John Goldingay

A Strange Prohibition and a Surprising Experiment Genesis 2: 15-20 One of our friends has been looking and hoping for years to find the girl of his dreams, but he is getting older, and it looks less and less likely that this will ever happen. So he recently acquired a dog. At lea…

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Job for Everyone - GLOSSARY

by SPCK - John Goldingay

GLOSSARY Abaddon One of the Old Testament’s words for the place where dead people are, like Sheol. The ordinary word is similar to a Hebrew word meaning “perish,” which may not be a coincidence. Indeed, the verb can suggest “destroy,” and people might make a link with the fact th…

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Job for Everyone - And They All Lived Happily Ever After

by SPCK - John Goldingay

And They All Lived Happily Ever After Job 42:1- 17 I have often asked people whether they like the ending of the book of Job. The majority do not because it seems unrealistic, in that they know many people who do not have a happy ending to their story in the way that Job does. My…

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Job for Everyone - Leviathan

by SPCK - John Goldingay

Leviathan Job 41:1- 34 My wife is a bit apprehensive about monsters and can occasionally be scared for a moment by a shadow that might be some strange creature. For our honeymoon she was nevertheless keen to go to Scotland, from where her ancestors came, even though Scotland is a…

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Job for Everyone - When Silence is Not Enough

by SPCK - John Goldingay

When Silence is Not Enough Job 40:1- 24 Over the years during which my first wife had multiple sclerosis, I have concrete memories concerning two or three occasions when I attempted to confront God about it. Distressed at the way the illness affected her, on one such occasion I r…

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Job for Everyone - The Mysteries of Nature

by SPCK - John Goldingay

The Mysteries of Nature Job 38 39- 39: 30 Often the first thing I hear in the morning is the squawking of a group of parrots who wander around our city, the descendants (says the urban legend) of pet birds that escaped from or were released by their owners. When I sit at my desk,…

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Job for Everyone - On Accepting Your Ignorance

by SPCK - John Goldingay

On Accepting Your Ignorance Job 38 16-38 In my seminary in England we once produced a dramatic version of the story of Job; I was the screenwriter, and one of my colleagues was the director. She wanted to have God appearing on stage during the dialogues between Job and his friend…

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Job for Everyone - The God Who Commands the Dawn

by SPCK - John Goldingay

The God Who Commands the Dawn Job 38 1-15 On some people’s calculations, the world is due to end today. If you are reading this book, it didn’t end, or, alternatively, you and I were left behind. I am pretty confident it won’t end, though the basis for my confidence is different …

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Job for Everyone - The Awe-Inspiring Creator

by SPCK - John Goldingay

The Awe-Inspiring Creator Job 36 26-37: 24 The window by my desk looks out over our patio, where I can see geraniums starting to bloom, blue jays coming to bathe in the fountain, and squirrels trying to remember where they stored their nuts. A plant of basil sits on a table and w…

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Job for Everyone - The God Who Whispers in Our Ears

by SPCK - John Goldingay

The God Who Whispers in Our Ears Job 36 1-25 A young man comes to see me from time to time to discuss what is going on between him and God. He used to seem depressed, but the depression lifted when he came to acknowledge that he was attracted to other men rather than to women. He…

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Job for Everyone - Tested to the Limit

by SPCK - John Goldingay

Tested to the Limit Job 34 31- 35: 16 One aspect of the forty-two years during which my first wife had multiple sclerosis was that it was a time of periodic testing, or even of continuous testing (but it was also joyful). As she got to be recurrently tired, or could no longer do …

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Job for Everyone - Is God Not Good or Not Sovereign?

by SPCK - John Goldingay

Is God Not Good or Not Sovereign? Job 34 1-30 A student has been blowing fuses to me about having to read books that are full of words like eschatology and pneumatology and sentences about God’s “ontological revelatory self-communication and self-transcendence” or about “supralap…

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Job for Everyone - Pastoral Care That Makes the Sufferer's Position Worse

by SPCK - John Goldingay

Pastoral Care That Makes the Sufferer’s Position Worse Job 33 1-33 A woman came to see me a little while ago to talk about an occasion when she had been given pastoral care by some people, and she said the occasion had left her disturbed for years. I knew her to be an intelligent…

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Job for Everyone - The Angry Young Man

by SPCK - John Goldingay

The Angry Young Man Job 32 1-22 I was a “word child.” Indeed, I probably still am, though I am also a music child and a people child. A Word Child is a novel by Iris Murdoch about a man for whom words are the means of his redemption or happiness. Words save him. For me, that was …

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Job for Everyone - THe Way I Have Walked (III)

by SPCK - John Goldingay

The Way I Have Walked (III) Job 31 24-40 A year or two ago, a friend of mine lost his wife after she had been ill for a while, and to my horror I was aware of feeling something like satisfaction at this event because my wife had recently died after being ill for many years. Someh…

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Job for Everyone - The Way I Have Walked (II)

by SPCK - John Goldingay

The Way I Have Walked (II) Job 31 13-23 On Sunday we had a meeting to discuss our church’s ministry to homeless people; many live in our area, and we are next door to a community center. They know that Sunday morning is an obvious time to drop by to see if we have food, and we tr…

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Job for Everyone - The Way I Have Walked (I)

by SPCK - John Goldingay

The Way I Have Walked Job 31 1-12 A year after my first wife Ann died, I was out to dinner with a group that included a former colleague whose wife had died a while previously. He had remarried a year or so later, and I was intrigued to hear the story. He began from the aftermath…

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Job for Everyone - The Way We Are

by SPCK - John Goldingay

The Way We Are Job 30 1-31 Today a woman came to see me and wept. Her husband left her after ten years of marriage, leaving her with two small children to look after. On her account, his leaving came right out of the blue; there was no clue that he was unhappy in the marriage. Bu…

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