Job for Everyone - Tested to the Limit
Job for Everyone - Tested to the Limit
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Tested to the Limit Job 34 31- 35: 16 One aspect of the forty-two years during which my first wife had multiple sclerosis was that it was a time of periodic testing, or even of continuous testing (but it was also joyful). As she got to be recurrently tired, or could no longer do …
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - Stuff Happens
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - Stuff Happens
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Stuff Happens Genesis 12: 6b-10 Three or four years ago, a friend of mine got a job as a youth pastor on the East Coast. It meant his wife had to give up her job in California, but she had originally come from the East Coast, and she was entirely happy to make the move. They foun…
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - Teach Me
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - Teach Me
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Teach Me Psalm 119: 49-72 I’m grading student papers, and one effect that has on me (alongside making me want to commit suicide) is to make me puzzle over what it is that enables people to learn. There are people who have read the Scriptures with fresh eyes, seen things they had …
Exodus and Leviticus - The 3a.m. Scream
Exodus and Leviticus - The 3a.m. Scream
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The 3 a.m. Scream EXODUS 12: 28- 13: 16 It was midnight, not 3 a.m., but in the Western world where we organize our own time rather than following nature’s time, midnight is not the middle of the night; it is about the time I put out the light. So think of yourself as having been…
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - The Bird in a Cage
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - The Bird in a Cage
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Bird in a Cage 2 Kings 18:1-37 When my sons were babies, we would play trust exercises with them, though I’m not sure whether we or they realized this was what we were doing. They would leap from some height, such as a wall, knowing that father or mother would catch them. As …
Job for Everyone - The Angry Young Man
Job for Everyone - The Angry Young Man
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Angry Young Man Job 32 1-22 I was a “word child.” Indeed, I probably still am, though I am also a music child and a people child. A Word Child is a novel by Iris Murdoch about a man for whom words are the means of his redemption or happiness. Words save him. For me, that was …
Job for Everyone - The Awe-Inspiring Creator
Job for Everyone - The Awe-Inspiring Creator
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Awe-Inspiring Creator Job 36 26-37: 24 The window by my desk looks out over our patio, where I can see geraniums starting to bloom, blue jays coming to bathe in the fountain, and squirrels trying to remember where they stored their nuts. A plant of basil sits on a table and w…
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - The Appeal of the Lost Sheep
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - The Appeal of the Lost Sheep
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Appeal of the Lost Sheep Psalm 119:145-176 A Bedouin herdsman tells of how he was tending a flock of goats in the Judean wilderness near the Dead Sea. Before sleeping, the herdsmen would count their flocks, but for some reason this herdsman failed to do the count for two days…
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - The Attraction of Images
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - The Attraction of Images
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Attraction of Images Deuteronomy 4: 1-49 Two or three weeks ago I went for a few days holiday and drove from Los Angeles up the coastal highway to Monterey. I had always heard it was a beautiful drive, and it is. The second night I stopped at a motel and noticed as I checked …
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - The Audacity of Hope
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - The Audacity of Hope
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Audacity of Hope Genesis 5: 21-32 At a lunch the weekend after Tony Blair became British prime minister in 1997, I was talking with a woman at our table. The event had reminded me of the election of Harold Wilson’s government in Britain in 1964, and I had been thinking of the…
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - The Cloak and the Power of Elijah
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - The Cloak and the Power of Elijah
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Cloak and the Power of Elijah 2 Kings 2:1-3:3 I once had to change a flat tire by the Dead Sea. I jacked the car up and in the process of changing the tire or loosening or tightening the wheel nuts, I lay on the sandy but hard ground. It was summer and hot, and when I got up …
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - The Capital of Corruption
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - The Capital of Corruption
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Capital of Corruption 1 Kings 21:8-29 Sitting on the subway on the way home last night, I overheard a conversation between two young men about the candidates for our upcoming gubernatorial elections. (Isn’t that a great word, gubernatorial? We don’t have it in British English…
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - The Chance to be a Servant Leader
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - The Chance to be a Servant Leader
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Chance to Be a Servant leader 1 Kings 12:1-32 One of my faculty colleagues was asked to become director of the chapel in the seminary, and she loved to relate how she needed to go and talk to the provost of the seminary (vice principal in Brit-speak) about her role, and how h…
Joshua, Judges and Ruth for Everyone - The Choice
Joshua, Judges and Ruth for Everyone - The Choice
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Choice RUTH 1:10-19a When my wife’s multiple sclerosis was first diagnosed, I wrote to tell her pastor, who had also been a mentor of mine. I remember reading his reply. He told us how that morning he happened to have been studying the story of Jesus’ making the water into wi…
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - The Competition to Be the Shrewdest Sheep Farmer
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - The Competition to Be the Shrewdest Sheep Farmer
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Competition to Be the Shrewdest Sheep Farmer Genesis 30:22-43 After church this morning, one of our senior laypeople asked me about Hagar. Someone had implied in a comment to her that Hagar was a prostitute and/or a concubine. In effect I explained that Hagar’s status was mor…
Joshua, Judges and Ruth for Everyone - The Country That Remains to Be Possessed is Very Great
Joshua, Judges and Ruth for Everyone - The Country That Remains to Be Possessed is Very Great
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Country That Remains to Be Possessed Is Very Great JOSHUA 13:1- 14:15 At my wife’s memorial service in England this past summer, I saw one of my cousins whom I had not seen for over a decade, and this week I had a Christmas card from her. She wrote, “Various members of the fa…
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - The Deceiver Deceived
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - The Deceiver Deceived
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Deceiver Deceived Genesis 29:14b-31 The chapters in Genesis for Everyone regularly begin with a story making a link with our own world, but who needs a story to introduce the account of Jacob’s wedding? If I made a list of the moments in the Bible that I would most like to ha…
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - The Cry from Sodom