Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Fourth Sunday Before Advent Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Fourth Sunday Before Advent Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Fourth Sunday Before Advent Isaiah 1.10–18 2 Thessalonians 1.1–12 Luke 19.1–10 Luke cuts Zacchaeus even more down to size, describing him with affected pomposity (‘he was a chief tax-collector! He was rich!’) and then pointing out that he was also a bit too small for his own …
The Pastoral Letters - The First Rule: Prayer fo the World
The Pastoral Letters - The First Rule: Prayer fo the World
by SPCK - N T Wright
The First Rule: Prayer for the World 1Timothy 2.1-7 When did you last make a list of people you wanted to pray for? Whose were the first names you wrote down? Most of us would start with the people we know and love best: our spouse, our children, our parents; other close relative…
Revelation for Everyone - The First Four Plagues
Revelation for Everyone - The First Four Plagues
by SPCK - N T Wright
The First Four Plagues Revelation 16.1-9 I was cycling down the road one day when I came up beside my former tutor. I had studied the New Testament with him some years before, and was now engaged on some early work towards my doctorate. ‘How are you getting on?’ he asked. ‘How’s …
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The First Sunday of Advent Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The First Sunday of Advent Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
The First Sunday of Advent Jeremiah 33.14–16 1 Thessalonians 3.9–13 Luke 21.25–36 It is January, ad 69. You are a Greek-speaking Christian in a Roman town in Turkey. You are deeply anxious about the fierce war in Judaea: the Romans have laid siege to Jerusalem; the city faces sta…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The First Sunday of Christmas Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The First Sunday of Christmas Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
The First Sunday of Christmas 1 Samuel 2.18–20, 26 Colossians 3.12–17 Luke 2.41–52 The boyhood stories of Jesus and Samuel jar slightly with one another. Samuel’s mother deliberately takes him to the Temple in order to leave him there; Jesus’ parents intend to take him home, but …
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The First Sunday of Lent Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The First Sunday of Lent Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
The First Sunday of Lent Deuteronomy 26.1–11 Romans 10.8b–13 Luke 4.1–13 These readings are not about ‘temptation’ so much as about true worship. Jesus recognized his temptations as distractions from worshipping and trusting the one true God. To see temptation in terms of rules w…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - The Fifth Sunday of Easter Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - The Fifth Sunday of Easter Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Fifth Sunday of Easter Acts 8.26-40 1 John 4.7-21 John 15.1-8 If you like evangelism, you’ll love Philip’s story. A spirit-led meeting with a court official, who happens to be reading Isaiah 53 and asking the right questions. There is time to converse at leisure; there is wat…
Revelation for Everyone - The Great Rescue
Revelation for Everyone - The Great Rescue
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Great Rescue Revelation 7.9-17 I stopped sleepwalking some time in my mid-twenties, but I can still remember the mixture of fear and excitement I used to feel when, eventually, I would wake up. In my dream, I had been in a room, in a house, in a corridor, somewhere which was …
Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians - The Gospel Comes to Thessalonica
Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians - The Gospel Comes to Thessalonica
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Gospel Comes to Thessalonica Thessalonians 1.1-5 I hesitated long over the decision. I had to make up my mind whether to admit to the university a student whose grades were not quite as high as we would normally require. She was clearly intelligent, and capable of hard work, …
Matthew for Everyone Part 2 - The Great Commandments, and David's Master
Matthew for Everyone Part 2 - The Great Commandments, and David's Master
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Great Commandment, and David’s Master Matthew 22.34-46 I watched on television a tennis match between two of the game’s finest players. Both had been playing well, but towards the end one of them seemed to rise to new heights. The match ended with two stunning games, when the…
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - The Gospel in Public
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - The Gospel in Public
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Gospel in Public Philippians 1.27-30 ‘Don’t let him see you’re afraid.’ My aunt hissed the words into my ear as the big dog came bounding up the street towards us. It seemed silly advice at the time. I was afraid. I was only seven years old and the previous year a small dog h…
Simply Jesus - The Hurricane
Simply Jesus - The Hurricane
by SPCK - N T Wright
The hurricane The gale of Rome and the high-pressure system of Jewish hopes. It takes one more wind to make the perfect storm. And, as in the original Massachusetts disaster, this one was of a different order altogether. To understand this great cyclone, this tropical hurricane, …
John for Everyone part 2 - The Hour Has Come
John for Everyone part 2 - The Hour Has Come
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Hour Has Come John 12.27-36 As I was walking into my study to begin working on this passage, I was alarmed to hear three loud explosions from the other side of the street. We live close to some important national buildings, and there is always a danger that terrorists will so…
Matthew for Everyone Part 1 - The Healing of the Paralytic
Matthew for Everyone Part 1 - The Healing of the Paralytic
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Healing of the Paralytic Matthew 9.1-8 ‘Authority’ has had a bad press, in much of the world, for a hundred years and more now. It goes together, in the popular mind, with nasty ideas like ‘repression’, ‘human rights abuses’, and such like. Think of ‘the authorities’, and wha…
New Testament Prayer for Everyone - The Inheritance and the Spirit
New Testament Prayer for Everyone - The Inheritance and the Spirit
by SPCK - N T Wright
PART 2 PRAYERS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT PRAYERS OF PAUL THE INHERITANCE AND THE SPIRIT Ephesians 1: 11-14 Not far from where I was born there is an ancient castle. It stands imposingly, high above the banks of a river, defying anyone to attack it. These days, the likely attacks come …
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - The Inheritance and the Spirit
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - The Inheritance and the Spirit
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Inheritance and the Spirit Ephesians 1.11-14 Not far from where I was born there is an ancient castle. It stands imposingly, high above the banks of a river, defying anyone to attack it. These days, the likely attacks come from bank managers and tax-collectors rather than mar…
Luke for Everyone - The Healing of the Paralytic Lowered Through the Roof