Mark for Everyone - Clean and Unclean
Mark for Everyone - Clean and Unclean
by SPCK - N T Wright
Mark For Everyone MARK 7.14–23 ..Back to jokes again. Have you ever told a joke and seen a row of blank stares? They didn’t get it? What can you do? Explain it? Surely that’ll take all the fun out of it. Yes, but a parable isn’t a joke. This one in particular was no laughing matt…
Paul for Everyone Romans part 2 - Coming to Rome at Last
Paul for Everyone Romans part 2 - Coming to Rome at Last
by SPCK - N T Wright
Coming to Rome at Last ROMANS 15.14-24 I mentioned earlier in this book how, when my family and I first moved to North America, we were struck again and again at the thought of what the pioneers had achieved in such very recent history. They had navigated uncharted rivers, climbe…
The Pastoral Letters - Come To Me Soon
The Pastoral Letters - Come To Me Soon
by SPCK - N T Wright
Come to me Soon 2Timothy 4.9-22 One of the accidental spin-offs from early Christianity was the invention of the book. There may have been some primitive books before, but these were different. Most writing in the ancient world was either on clay tablets or on parchment scrolls, …
The Pastoral Letters - Commands to Households
The Pastoral Letters - Commands to Households
by SPCK - N T Wright
Commands to Households Titus 2.1-10 I was at a meeting yesterday of the governors of a local school. The head teacher was presenting his annual report. With pardonable pride he described how the school choir had gone on a tour around three Canadian cities, singing in cathedrals, …
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - Citizens of Heaven
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - Citizens of Heaven
by SPCK - N T Wright
Citizens of Heaven Philippians 3.17-4.1 The word ‘colony’ today is not exactly popular. It rings of the old days of imperialism, when several European countries were expanding their influence in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and were vying with each other to see who could grab …
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Comment for the Faith
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Comment for the Faith
by SPCK - N T Wright
Contend for the Faith Judah 1-4 In my teens and my early twenties, one of my passions was rock-climbing. I wouldn’t say I was an utterly fearless climber; I had a proper respect for danger, and didn’t try to do things which were too far outside my competence. But I relished the c…
Paul for Everyone Romans part 2 - Commending Phoebe, Greeting Friends
Paul for Everyone Romans part 2 - Commending Phoebe, Greeting Friends
by SPCK - N T Wright
Commending Phoebe, Greeting Friends ROMANS 16.1-16 A farmer in the English Midlands was ploughing a field when the plough struck a solid object. Thinking it was a large rock, he stopped to move it. But it wasn’t a rock. It was an ancient chest, dating (so the museum told him when…
Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians - Children of the Light
Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians - Children of the Light
by SPCK - N T Wright
Children of the Light Thessalonians 5.1-11 The story is told of a minister who dreamed that he was preaching a sermon, and woke up to find it was true. One can hardly imagine that happening to St Paul – although there is the famous story of the lad who nodded off during one of Pa…
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - Closing Thanks and Greetings
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - Closing Thanks and Greetings
by SPCK - N T Wright
Closing Thanks and Greetings Philippians 4.14-23 Sometimes when you get to the end of a novel or short story, there is a moment when something is revealed that makes sense of a mood, a motive, a feeling that has been in the narrative all along. At last we understand why that man …
Acts for Everyone Part 2 - Confusion in Lystra
Acts for Everyone Part 2 - Confusion in Lystra
by SPCK - N T Wright
Confusion in LystraActs 14. 8-20 I have a sneaking sympathy for the medical profession. Two or three generations ago, everybody knew that there were all kinds of diseases that the doctors couldn’t cure. They would do their best with what was available. They would offer sympathy…
The Pastoral Letters - Continue in the Scriptures
The Pastoral Letters - Continue in the Scriptures
by SPCK - N T Wright
Continue in the Scriptures! 2Timothy 3.10-17 There was once an American professor who went for a year to Oxford as a visiting academic. When he and his wife arrived, they were looking round one of the older parts of the college of which he was to be a member. Amid what appeared t…
Matthew for Everyone Part 2 - Condemnation of Scribes and Pharisees
Matthew for Everyone Part 2 - Condemnation of Scribes and Pharisees
by SPCK - N T Wright
Condemnation of Scribes and Pharisees (1) Matthew 23.13-22 I once preached a sermon in a church in America. I spoke particularly of the way in which the ancient pagan gods and goddesses were starting to infiltrate our culture once more, and how as Christians we should learn to re…
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Contend for the Faith
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Contend for the Faith
by SPCK - N T Wright
Contend for the Faith Judah 1-4 In my teens and my early twenties, one of my passions was rock-climbing. I wouldn’t say I was an utterly fearless climber; I had a proper respect for danger, and didn’t try to do things which were too far outside my competence. But I relished the c…
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Confirm Your Call
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Confirm Your Call
by SPCK - N T Wright
Confirm Your Call! 2 Peter 1.1-11 My grandson, aged one and a half, was taken the other day into a big toyshop. It was a riot of exciting things, all in bright colours. From floor to ceiling, from one end of the shop to the other, and all over the tables and stands in the middle,…
Acts for Everyone part 1 - David Speaks of Jesus' Resurrection
Acts for Everyone part 1 - David Speaks of Jesus' Resurrection
by SPCK - N T Wright
David Speaks of Jesus’ Resurrection Acts 2. 22-36 I watched the Press Gallery during the speech. For most of the time, the journalists looked bored. One was sharpening his pencil; another was varnishing her nails. Then, quite suddenly, all that changed. Notebooks were seized, sho…
Paul for Everyone Romans part 1 - Creation Renewed and Patient Hope
Paul for Everyone Romans part 1 - Creation Renewed and Patient Hope
by SPCK - N T Wright
Creation Renewed and Patient Hope ROMANS 8.18-25 I walked through the wood several times before I realized what the signpost meant. The wood was thick, with paths leading this way and that. I knew some of them quite well, and had my favourites among them. There was the one that l…
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Controversy and Vindication
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Controversy and Vindication
by SPCK - N T Wright
Controversy and Vindication Acts 1.1-18 By common consent (even among those who disagreed with him), John Henry Newman was one of the finest minds of the nineteenth century. Having spent his young adult years as an Anglican priest, he famously converted to Roman Catholicism, and …
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - Darkness and Light in Matters of Sex