Tom Wright
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Humility and Faith
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Humility and Faith
by SPCK - N T Wright
Humility and Faith James 4.1-10 Schoolchildren of a certain age form exclusive friendships. Great human dramas are played out on a small scale when your daughter comes home in tears because her ‘best friend’ has declared she isn’t her best friend any more, but has taken up with s…
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - No Favourites
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - No Favourites
by SPCK - N T Wright
No Favourites James 2.1-13 I have often been embarrassed in church, but one of the worst moments was on Easter morning many years ago. I had arrived at the service in what I thought was good time, but there was already a large queue outside and it wasn’t moving. Clearly the place…
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Introduction
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Introduction
by SPCK - N T Wright
INTRODUCTION Early Christian Letters On the very first occasion when someone stood up in public to tell people about Jesus, he made it very clear: this message is for everyone. It was a great day – sometimes called the birthday of the church. The great wind of God’s spirit had sw…
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - Glossary
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - Glossary
by SPCK - N T Wright
Glossary Paul - The Prison Letters accuser, see the satan age to come, see present age apostle, disciple, the Twelve ‘Apostle’ means ‘one who is sent’. It could be used of an ambassador or official delegate. In the New Testament it is sometimes used specifically of Jesus’ inner c…
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - Paul's Perspective
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - Paul's Perspective
by SPCK - N T Wright
Paul’s Perspective Philemon 1.15-25 ‘I have sometimes been told’, said my friend, ‘that God is an artist, and that we are his paintings.’ ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘and actually I think Paul says something like that, in Ephesians 2.10: “We are his handiwork.”’ ‘Well,’ my friend replied, ‘th…
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - Paul's Appeal
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - Paul's Appeal
by SPCK - N T Wright
Paul’s Appeal Philemon 1.8-14 There was once a leading bishop in the Church of England who took a strong line on several of the major issues facing the church and the society of his day. Many times he went to see the Archbishop of Canterbury to put pressure on him to steer the ch…
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - Greetings
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - Greetings
by SPCK - N T Wright
Greetings Philemon 1.1-7 Jonathan knew it was going to be a difficult meeting. He had woken up very early that morning and gone through it again and again in his mind. He was quite clear about what needed to be done, but he was equally clear that the others wouldn’t see it like t…
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - Greetings from Others
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - Greetings from Others
by SPCK - N T Wright
Greetings from Others Colossians 4.10-18 As a typical young man growing up in England after the Second World War, I was never taught to sew. I can hardly manage to replace a button on a shirt, let alone do anything more complicated with needle and thread. But I have sometimes bee…
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - The Fellowship of Prayer
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - The Fellowship of Prayer
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Fellowship of Prayer Colossians 4.2-9 The best teachers make sure they get their pupils to take on some responsibility of their own. It’s a lesson some never learn, in school, in church, or in the home. Most people, from quite small children upwards, are ready to rise to the …
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - The Christian Household
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - The Christian Household
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Christian Household Colossians 3.18-4.1 There was once a country ruled by a strict and severe president. He made laws about everything and enforced them rigidly. He laid down what time people were to get up and go to bed. He told them what food they should eat and how to cook…
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - Love, Peace and Thanksgiving
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - Love, Peace and Thanksgiving
by SPCK - N T Wright
Love, Peace and Thanksgiving Colossians 3.12-17 Here’s the acid test for whether Paul is talking sense or not. Read again through the list of sexual and speech-related misbehaviour in verses 5–9. Then read through verses 12–17. Ask yourself this: supposing there was a town in whi…
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - Old Clothes, New Clothes
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - Old Clothes, New Clothes
by SPCK - N T Wright
Old Clothes, New Clothes Colossians 3.5-11 My daughter and I still laugh about her seventh birthday. It was a Sunday in February. The church we attended, in Canada where we lived then, held a cross-country ski day each year. People came to the morning service, stayed for soup in …
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - The Dying and the Rising with Christ
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - The Dying and the Rising with Christ
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Dying and the Rising with Christ Colossians 2.20-3.4 ‘I’ll just be two minutes,’ I said, leaving my friends on the street corner while I went to fetch the car. It was raining, and we’d just come out of the theatre. But I wasn’t two minutes. I took more like ten. They were sta…
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - The Law and the Cross
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - The Law and the Cross
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Law and the Cross Colossians 2.13-19 The crowd was already angry, and it got angrier as we watched. They had come together to protest about the shooting down of a Korean jumbo jet over the southwest Pacific. Most of them had lost relatives or friends in the disaster. And, whe…
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - Beware of Deceivers
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - Beware of Deceivers
by SPCK - N T Wright
Beware of Deceivers Colossians 2.8-12 One of the greatest philosophers of the seventeenth century was John Locke (1632–1704).He rejected several previous schemes of thought and sketched out a way of looking at the world which influenced the thought not only of his native England …
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - God's Hidden Treasure - King James
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - God's Hidden Treasure - King James
by SPCK - N T Wright
God’s Hidden Treasure – King Jesus! Colossians 2.1-7 In many adventure stories such as Robert Louis Stevenson’s famous Treasure Island, the plot hinges on the discovery of an ancient chart or map. The people who have found it realize that, if only they could understand and follow…
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - The King, Living within You
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - The King, Living within You
by SPCK - N T Wright
The King, Living within You Colossians 1.24-29 If trees could talk, imagine the sort of conversation that might go on. Here is an old, weathered and seasoned oak tree, talking to the small sapling that’s just started to grow up nearby. ‘Soon it will be autumn, and the winds will …
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - Reconciled and Firm in Faith