Mark for Everyone - The Calling of the Disciples
Mark for Everyone - The Calling of the Disciples
by SPCK - N T Wright
Mark For Everyone MARK 1.14–20 The Calling of the Disciples... ...The poet John Betjeman describes in his verse autobiography how his father put pressure on him to follow him into the family business. The young John had no desire to do so; he wanted to be a poet. That’s just a st…
Luke for Everyone - The Celebration of Jesus
Luke for Everyone - The Celebration of Jesus
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Celebration of Jesus Luke 10.17-24 What was it like being Jesus? That’s one of the hardest questions for anyone reading the gospels, but this passage gives us some clues. It’s all too easy for Christians to make the mistake of thinking that he just sailed through life with ea…
Mark for Everyone - The Burial of Jesus
Mark for Everyone - The Burial of Jesus
by SPCK - N T Wright
Mark For Everyone MARK 15.40–47 The Burial of Jesus... ...Yesterday a friend came to see me in great excitement. He had been in Jerusalem a few weeks earlier, and had happened to be present when an archaeologist stumbled upon a previously unknown first-century tomb, just outside …
Paul for Everyone Romans part 1 - The Call to Holy Living
Paul for Everyone Romans part 1 - The Call to Holy Living
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Call to Holy Living ROMANS 6.12-14 We ended the last section with a picture of someone moving house, changing from one landlord to another. Let’s extend that a bit, and imagine that I am a smallholder living out in the countryside, about a thousand years ago. My little farm s…
Matthew for Everyone Part 1 - The Canaanite Woman
Matthew for Everyone Part 1 - The Canaanite Woman
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Canaanite Woman Matthew 15.21-28 One of the great moral and cultural issues of the last hundred years has been racial identity. The world was horrified to learn that the German Nazis had killed six million people whose only crime was to be Jews. The world was then increasingl…
Mark for Everyone - The Calling of Levi
Mark for Everyone - The Calling of Levi
by SPCK - N T Wright
Mark For Everyone MARK 2.13–17 The Calling of Levi... ...There are some jobs where you need a particularly thick skin. In many modern Western countries, one of the worst is being a parking attendant or traffic warden. All day long it’s your job to give people parking tickets, to …
Matthew for Everyone Part 1 - The Calming of the Storm
Matthew for Everyone Part 1 - The Calming of the Storm
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Calming of the Storm Matthew 8.23-27 The sea has always been a symbol of wild, untamable power. You only have to stand beside the ocean, even on a calm day, to sense something of it. There is so much of it, for a start; when the tide comes in, up a beach, imagine how many gal…
Matthew for Everyone Part 1 - The Call of Matthew
Matthew for Everyone Part 1 - The Call of Matthew
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Call of Matthew Matthew 9.9-17 I was a teenager in the famous 1960s. Revolution was in the air. Protests, especially among young people, were the order of the day. Young Americans protested against the Vietnam war. Students in Paris told factory workers they had nothing to lo…
Acts for Everyone Part 2 - The End is Where We Start From
Acts for Everyone Part 2 - The End is Where We Start From
by SPCK - N T Wright
The End is Where We Start FromActs 28.23-31 When I was an undergraduate, I played the trombone (badly) in various instant home-made orchestras. There were plenty of budding conductors around, eager to try out their skills, and they would organize concerts at a couple of weeks’ …
Paul for Everyone Romans part 2 - The Divine Purpose, and Limited Role, of Ruling Authorities
Paul for Everyone Romans part 2 - The Divine Purpose, and Limited Role, of Ruling Authorities
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Divine Purpose, and Limited Role, of Ruling Authorities ROMANS 13.1-7 When you hear the word ‘policeman’, what is your instant reaction? For many people growing up in Britain when I was young, the policeman was a friendly and familiar figure. (There weren’t many policewomen a…
Matthew for Everyone Part 2 - The Desolating Sacrilege
Matthew for Everyone Part 2 - The Desolating Sacrilege
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Desolating Sacrilege Matthew 24.15-28 In many countries, one of the things children look forward to is going away to a summer camp. The weather is warm, there is swimming and boating, there are old friends and new ones, there are songs round a campfire, there are sports and g…
John for Everyone part 2 - The Death of Lazarus
John for Everyone part 2 - The Death of Lazarus
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Death of Lazarus John 11.1-16 Why didn’t they do something? A friend of mine had been invited to take on the leadership of a vibrant, growing church. He and his family were eager to go and meet this new challenge. But the church authorities seemed to be dragging their feet ab…
Paul for Everyone Romans part 1 - The Double "Law" and the Miserable "I"
Paul for Everyone Romans part 1 - The Double "Law" and the Miserable "I"
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Double “Law” and the Miserable “I” ROMANS 7.21-25 When you do a complicated mathematical sum, you end up by drawing a line across the page and displaying the result, or, if you like, your ‘findings’. The same thing happens after a lengthy judicial review of some complex quest…
Matthew for Everyone Part 2 - The Death of Judas
Matthew for Everyone Part 2 - The Death of Judas
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Death of Judas Matthew 27.1-10 Perhaps the most interesting thing about this story is the people who do not show remorse. In many countries, a feature of the criminal justice system is that people who have been jailed for serious crimes often become eligible for parole, or po…
Mark for Everyone - The Demon-Possessed Boy
Mark for Everyone - The Demon-Possessed Boy
by SPCK - N T Wright
Mark For Everyone MARK 9.14–29 The Demon-Possessed Boy... ...Our mountain walk started quite easily. We strolled along the first mile or two, following the red flashes of paint on nearby rocks, which marked the route. Only a gentle incline; we didn’t even break into a sweat. We b…
John for Everyone part 2 - The Empty Tomb
John for Everyone part 2 - The Empty Tomb
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Empty Tomb John 20.1-10 Darkness on the face of the deep. The formless beginning, the chaos. The void. The beginning. The wind and the word. God’s breath, God’s speech, summoning things never known before. Life and light. The first day. Creation. In the beginning was the Word…
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - The Dying and the Rising with Christ
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - The Dying and the Rising with Christ
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Dying and the Rising with Christ Colossians 2.20-3.4 ‘I’ll just be two minutes,’ I said, leaving my friends on the street corner while I went to fetch the car. It was raining, and we’d just come out of the theatre. But I wasn’t two minutes. I took more like ten. They were sta…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The First Sunday of Epiphany Year A