John Goldingay

The Problem of Insight Genesis 30:4-21 A number of my students are training to be family therapists, and they are often intrigued by these stories in Genesis. They are excited to find how dysfunctional these families are because in their own way they match our dysfunctional famil…

Written
1 credit

Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - I Want to Know What Love Is

by SPCK - John Goldingay

I Want to Know What Love Is Genesis 29:32-30:3 I have just read a review of a TV program about polygamy in the United States. It incidentally notes how one motivation for polygamy is that it can be a route to more children and more money, which fits with the assumptions about pol…

Written
1 credit

Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - The Deceiver Deceived

by SPCK - John Goldingay

The Deceiver Deceived Genesis 29:14b-31 The chapters in Genesis for Everyone regularly begin with a story making a link with our own world, but who needs a story to introduce the account of Jacob’s wedding? If I made a list of the moments in the Bible that I would most like to ha…

Written
1 credit

Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - How to Live in a Contractual Relationship with God

by SPCK - John Goldingay

How to Live in a Contractual Relationship with God Genesis 28:16-29: 14a I was trying to explain to a group of Christians the difference between a covenant and a contract in order to suggest that God’s relationship with us is more like the former than the latter. I have a contrac…

Written
1 credit

Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - The Stairway to Heaven

by SPCK - John Goldingay

The Stairway to Heaven Genesis 28:6-15 When I would occasionally remember a dream and report it, my wife would say that she didn’t dream. Really she knew she did, because everyone does; it’s one reason why we sleep. But we don’t usually remember our dreams, maybe partly because t…

Written
1 credit

Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - Words that Cannot Be Undone

by SPCK - John Goldingay

Words That Cannot Be Undone Genesis 27:34- 28:5 In lots of ways, words are powerful things. We can say things and wish we had not said them yet be unable to get out of their implications. A woman I know stood at the front of church and made her marriage vows, then subsequently di…

Written
1 credit

Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - How Stupid Parents Can Be

by SPCK - John Goldingay

How Stupid Can Parents Be Genesis 26:34- 27:33 It’s amazing how foolish we can be as parents. A little while ago my wife and I were having dinner with some friends, and I made some remark about how people are always talking about intimacy and the importance of being relational bu…

Written
1 credit

Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - Do We Ever Learn?- Take Two

by SPCK - John Goldingay

Do We Ever Learn? Take Two Genesis 26: 6- 33 A few weeks ago, the great U.S. novelist John Updike died. I think I had tried to read one of his novels years ago but failed. In light of the eulogies, I thought I should try again, so I started with Too Far to Go, over which one of t…

Written
1 credit

Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - Two Guys Who Need Their Heads Banged Together

by SPCK - John Goldingay

Two Guys Who Need Their Heads Banged Together Genesis 25: 23- 26: 5 There’s a weird thing about babies (well, many weird things). I often reflected on our having two sons, born of the same mother and father, more or less brought up in the same way by the same parents, who turned …

Written
1 credit

Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - Brothers United and Divided

by SPCK - John Goldingay

Brothers United and Divided Genesis 25: 7- 22 Not so many years ago, my wife and I were part of a regulation three-generation family. My mother, our only surviving parent, was at the top. We were in the middle. Our sons and their wives were at the bottom. Then, within two years, …

Written
1 credit

Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - The First Romance?

by SPCK - John Goldingay

The First Romance? Genesis 24: 49- 25: 6 Ann and I were sitting in a restaurant waiting for dinner to arrive. There should have been jazz, but the restaurant had been busted by the city authorities for not having a music license, so it was quiet, and I was reading to Ann from Bar…

Written
1 credit

Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - How to Find Isaac a Wife

by SPCK - John Goldingay

How To Find Isaac A Wife Genesis 24: 21-48 The first of the “Four Spiritual Laws” that have been the starting point for many people coming to faith in Christ is that “God loves you and offers a wonderful plan for your life.” The law is supported by scriptural verses affirming God…

Written
1 credit

Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - Where to Find Isaac a Wife

by SPCK - John Goldingay

Where To Find Isaac a Wife Genesis 24: 1-20 When you make your short list of the things that you pray most concerning your children, their being able to marry the “right” person (and keep that marriage going) is near the top of the list. Our sons married beautiful, strong women w…

Written
1 credit

Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - When Your Spouse Dies

by SPCK - John Goldingay

When Your Spouse Dies Genesis 22: 20- 23: 20 I know where I want to bury my wife and where I want to be buried. Actually, it’s rather that I know where I want our ashes to be scattered. We spent the first night of our honeymoon in a hotel in Dovedale in England (we could afford o…

Written
1 credit

Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - Now I Know

by SPCK - John Goldingay

Now I Know Genesis 22: 11- 19 In 1969, as the Vietnam war reached its peak, the Canadian Jewish poet and songwriter Leonard Cohen recorded a song about “The Story of Isaac.” The first two verses imaginatively retell the story from Isaac’s angle, but then the song ricochets into a…

Written
1 credit

Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - On Letting Your Son Die

by SPCK - John Goldingay

On Letting Your Son Die Genesis 22: 3- 10 What on earth does it do to you to have your father go to the edge of killing you? What does it do to your relationship to your father, and what does it do to your view of God? A seminary colleague of mine in England, who (like me) was al…

Written
1 credit

Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - The Test

by SPCK - John Goldingay

The Test Genesis 21: 33- 22: 2 I am writing at the beginning of Lent, and I have been thinking about the story of Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness, when he was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the Devil. Every time I get to the end of that sentence, I hav…

Written
1 credit

Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - On Watching Your Son Die

by SPCK - John Goldingay

On Watching Your Son Die Genesis 21: 15-32 Today I read about the death of the young son of the leader of the opposition party in the U.K. parliament. The boy had been born with cerebral palsy and a severe form of epilepsy, and in a sense his parents had been watching him die all…

Advanced Search

How to use Advanced Search

Lectionary Search