Tom Wright
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Herod's vanity and Death
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Herod's vanity and Death
by SPCK - N T Wright
Herod’s Vanity and Death Acts 12.20-25 Whether or not Luke was aware of the comic value of the previous interlude, he was certainly aware of the powerful impact of the story with which he now closes the first half of his book. The official king of the Jews plays at being a pagan …
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Peter's Rescue and Rhoda's Mistake
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Peter's Rescue and Rhoda's Mistake
by SPCK - N T Wright
Peter’s Rescue and Rhoda’s Mistake Acts 12.6-19 One of the sure touches of a master writer is knowing how to create a seriously funny scene in the middle of an extremely serious one. Think of Shakespeare’s subplots, with the gravedigger scene in Hamlet providing dark humour when …
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Herod Kills James
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Herod Kills James
by SPCK - N T Wright
Herod Kills James Acts 12.1-5 What makes a monarch act violently towards his subjects? That question presses upon us at this point in Acts, because up to now we have heard nothing of Herod in this book. Parallels from other places, and other periods of history, may or may not be …
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Controversy and Vindication
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Controversy and Vindication
by SPCK - N T Wright
Controversy and Vindication Acts 1.1-18 By common consent (even among those who disagreed with him), John Henry Newman was one of the finest minds of the nineteenth century. Having spent his young adult years as an Anglican priest, he famously converted to Roman Catholicism, and …
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Telling the Gentiles about Jesus
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Telling the Gentiles about Jesus
by SPCK - N T Wright
Telling the Gentiles about Jesus Acts 10.34-48 Acts for Everyone Part 1 34Peter took a deep breath and began. ‘It’s become clear to me’, he said, ‘that God really does show no favouritism. 35No: in every race, people who fear him and do what is right are acceptable to him. 36He s…
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Peter Goes to Cornelius
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Peter Goes to Cornelius
by SPCK - N T Wright
Peter Goes to Cornelius Acts 10.17-33 ‘Four days ago’, he said, ‘I was praying in my house at around this time, about three o’clock, and suddenly a man stood beside me in shining clothes. 31“Cornelius,” he said, “your prayer has been heard, and your almsgiving has been remembered…
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Peter's Vision
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Peter's Vision
by SPCK - N T Wright
Peter’s Vision Acts 10.1-16 When I went off to university it was much more of an awesome experience than it is for many today. I had scraped into Oxford by the skin of my teeth, having spent too much of my teenage years doing everything else, particularly sport and music, rather …
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Ananias and Saul
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Ananias and Saul
by SPCK - N T Wright
Ananias and Saul Acts 9.11-19a As the concert progressed, I watched the different players in the orchestra. There at the back sat a man who looked very, very bored. In fact, he disappeared for about half an hour at one point. (There are stories of musicians turning up in bars nea…
Acts for Everyone part 1 - The Conversion of Saul
Acts for Everyone part 1 - The Conversion of Saul
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Conversion of Saul Acts 9.1-9 When I was young, nobody much in the culture I knew practised yoga. It was regarded as peculiar, a bit too exotic, and probably likely to lead to dislocation of your joints. There was a suspicion, as well, that you might find yourself getting int…
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Philip and the Ethiopian
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Philip and the Ethiopian
by SPCK - N T Wright
Philip and the Ethiopian Acts 8.26-40 I was once visiting Cambridge (the English Cambridge, not the American one) to do some lectures. One afternoon I was working on the themes for the lectures still to come, when I found to my surprise an urgent thought in my head: Go to Evenson…
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Samaria, the Spirit and Simon Magus
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Samaria, the Spirit and Simon Magus
by SPCK - N T Wright
Samaria, the Spirit and Simon Magus Acts 8.4-25 As a bishop, one of the things I do quite a lot is to go round laying hands on people and praying for God’s holy spirit to come upon them. It is often a very moving and exciting time, not least at the Easter Vigil when we come in da…
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Signs of the New Covenant
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Signs of the New Covenant
by SPCK - N T Wright
Signs of the New Covenant Acts 4. 32-37 Some politicians’ phrases pass into folk legend. I am old enough ( just) to remember Harold Macmillan saying, ‘You’ve never had it so good.’ Some Americans can remember Roosevelt talking about the ‘New Deal’. And generations to come will st…
Acts for Everyone part 1 - The Stoning of Stephen
Acts for Everyone part 1 - The Stoning of Stephen
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Stoning of Stephen Acts 7.54-8.3 Francis Thompson was a strange and powerful English poet of the early twentieth century. He was a believing Christian, but his life had been sad and difficult in a number of ways. Yet in the middle of his personal suffering he discovered a str…
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Handmade Shrines
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Handmade Shrines
by SPCK - N T Wright
Handmade Shrines Acts 7.35-53 When you go into a store in my country, and you see a sign saying ‘Made by Hand’, you know what it means. ‘This is good quality; it wasn’t just turned out by some faceless machine or computer; someone has taken personal trouble over it; you will appr…
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Stephen and Moses
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Stephen and Moses
by SPCK - N T Wright
Stephen and Moses Acts 7.17-34 Where do you get your sense of national identity? In America, people often look back to three great moments. First, there was the arrival in America of the first settlers from Europe, particularly from Britain. Second, there was the glorious revolut…
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Stephen Tells the Story
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Stephen Tells the Story
by SPCK - N T Wright
Stephen Tells the Story Acts 7.1-16 One of the most obvious differences between cricket and baseball is the way the ball is projected towards the person who is trying to hit it. As most people will know, the person who ‘pitches’ in baseball stands on a single spot, where he (or s…
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Stephen Becomes a Target