Tom Wright
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - Warning Signs on the Wrong Road
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - Warning Signs on the Wrong Road
by SPCK - N T Wright
Warning Signs on the Wrong Road Ephesians 2.1-7 Many years ago, I was staying for a few days in Cape Town, South Africa. Among the people I wanted to meet was an elderly man who lived on the edge of the city, in one of the outer suburbs. We arranged by telephone that I should dri…
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - Knowing the Power of the King
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - Knowing the Power of the King
by SPCK - N T Wright
Knowing the Power of the King Ephesians 1.15-23 ‘So how strong is it?’ My friend was showing me his new telescope. It was set up in an upstairs room, looking out towards sea. ‘Well, take a look.’ I had been scanning the horizon with my own small binoculars. There were a couple of…
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - The Inheritance and the Spirit
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - The Inheritance and the Spirit
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Inheritance and the Spirit Ephesians 1.11-14 Not far from where I was born there is an ancient castle. It stands imposingly, high above the banks of a river, defying anyone to attack it. These days, the likely attacks come from bank managers and tax-collectors rather than mar…
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - The Choice and the Plan
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - The Choice and the Plan
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Choice and the Plan Ephesians 1.4-10 Have you noticed how sometimes you have a story in the back of your mind which keeps peeping out even when you’re talking about something else? Imagine you’ve come back from work and the train has been late again. You stood for half an hou…
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - Blessings on the Sovereign God
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - Blessings on the Sovereign God
by SPCK - N T Wright
Blessings on the Sovereign God Ephesians 1.1-3 The most successful tourist attraction to appear in London in recent years is the ‘London Eye’. From a distance it looks like a giant Ferris wheel, but this is no fun-fair ride. For a start, it’s far, far bigger: it rises to 450 feet…
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - Introduction
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - Introduction
by SPCK - N T Wright
INTRODUCTION 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 swept through Jesus’ follo…
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Glossary
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Glossary
by SPCK - N T Wright
GLOSSARY 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 circle of twelve, but Paul sees not only himself b…
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - False Teachers
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - False Teachers
by SPCK - N T Wright
False Teachers Judah 5-16 One of the great examples of sheer, multiple, many-sided wickedness in recent history is of course the Nazi regime, which, under Adolf Hitler, produced six years of bitter and costly war and the Jewish Holocaust at the same time. All of this, like a mass…
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Rescued by God's Power
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Rescued by God's Power
by SPCK - N T Wright
Rescued by God’s Power Judah 17-25 Sometimes a quick burst of biblical dialogue catches a truth in sharp relief. After many generations in which the people of Israel had gone from bad to worse, led by a succession of wicked kings, God finally sends the prophet Elijah to sort it a…
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Contend for the Faith
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Contend for the Faith
by SPCK - N T Wright
Contend for the Faith Judah 1-4 In my teens and my early twenties, one of my passions was rock-climbing. I wouldn’t say I was an utterly fearless climber; I had a proper respect for danger, and didn’t try to do things which were too far outside my competence. But I relished the c…
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Authority and Example
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Authority and Example
by SPCK - N T Wright
Authority and Example 3 John 9-15 One of the many things I relished about serving as a bishop was the way in which my life would swing sharply from dealing with national and international issues one minute to dealing with small, sharp and tricky problems in this church here or th…
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Hospitality for God's People
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Hospitality for God's People
by SPCK - N T Wright
Hospitality for God’s People 3 John 1-8 One of the more exciting and entertaining parts of the Internet revolution is the kind of software that lets you zoom in, all the way from satellites in space, on a particular country, then a particular town, then a particular street, and f…
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Don't Be Deceived
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Don't Be Deceived
by SPCK - N T Wright
Don’t Be Deceived 2 John 7-13 I was going to quote a Beatles song, but then I remembered that you have to pay a lot of money even to quote a single line. But the song is well enough known, declaring that the only thing one might need is love. It’s ironic, of course, that you have…
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - The Sign of Life
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - The Sign of Life
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Sign of Life 2 John 1-6 When I was doing research on life after death, and on what people believed about it, I came across some disturbing material from the nineteenth century. People had realized that sometimes the doctors made a mistake, supposing someone to be dead when th…
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - The True God
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - The True God
by SPCK - N T Wright
The True God 1 John 5.13-21 Sometimes a short story will play a trick on its readers. Sometimes the author has told the story cleverly so as to lead us in one direction throughout the narrative, and then, with the last sentence, will reveal something which changes everything. Thi…
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Faith Wins the Victory
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Faith Wins the Victory
by SPCK - N T Wright
Faith Wins the Victory 1 John 5.1-12 The first time I went snorkelling on a tropical reef, I was overwhelmed by the sight. Face down in the water by the Great Barrier Reef, off the north-east coast of Australia, I knew at once that this was a totally new experience. All around me…
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - God's Love
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - God's Love
by SPCK - N T Wright
God’s Love 1 John 4.7-21 Statistics aren’t everything, but sometimes they are quite revealing. The word ‘love’, or some form of it, occurs no fewer than twenty-seven times in these fifteen verses. No need to ask, then what the subject-matter is here. In fact, we seem to be at the…
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - The Challenge of Love