All Desires Known - Eucharistic Prayer for Christmas Eve
All Desires Known - Eucharistic Prayer for Christmas Eve
by SPCK - Janet Morley
EUCHARISTIC PRAYER FOR CHRISTMAS EVE Eternal Wisdom, we praise you and give you thanks, because you emptied yourself of power and became foolishness for our sake: for on this night you were delivered as one of us, a baby needy and naked, wrapped in a woman’s blood... This prayer …
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - Proper 12 Year B
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - Proper 12 Year B
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
Proper 12 John 6: 1-21 Gaze on the crowd expecting to see more miraculous cures and wondering who will be healed next. They are in for a shock, for instead they all become part of a miracle, for today Jesus is not concerned for their aches and pains but for their hunger. Taste th…
Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians - Final Remarks
Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians - Final Remarks
by SPCK - N T Wright
Final Remarks 2 Thessalonians 3.14-18 Every parent knows that there are times when a child has to be punished. No parent worthy of the name will want to do so in anger and bitterness. Every true father or mother faces the difficult task of communicating to a child the fact that, …
Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - Rich and Poor at the Table of the Lord
Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - Rich and Poor at the Table of the Lord
by SPCK - N T Wright
Rich and Poor at the Table of the Lord 1 Corinthians 11.17-22 The school groundsman was working to get the sports field ready for the big match the next day. The same pitch had been used for both hockey and football, and he needed to be sure that it was now marked out afresh with…
Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - The Table of the Lord and the Table of Demons
Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - The Table of the Lord and the Table of Demons
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Table of the Lord and the Table of Demons 1 Corinthians 10.14-22 ‘Christianity’, declared the great Archbishop William Temple, ‘is the most materialistic of all religions.’ He had in mind the commitment of genuine Christianity to the faith that God really became human in Jesu…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 19 Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 19 Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 19 Jeremiah 4.11–28 1 Timothy 1.12–17 Luke 15.1–10 In a recent article, a priest from another tradition described the cheerful mixture of spiritualities which made up his regular personal prayer. It was a vivid and moving account of a busy man nourishing and cherishing a s…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - The Third Sunday before Advent Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - The Third Sunday before Advent Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Third Sunday Before Advent Jonah 3.1-5, 10 Hebrews 9.24-28 Mark 1.14-20 ‘Once, only once, and once for all.’ The hymn that starts thus withdraws with the left hand some of what it gives with the right, hinting that Christ’s unique sacrifice is still somehow present in the e…
Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - The Gospel of the Messiah
Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - The Gospel of the Messiah
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Gospel of the Messiah 1 Corinthians 15.1-11 The old man made me a cup of tea, and took me through to his sitting room. ‘Now you must see this,’ he said, passing me a much-handled photograph album. ‘This tells you how we came here.’ The pictures told their own story. The happy…
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - Proper 11 Year B
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - Proper 11 Year B
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
Proper 11 Mark 6.30–34, 53–56 Gaze at the crush as people lean forward and grab the cloak that wraps around the shoulders of one extraordinary man. They stretch out to touch it, they push and shove to get near the front, to stroke his tunic and finger the hem. It is almost as if …
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B - Maunday Thursday Year B
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B - Maunday Thursday Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B HOLY WEEK MAUNDAY THURSDAY... ...When I taught in Oxford University, I used repeatedly to ask the Theology Faculty for funds to take students to the Holy Land. Having been there myself, I knew that you could learn things in a few days on site that wo…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 14 Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 14 Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 14 2 Samuel 18.5-9, 31-33 Ephesians 4.25-5.2 John 6.35, 41-51 Come, believe, and eat. Simple yet profound, carrying us with characteristic Johannine effortlessness from bread by the lake to the bread of life. The bridge between them is Jesus himself, who will give his fles…
Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - Recognizing the Body
Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - Recognizing the Body
by SPCK - N T Wright
Recognizing the Body 1 Corinthians 11.23-34 I once witnessed a moving reconciliation scene, and the most moving thing about it was that no words were necessary. A lay minister had been storing up resentments against the clergyman who was the senior pastor in the church where they…
Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - Scandal and Judgment
Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - Scandal and Judgment
by SPCK - N T Wright
Scandal and Judgment 1 Corinthians 5.1-5 When I was a boy, studying Greek and Latin classics, the texts we were given to study often had bits cut out. There were lines missing from poems, and sometimes entire sections; in one case (in the Roman writer Juvenal, I recall) a whole p…
Hebrews for Everyone - The Finished Achievement of the Messiah
Hebrews for Everyone - The Finished Achievement of the Messiah
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Finished Achievement of the Messiah Hebrews 10.11-18 Many of us in the modern world do our work sitting down. I’m sitting at a desk as I write this; I’m aware that my posture isn’t perfect, that I’m in danger of getting stiff shoulders, and that if I took more time to walk ar…
Mark for Everyone - The Last Supper
Mark for Everyone - The Last Supper
by SPCK - N T Wright
Mark For Everyone MARK 14.12–25 The Last Supper... ...On my fortieth birthday, my students gave me a surprise party. While I was taking a service in the college chapel, they carefully cleared the papers in my room, decorated it from floor to ceiling, and laid out a magnificent sp…
Paul for Everyone Romans part 1 - The Two Types of Slavery
Paul for Everyone Romans part 1 - The Two Types of Slavery
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Two Types of Slavery ROMANS 6.15-19 One of our newspaper columnists came up with a bright idea for achieving two purposes at once. British society (in common with many others in the Western world) is facing a worrying rise in youth crime. Many young people have no jobs, no pu…
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - Proper 15 Year B