2 Corinthians - Treasure in Earthenware Pots
2 Corinthians - Treasure in Earthenware Pots
by SPCK - N T Wright
Treasure in Earthenware Pots 2 CORINTHIANS 4.7-12 Sir Oliver Franks was one of the most distinguished men in Oxford during my time as an undergraduate. He had been a professor of philosophy at an early age; he had been head of an Oxford college, still very young; he had been chai…
Acts for Everyone Part 2 - Warding off the Inevitable
Acts for Everyone Part 2 - Warding off the Inevitable
by SPCK - N T Wright
Warding off the Inevitable Acts 21.15-26 One of the oldest and best-known legends in English history is the story of King Canute. (He was probably called Knut or something like that, but we’ll leave him in his usual popular form for now.) According to the legend, he had his thron…
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - Warning Signs on the Wrong Road
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - Warning Signs on the Wrong Road
by SPCK - N T Wright
Warning Signs on the Wrong Road Ephesians 2.1-7 Many years ago, I was staying for a few days in Cape Town, South Africa. Among the people I wanted to meet was an elderly man who lived on the edge of the city, in one of the outer suburbs. We arranged by telephone that I should dri…
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - Warning: Don't Trust the Flesh
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - Warning: Don't Trust the Flesh
by SPCK - N T Wright
Warning: Don’t Trust in the Flesh Philippians 3.1-6 If you saw a movie advertisement which highlighted the word FLESH, you would know what it meant. Pornography, no doubt. Graphic sexual scenes, quite likely. Or at least that’s what they would want you to think, to try to lure yo…
The Pastoral Letters - Vessels for God's Use
The Pastoral Letters - Vessels for God's Use
by SPCK - N T Wright
Vessels for God’s Use 2Timothy 2.20-26 ‘My wife and I are about to move house again. We’ve done it quite often enough already, but I have a new job to go to, and there it is. And so, once more, we’ve had to think about all the things we own – the clutter of old china and furnitur…
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B - Wednesday: First Week in Lent Year B
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B - Wednesday: First Week in Lent Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B WEEK 1: WEDNESDAY... ...I stood by the side of the stream and scratched my head. There used to be a bridge there, but it had been washed away in a storm some years before. I suspect the locals – this was in a remote area of the Scottish highlands – w…
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B - Saturday: First Week in Holy Week Year B
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B - Saturday: First Week in Holy Week Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B WEEK 1: SATURDAY... ...Fans of detective stories will know the drill. The main lines of the plot are reasonably clear, or so it appears. But somewhere on the way there will be a clue, a hint, a nudge, which the alert reader will pick up. The culprit …
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B - Tuesday: First Week in Lent Year B
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B - Tuesday: First Week in Lent Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B WEEK 1: TUESDAY... You know the revolution has become serious when its leaders appoint an alternative government. The Western world watched and waited in the early months of 2011 as the Libyan rebels set up a kind of shadow body. There was still a ‘g…
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B - Friday: Week 2 in Lent Year B
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B - Friday: Week 2 in Lent Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B WEEK 2: FRIDAY... ...So there we were on the boat, we didn’t know why he was in such a hurry that we should get away, and we didn’t know where he’d gone now or what he was expecting would happen next. It just seemed that there was quite a sense of ex…
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B - Monday: Week 1 in Lent Year B
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B - Monday: Week 1 in Lent Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B WEEK 1: MONDAY... ...I am writing this not long after the worldwide commemorations that took place on the tenth anniversary of the terrible terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on September 11, 2001. In many countries around the globe, people…
Lent for Everyone Year A - Tuesday Holy Week Year A
Lent for Everyone Year A - Tuesday Holy Week Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
HOLY WEEK: TUESDAY . Matthew 26.36 –56 Put this passage alongside the other time when Jesus took Peter, James and John away with him by themselves. In chapter 17, the four of them went up a mountain, and the disciples watched in amazement as Jesus was transfigured before them, sh…
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B - Tuesday: Third Week in Lent Year B
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B - Tuesday: Third Week in Lent Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B WEEK 3: TUESDAY... ...I once watched as an angry crowd burnt a Russian flag. Soviet military aircraft had shot down a Korean civilian plane on 1 September 1983, over the Pacific Ocean, on the suspicion that it had been spying. All on board were kille…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Second Sunday of Christmas Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Second Sunday of Christmas Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Second Sunday of Christmas Jeremiah 31.7–14 Ephesians 1.3–14 John 1.1–18 Take a deep breath, and try reading Ephesians 1.3–14 all in one go. It is, after all, a single sentence in the Greek, a Christian version of the Jewish-style prayer, ‘Blessed be the God who . . .’. Only …
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Sunday Next Before Lent Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Sunday Next Before Lent Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Sunday Next Before Lent Exodus 34.29–end 2 Corinthians 3.12—4.2 Luke 9.28–43 The intriguing thing about Moses coming down the mountain with his face shining was that he didn’t know. He had simply been talking with God; it was only when Aaron and the others met him that he rea…
Lent for Everyone Year A - Tuesday: Fourth Week in Lent Year A
Lent for Everyone Year A - Tuesday: Fourth Week in Lent Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
WEEK 4: TUESDAY Matthew 20; focused on 20.1–16 The game was nearly over, and neither side had scored a goal. The spectators were getting angry, and the players were exhausted. One player on the home team, in particular, had worked tirelessly the whole game, running from end to en…
Lent for Everyone Year A - Thursday: Fourth Week in Lent Year A