John Goldingay
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - The Intentional and the Unintentional
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - The Intentional and the Unintentional
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Intentional and the Unintentional NUMBERS 14: 39-15: 41 In our church we usually douse the candles during the final hymn, before the ministers process down the aisle and walk outside into the main street, back into the outside world, to say goodbye to the congregation. One Su…
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - A Spy Story
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - A Spy Story
by SPCK - John Goldingay
A Spy Story NUMBERS 13: 1-14: 38 I like to raise student eyebrows by pointing out occasions when God has abandoned segments of the church. In the first Christian centuries, the eastern Mediterranean (Turkey, the Levant, Egypt, North Africa) was full of lively Christian churches, …
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - Miriam the Prophet, Aaron the Priest, Moses the Teacher
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - Miriam the Prophet, Aaron the Priest, Moses the Teacher
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Miriam the Prophet, Aaron the Priest, Moses the Teacher NUMBERS 12: 1-15 The movie Live and Become is the story of a boy among the Ethiopian Falasha Jews airlifted to Israel at the time of the Marxist revolution in the 1980s. Except that Schlomo (Solomon) is not a Jew but a Chris…
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - On Missing Garlic
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - On Missing Garlic
by SPCK - John Goldingay
On Missing Garlic NUMBERS 11: 1-35 My mother didn’t know about garlic. This is not unreasonable; she had learned to cook in the days when British cooking was boring, before Elizabeth David introduced us to proper cooking (she was our Julia Child) and before immigration from the I…
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - The Journey Actually Begins
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - The Journey Actually Begins
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Journey Actually Begins NUMBERS 9: 15-10: 36 Although I make decisions easily (though this does not mean I make them wisely), when it was a question of deciding to take my disabled wife six thousand miles from Britain to California to a place we had visited only once and wher…
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - God's Flexibility
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - God's Flexibility
by SPCK - John Goldingay
God’s Flexibility NUMBERS 8: 5-9: 14 A woman came to talk to me after church two weeks ago. In the sermon I had described the way the Psalms invite us in prayer to appeal to God’s compassion, grace, and steadfast love, especially when we know we are in the wrong in relation to Go…
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - Provision for the Sanctuary
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - Provision for the Sanctuary
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Provision for the Sanctuary NUMBERS 7: 1-8: 4 We want to build a “proper chapel” at our seminary. We outgrew the original chapel decades ago, and for services we use an auditorium or a church adjacent to the campus. Now, one of the great cultural strengths of the United States is…
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - The Lord Bless You and Keep You
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - The Lord Bless You and Keep You
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Lord Bless You and Keep You NUMBERS 6: 1-27 “Bless you,” we say when someone sneezes. “Blessings,” we put at the end of e-mails. “God bless,” my father would say as we went to bed. “It was a time of blessing,” someone may say at the end of a service. “Bless my soul,” we may s…
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - Breaking Faith
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - Breaking Faith
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Breaking Faith NUMBERS 5: 5-31 I remember having a slight fit of jealousy (it was twenty years ago, but I still remember!) when my wife started talking to the man next door. He was another priest, my colleague and friend, but that didn’t make much difference. He was a wise and sp…
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - God's Claim on Levi
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - God's Claim on Levi
by SPCK - John Goldingay
God’s Claim on Levi NUMBERS 3: 1-5: 4 Last night I was watching the “Extras” on the DVD of a movie called The Soloist, whose background is Skid Row in Los Angeles, ten minutes away from where I sit. It noted the contribution made by volunteers (of the kind I could be) to the need…
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - Finding Yourself in Your Family Story
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - Finding Yourself in Your Family Story
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Finding Yourself in Your Family Story NUMBERS 1: 1-2: 34 My son Mark just came across a photo from exactly twelve years ago. My wife, Ann, and my mother are sitting at a picnic table; I am lying on the grass (“typically,” Mark said; I am not sure what to make of that). Somewhere …
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - Introduction
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - Introduction
by SPCK - John Goldingay
INTRODUCTION As far as Jesus and the New Testament writers were concerned, the Jewish Scriptures that Christians call the “Old Testament” were the Scriptures. In saying that, I cut corners a bit, as the New Testament never gives us a list of these Scriptures, but the body of Scri…
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - Acknowledgments
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - Acknowledgments
by SPCK - John Goldingay
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The translation at the beginning of each chapter (and in other biblical quotations) is my own. I have stuck closer to the Hebrew than modern translations often do when they are designed for reading in church so that you can see more precisely what the text says. T…
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - Save First, Spend Afterward
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - Save First, Spend Afterward
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Save First, Spend Afterward Genesis 41:25-57 Writers and TV producers have noted that the cell phone and other technological devices have undermined some of the staple plot devices that make novels and movies work. In Casablanca, Rick need not have been in any doubt as to why Ils…
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - What Game is Joseph Playing?
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - What Game is Joseph Playing?
by SPCK - John Goldingay
What Game Is Joseph Playing? Genesis 42:1-35 I arrived home late one evening, picked up the mail, and checked messages. When I was in charge of a seminary, I used to avoid reading messages just before bedtime in case it gave me things to worry about that kept me from sleeping, bu…
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - What Game is Genesis Playing?
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - What Game is Genesis Playing?
by SPCK - John Goldingay
What Game Is Genesis Playing? Genesis 42:36-43:34 In the movie The English Patient, Count Laszlo crashes a plane and in order to go to get help has to abandon the only woman he has loved, in an injured state, in a cave in a desert mountain. He is long unable to convince people to…
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - Tough Love
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - Tough Love
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Tough Love Genesis 44:1-34 A woman came to see me the other day. She thought she had met the love of her life. I had seen her with him. There had developed that light that comes into people’s eyes when they know they are loved. They had started talking about engagement. But then …
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - Not You but God