Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - The Complications of Surrogacy
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - The Complications of Surrogacy
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Complications of Surrogacy Genesis 16: 4b-7 Establishing whether a couple’s problem in having children lies in the man or the woman involves stressful processes of medical investigation. When a woman who had gone through such procedures told me her husband had a zero sperm co…
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - The Creation Story as a Historical Parable
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - The Creation Story as a Historical Parable
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Creation Story as a Historical Parable Genesis 2: 4a Once when our sons were young we were driving through northern France, across a plain with a range of mountains in the background. In the back seat our younger son (who was about twelve) started giving a lecture on how thes…
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - The Dreamer
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - The Dreamer
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Dreamer Genesis 37:5-36 I have known one or two people who had dreams or visions or words from God (indeed, I have had one or two myself). Sometimes these have been rather general and uncheckable, though edifying and at worst harmless. Sometimes they have been vindicated by e…
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - The Expulsion and Its Consequences
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - The Expulsion and Its Consequences
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Expulsion and Its Consequences Genesis 3: 23-24 I was once walking through the seminary campus when I spotted a former student, whom I had known quite well, sitting in a patio area with rather a disconsolate look. When I asked him if he was OK, he replied, “I’ve made a train …
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - The Faithful Master
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - The Faithful Master
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Faithful Master Psalm 119:121-144 One of my former colleagues used to delight to talk about her first appointment with her boss. His opening words to her were “How can I serve you?” “What can I do for you?” “How can I help you do your job?” In a way the questions seem smarmy …
Isaiah for Everyone - The Destiny of All That Is Humanly Impressive
Isaiah for Everyone - The Destiny of All That Is Humanly Impressive
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Destiny of All That is Humanly Impressive Isaiah 2: 6-22 It’s Holy Week, and for more than twenty years a magnificent church not far from where we live put on a glorious Easter pageant in the weeks leading up to Easter, “the largest and most spectacular passion play” in the w…
Exodus and Leviticus - The Expiation Day
Exodus and Leviticus - The Expiation Day
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Expiation Day LEVITICUS : 16: 1-34 I climbed Mount Sinai in September 1973, near the beginning of the seventh month in the Jewish year as Leviticus computes it (counting from Passover), and thus just after the New Year on the modern Jewish calendar. It was five days before Yo…
Isaiah for Everyone - The Downfall of the Superpower
Isaiah for Everyone - The Downfall of the Superpower
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Downfall of the Superpower Last Sunday’s newspaper included three reviews of books on “the state of the union,” one by a Brit, two by Americans, all written by people who love the United States, but all concerned about its decline as the world’s one superpower. It’s often sai…
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - The Divisiveness of Stuff
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - The Divisiveness of Stuff
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Divisiveness of Stuff Genesis 31:1-29 Money divides people from one another. A news item this week related how a twenty-five-year feud had been simmering in a particular family. When the father died, with the mother’s collusion his son concealed his father’s ownership of a nu…
Exodus and Leviticus - The First Enemy and The First Convert
Exodus and Leviticus - The First Enemy and The First Convert
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The First Enemy and the First Convert EXODUS 17: 22- 18: 27 We just watched a movie called The Reader. One of its central characters is a German girl who in about 1940 worked as an S.S. guard in Auschwitz, had been living ever since with the guilt of that, and to the very end nev…
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - The Fog of War
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - The Fog of War
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Fog of War 1 Samuel 13: 23- 14: 52 I recently watched a British movie called In the Loop, a Monty Pythonesque version of how we came to invade Iraq. It was a cynical, fictionalized account of how the implications of intelligence from the Middle East got turned upside down to …
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - The First Romance?
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - The First Romance?
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The First Romance? Genesis 24: 49- 25: 6 Ann and I were sitting in a restaurant waiting for dinner to arrive. There should have been jazz, but the restaurant had been busted by the city authorities for not having a music license, so it was quiet, and I was reading to Ann from Bar…
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - The First Family, the First Worship, the First Acceptance, the First Rejection
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - The First Family, the First Worship, the First Acceptance, the First Rejection
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The First Family, the First worship, the First Acceptance, the First Rejection Genesis 4: 1-5a I once went through quite a long period of time (several years, I think) when God did not seem very real. I didn’t exactly doubt whether God was there; it was just that I didn’t feel Go…
Job for Everyone - The God of Wrath
Job for Everyone - The God of Wrath
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The God of Wrath Job 9: 1-35 We were preparing dinner for people in a homeless shelter on Friday when out of the blue my pastor asked me, “What do you say when people ask you why the God of the Old Testament is so different from the God of the New Testament?” Quick as a flash I r…
Joshua, Judges and Ruth for Everyone - The God of Coincidences
Joshua, Judges and Ruth for Everyone - The God of Coincidences
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The God of Coincidences RUTH 2:10-23 When I was thirteen, I was walking home from school one day and met a teacher from the Sunday school I used to attend but had left two years previously to go to another church. She told me that my old church was about to start a new youth fell…
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - The Fall of the Northern Kingdom
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - The Fall of the Northern Kingdom
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Fall of the Northern Kingdom 2 Kings 17:1-41 I suspect that people think I am an upright kind of guy, and they are not exactly wrong, but I have stories in my past of which I am ashamed and about which they don’t know, and I am not about to tell you these either. They still c…
Exodus and Leviticus - The First Spiritual Gifting
Exodus and Leviticus - The First Spiritual Gifting
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The First Spiritual Gifting EXODUS 31: 1-18 An amazing experience of parenthood is your children’s ability to do things you cannot do. Whereas I can just about play three chords on the guitar but have to think through where to put my fingers at each chord change, our younger son …
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - The God of the Storm