Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 3 Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 3 Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 3 Genesis 45.3–11, 15 1 Corinthians 15.35–38, 42–50 Luke 6.27–38 The resurrection is central to Christianity, not just as a dogma but as a driving principle. Unfortunately, Paul’s writing in this, the earliest discussion of it, is dense and difficult, and some of the regul…
Revelation for Everyone - Reigning for a Thousand Years
Revelation for Everyone - Reigning for a Thousand Years
by SPCK - N T Wright
Reigning for a Thousand Years Revelation 20.1-6 After I published my book Surprised by Hope, I had a number of letters and emails from people telling me their experiences with thinking it through, leading study groups on it, and in some cases preaching in the new way I was recomm…
Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - Recognizing the Body
Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - Recognizing the Body
by SPCK - N T Wright
Recognizing the Body 1 Corinthians 11.23-34 I once witnessed a moving reconciliation scene, and the most moving thing about it was that no words were necessary. A lay minister had been storing up resentments against the clergyman who was the senior pastor in the church where they…
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - Reconciled and Firm in Faith
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - Reconciled and Firm in Faith
by SPCK - N T Wright
Reconciled and Firm in Faith Colossians 1.21-23 People come from all over the world to see it, but I would have been just as happy to stay away. On the edge of Minneapolis, in the United States, is a shopping centre so vast that there is room for an entire fun-fair in the middle …
Luke for Everyone - Reading the Signs of the Times
Luke for Everyone - Reading the Signs of the Times
by SPCK - N T Wright
Reading the Signs of the Times Luke 12.49-59 The great composer Ludwig van Beethoven used sometimes to play a trick on polite salon audiences, especially when he guessed that they weren’t really interested in serious music. He would perform a piece on the piano, one of his own sl…
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Rescued by God's Power
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Rescued by God's Power
by SPCK - N T Wright
Rescued by God’s Power Judah 17-25 Sometimes a quick burst of biblical dialogue catches a truth in sharp relief. After many generations in which the people of Israel had gone from bad to worse, led by a succession of wicked kings, God finally sends the prophet Elijah to sort it a…
Revelation bible study guide - Reaping the Harvest and Preparing the Plagues
Revelation bible study guide - Reaping the Harvest and Preparing the Plagues
by SPCK - N T Wright
Reaping the Harvest and Preparing the Plagues Revelation 14: 14-15: 8 Imagine a village in the outlying countryside of ancient Judaea. It’s a long way from the city, and even traders don’t come there that often, far less government officials. A circuit judge comes to the neighbor…
Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians - Redeemed from the Law's Curse
Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians - Redeemed from the Law's Curse
by SPCK - N T Wright
Redeemed from the Law’s Curse Galatians 3.10-14 I sat in the traffic jam for two hours. The road signs told me I was pointing in the right direction. From what I knew of the road it looked as though I was in the right place. But nothing was moving. The clock ticked slowly on; I w…
Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians - Requests for Prayer
Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians - Requests for Prayer
by SPCK - N T Wright
Requests for Prayer 2 Thessalonians 3.1-5 Among all the strange dreams that visit us at night, one of the most frustrating – which happens to me quite frequently – is the dream of trying to run and discovering that it’s impossible to do so. My legs feel like lead: they become hop…
Lent for Everyone Year A - Saturday after Ash Wednesday Year A
Lent for Everyone Year A - Saturday after Ash Wednesday Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
SATURDAY AFTER ASH WEDNESDAY Matthew 4.1–11 It starts with a flicker of thought, a tiny little idea that darts across the mind while you’re doing something else. It seems harmless, just one of the millions of things that the human brain comes up with. But then it returns, a minut…
Acts for Everyone Part 2 - Round the coast and Out of the Window
Acts for Everyone Part 2 - Round the coast and Out of the Window
by SPCK - N T Wright
Round the Coast and Out of the Window Acts 20.1-12 The greatest epic of modern times is based on a journey. Millions who have seen the movies of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, not to mention the millions who have read the books, sometimes over and over, are often so ta…
Acts for Everyone Part 2 - Roman Citizenship Comes in Useful
Acts for Everyone Part 2 - Roman Citizenship Comes in Useful
by SPCK - N T Wright
Roman Citizenship Comes in Useful Acts 22.23-30 CAN YOU PROVE IT? The sign in the shop selling alcohol challenges all and sundry. I was once buying a drink in one of the small bars in O’Hare Airport in Chicago and was astonished, as a bald and bearded middle-aged man, to be asked…
Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - Scandal and Judgment
Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - Scandal and Judgment
by SPCK - N T Wright
Scandal and Judgment 1 Corinthians 5.1-5 When I was a boy, studying Greek and Latin classics, the texts we were given to study often had bits cut out. There were lines missing from poems, and sometimes entire sections; in one case (in the Roman writer Juvenal, I recall) a whole p…
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B - Saturday Holy Week Year B
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B - Saturday Holy Week Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B HOLY WEEK HOLY SATURDAY... ...It is hard to tell which was more horrible. We watched on the television, some while ago now, as the earthquake off the coast of Japan produced a terrible tsunami. The waves came crashing in, the enormous power of millio…
Revelation for Everyone - Sealing God's People
Revelation for Everyone - Sealing God's People
by SPCK - N T Wright
Sealing God’s People Revelation 7.1-8 Just when you think you are nearly at the top of the mountain, you crest a ridge and there . . . is another ridge half a mile ahead, steeper than the one you’ve just climbed. That is how it feels to get to this point in the sequence of the ‘s…
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Sharing the Messiah's Suffering
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Sharing the Messiah's Suffering
by SPCK - N T Wright
Sharing the Messiah’s Sufferings 1 Peter 4.12-19 Early Christian Letters for Everyone 12Beloved, don’t be surprised at the fiery ordeal which is coming upon you to test you, as though this were some strange thing that was happening to you. 13Rather, celebrate! You are sharing the…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Second Sunday of Easter - Year A