Exodus and Leviticus - How to Celebrate
Exodus and Leviticus - How to Celebrate
by SPCK - John Goldingay
How to Celebrate LEVITICUS 23: 1- 24:9 When my parents could afford it, two or three times as a teenager I was able to go to “camps,” as they would be called in the United States (I am glad to say there were no tents in sight; we slept in school dormitories). It was at one of the…
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - How to Be the Bad Guy
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - How to Be the Bad Guy
by SPCK - John Goldingay
How to Be the Bad Guy 2 Kings 21:1-26 I sometimes wish I knew what was going to happen in the future, though when I think about it, I am not so sure it’s a good idea. When my wife was diagnosed with her multiple sclerosis, if I had known how it would progress over four decades, I…
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - I Have Kept Yahweh's Ways
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - I Have Kept Yahweh's Ways
by SPCK - John Goldingay
I Have Kept Yahweh’s Ways? 2 Samuel 22: 21- 51 Last night I was talking to one of our students who served in the U.S. forces in Iraq as an antiterrorism operative. Like many soldiers, he came home with trauma that he has subsequently had to try to talk through over a period of ye…
Job for Everyone - I Hate the People Who Hate You
Job for Everyone - I Hate the People Who Hate You
by SPCK - John Goldingay
I Hate the People Who Hate You Job 27: 1-23 When I have taken part in “quiet days” for reflection and prayer, three favorite Old Testament texts have been the one about the still, small voice that I mentioned in connection with Job 25–26, the “Be still and know that I am God” of …
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - I Don't Sweat
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - I Don't Sweat
by SPCK - John Goldingay
I Don’t Sweat Genesis 15: 6b-7 On the day before his inauguration as president, someone asked Barack Obama whether he was sweating. “Nah, I don’t sweat,” he replied. “You ever see me sweat?” Not yet, but it’s early, a news report commented. When I was about to move to the United …
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - Human Beings as Gardeners
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - Human Beings as Gardeners
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Human Beings as Gardeners Genesis 2: 8-14 Where I grew up as a toddler in Birmingham, England, my father grew potatoes. Then, when I was at junior school we had a plum tree, and when I was at secondary school we had two apple trees. When I taught at seminary in Nottingham, I grew…
Exodus and Leviticus - Human Promises
Exodus and Leviticus - Human Promises
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Human Promises LEVITICUS 27: 1- 34 A distinctive feature of my seminary in the United States compared with my seminary in Britain is the high number of students who are “pastor’s kids” or “missionary kids.” I have wondered what lay behind this difference. It raises a question rai…
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - I Can Be Wiser Than My Professor
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - I Can Be Wiser Than My Professor
by SPCK - John Goldingay
I Can Be Wiser Than My Professor Psalm 119:97-120 After my class on the Prophets last night, we invited the students back to our home for scones and tea, and during the conversation one of them asked what I enjoyed most about teaching. My response was that I love sending people a…
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - In the World And Also of The World
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - In the World And Also of The World
by SPCK - John Goldingay
In the World and Also of the World 1 Kings 20:1-21: 7 I am getting ready for a task force that is meeting next week to discuss the use of the Bible in the Anglican Communion worldwide. The meeting will be complicated because we include members of the Episcopal Church in the Unite…
Job for Everyone - Insight Lies in Submission to the Lord
Job for Everyone - Insight Lies in Submission to the Lord
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Insight Lies in Submission to the Lord Job 28: 1-28 In two weeks I have to preach at the seminary’s baccalaureate service (a kind of commissioning service, I could call it for U.K. readers). Each year as I have listened appreciatively to the baccalaureate sermon, I have wondered …
Job for Everyone - Is God Not Good or Not Sovereign?
Job for Everyone - Is God Not Good or Not Sovereign?
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Is God Not Good or Not Sovereign? Job 34 1-30 A student has been blowing fuses to me about having to read books that are full of words like eschatology and pneumatology and sentences about God’s “ontological revelatory self-communication and self-transcendence” or about “supralap…
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - Is Saul among the Prophets Too?
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - Is Saul among the Prophets Too?
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Is Saul among the Prophets, Too? 1 Samuel 10: 1- 16 For most of church history, visions and prophecies and miraculous healings have been uncommon events in the mainline churches, but during the time when I was teaching in England, they came to be more common once more, and we use…
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - Is It the End, or Is There Hope
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - Is It the End, or Is There Hope
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Is It the End, or Is There Hope? 2 Kings 24:17-25:30 On the morning of September 11, 2001, I was sitting on my patio when one of my neighbors passed and told me that a plane had flown into one of the Twin Towers in New York. I went indoors and watched transfixed for a while (I di…
Job for Everyone - In the Midst of Life We Are in Death
Job for Everyone - In the Midst of Life We Are in Death
by SPCK - John Goldingay
In the Midst of Life We Are in Death Job 14: 1-22 As a pastor, I have been used to reading words from the beginning of Job 14 at funerals, and specifically as the burial party arrives at the grave with the coffin. The traditional prayer-book version reads,..
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - Is Anything Stable?
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - Is Anything Stable?
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Is Anything Stable? Psalm 89: 1-37 My wife once lived in a house on the side of a canyon in California that seemed capable of tumbling into the ocean if there was an earthquake, and after one worrying quake not far away she took to checking the weekly earthquake reports. Apparent…
Psalms for Everyone - Love Covers a Multitude of Sins
Psalms for Everyone - Love Covers a Multitude of Sins
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Love Covers a Multitude of Sins Psalm 32 Yesterday a federal court found six police officers guilty of shooting six citizens in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. My wife and I were reflecting about how the rest of us can’t simply dissociate ourselves from an event such as the s…
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - Little by Little
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - Little by Little
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Little by Little Deuteronomy 7: 16- 9: 3 In an agonized e-mail I received from a friend, she described herself as constantly frustrated by the fact that she is not as mature as she thinks she should be. “Why do I go back to fighting the same old battles in my spiritual life inste…
Joshua, Judges and Ruth for Everyone - Living as Women in a Man's World