ago, two builders went off to work. The first walked through the twisting streets of the old town until he came to the little plot of land where he was labouring steadily day by day. He was building …

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Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - Love: The Bridge to God's Future

by SPCK - N T Wright

Love: The Bridge to God’s Future 1 Corinthians 13.8-13 When Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a young man, living with his father Leopold (himself a fine musician) in Vienna, he is said to have played a trick on him from time to time. Young Wolfgang would come home from spending a riot…

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Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - The Need for Love and the Character of Love

by SPCK - N T Wright

The Need for Love and the Character of Love 1 Corinthians 12.31b-13.7 When people say, as they sometimes do, that Paul must have been a very difficult person to have around – that he seems to have been awkward, cantankerous, argumentative, and generally an unpleasant character – …

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Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - Gifts and Ministries

by SPCK - N T Wright

Gifts and Ministries 1 Corinthians 12.27-31a Bishop Lesslie Newbigin, in his autobiography, Unfinished Agenda, tells how he served as secretary to the committee that was drawing up, during the 1940s, the constitution for the newly united Church of South India. The chairman raised…

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Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - The Responsibilities of Each Member

by SPCK - N T Wright

The Responsibilities of Each Member 1 Corinthians 12.21-26 Two weeks ago, I woke up in the night with sharp and throbbing toothache. Nobody who has ever had that experience will need to be reminded just how all-consuming such pain can suddenly become. I took some painkilling tabl…

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Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - Many Members, One Body

by SPCK - N T Wright

Many Members, One Body 1 Corinthians 12.12-20 Paul uses one of his most spectacular and famous illustrations in this and the following passage. It would be gilding the lily to introduce it by another one of our own, so we may as well jump straight to the point. But the point isn’…

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Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - The Same Spirit at Work

by SPCK - N T Wright

The Same Spirit at Work 1 Corinthians 12.1-11 One of the most exciting experiences of my teenage years was playing in an orchestra at school. I had learned the piano for a year or two, but you normally play that without other musicians joining in. Now I began the trombone. Of cou…

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Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - Recognizing the Body

by SPCK - N T Wright

Recognizing the Body 1 Corinthians 11.23-34 I once witnessed a moving reconciliation scene, and the most moving thing about it was that no words were necessary. A lay minister had been storing up resentments against the clergyman who was the senior pastor in the church where they…

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Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - Rich and Poor at the Table of the Lord

by SPCK - N T Wright

Rich and Poor at the Table of the Lord 1 Corinthians 11.17-22 The school groundsman was working to get the sports field ready for the big match the next day. The same pitch had been used for both hockey and football, and he needed to be sure that it was now marked out afresh with…

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Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - Male and Female in the Worshipping Church

by SPCK - N T Wright

Male and Female in the Worshipping Church 1 Corinthians 11.2-16 Many years ago I was lecturing as a guest in a college in the United States. After my lecture I was told that several of the students had been studying St Paul; would I be happy to answer questions about particular p…

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Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - Do Everything to God's Glory

by SPCK - N T Wright

Do Everything to God’s Glory 1 Corinthians 10.23-11.1 Some birds seem to spend all day in tiny, small-scale activities. They busy themselves with making nests, grubbing for food, and squawking to each other within a small space. They seem to be severely practical: everything they…

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Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - The Table of the Lord and the Table of Demons

by SPCK - N T Wright

The Table of the Lord and the Table of Demons 1 Corinthians 10.14-22 ‘Christianity’, declared the great Archbishop William Temple, ‘is the most materialistic of all religions.’ He had in mind the commitment of genuine Christianity to the faith that God really became human in Jesu…

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Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - Don't Make the Same Mistake Again!

by SPCK - N T Wright

Don’t Make the Same the Mistake Again! 1 Corinthians 10.6-13 We got on a bus in a strange city the other day, and to our horror it started to go in quite the wrong direction. Since we don’t speak much of the language it was difficult to ask other passengers, still less the driver…

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Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - The First Exodus

by SPCK - N T Wright

The First Exodus 1 Corinthians 10.1-5 As you drive on the main road through central Northumberland, between Newcastle upon Tyne and the Scottish border, you see frequent signs saying things like ‘150 Accidents Last Year On This Road,’ and ‘Number of Speeding Fines Last Month: 37’…

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