Isaiah for everyone - A Politician’s One Fatal Mistake
Isaiah for everyone - A Politician’s One Fatal Mistake
by SPCK - John Goldingay
A Politician’s One Fatal Mistake When I was the principal of a seminary, I would get lots of mail. Usually my assistant would open it, but on Saturday I would do so, and thus would get first sight of the tricky pieces of correspondence, ones that raised worrying issues or asked q…
Jeremiah for everyone - Another Wicked Play on Words
Jeremiah for everyone - Another Wicked Play on Words
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Another Wicked Play on Words For a while I was the faculty representative on the president’s cabinet in our seminary, which means I had to get up early once a month for a meeting of people in the administration to discuss big policy questions (but not so much their ongoing implem…
Isaiah for everyone - Can a Mother Forget?
Isaiah for everyone - Can a Mother Forget?
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Can a Mother Forget? At a party, I overheard a mother talking to her daughter who is soon to have a baby, about how it would be to look after the baby, and about how it had been for the mother herself in relation to her daughter. The mother had gone back to work soon after her da…
Isaiah for everyone - Choose Your Ending
Isaiah for everyone - Choose Your Ending
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Choose Your Ending There’s a classic movie called The French Lieutenant’s Woman, set in nineteenth-century England, that tells of a tortuous relationship in which a man is powerfully drawn to a woman who hardly belongs to his class and when he is already committed to marrying som…
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs for Everyone - Discipline Your Teenagers If You Can
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs for Everyone - Discipline Your Teenagers If You Can
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Discipline Your Teenagers If You Can A mother recently told me how Christian parenting experts had urged her to start spanking her children; some said to continue only until the children become verbal, others at any sign of willful rebellion regardless of age…
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs for Everyone - Even in Laughter a Heart May Hurt
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs for Everyone - Even in Laughter a Heart May Hurt
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Even in Laughter a Heart May Hurt A friend of mine told me last week about a dinner he and his wife had had with another couple. The other wife was my friend’s ex, but both couples are happily married so it seemed that this piece of history would not be a problem, and the couples…
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs for Everyone - Everything Has Its Time
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs for Everyone - Everything Has Its Time
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Everything Has Its Time Relatively early in the Vietnam War, folk singer Pete Seeger wrote a song called “Turn! Turn! Turn!” with the closing line, “I swear it’s not too late.” Everything else in the song comes from the poem in Ecclesiastes 3, lightly rearranged. In the 1960s, wh…
Jeremiah for everyone - Expect Great Things
Jeremiah for everyone - Expect Great Things
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Expect Great Things In the 1780s a shoemaker and part-time Baptist preacher near Northampton in England named William Carey used to do his work with a world map on the wall in front of him, and while he worked he’d pray for the nations of the world, many of whom knew little or no…
Jeremiah for everyone - Go Together Like a Horse and Carriage
Jeremiah for everyone - Go Together Like a Horse and Carriage
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Go Together Like a Horse and Carriage One of my first memories of being a wet-behind-the-ears young parish minister is an interview with a couple who wanted to get married in our church though they were not members of it…
Isaiah for everyone - God Is Our Refuge and Strength, Really?
Isaiah for everyone - God Is Our Refuge and Strength, Really?
by SPCK - John Goldingay
God Is Our Refuge and Strength, Really? I have just read a message from an Indian Christian couple who expect tomorrow to go to another village for a day of teaching for which they expect Christians to gather from many villages in the area. They’re thirsty to hear the Word of God…
Isaiah for everyone - Gods You Have to Carry and the God Who Carries You
Isaiah for everyone - Gods You Have to Carry and the God Who Carries You
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Gods You Have to Carry and the God Who Carries You We had Mother’s Day dinner yesterday with some Jews and some Roman Catholics and some agnostics. The agnostics thought that if you need the prop of faith in something in order to keep you going, fine, but if you can live your lif…
Jeremiah for everyone - If Someone Disciplines You, It Implies Loving You
Jeremiah for everyone - If Someone Disciplines You, It Implies Loving You
by SPCK - John Goldingay
If Someone Disciplines You, It Implies Loving You In a television interview, the great tennis player Serena Williams was talking about an outburst she’d had at a lineswoman who claimed Serena had foot-faulted; Serena had been convinced she was wrong…
Jeremiah for everyone - If You Can Find Anyone
Jeremiah for everyone - If You Can Find Anyone
by SPCK - John Goldingay
If You Can Find Anyone Last night we watched a Woody Allen movie called Match Point about a man who commits adultery and murder but by pure luck gets away with it. The last shots of the movie make clear that he’ll always live with the burden of what he’s done…
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs for Everyone - If Two People Lie Together, They Can Be Warm
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs for Everyone - If Two People Lie Together, They Can Be Warm
by SPCK - John Goldingay
If Two People Lie Together, They Can Be Warm A friend of mine lost his wife some years ago and got married again to a family friend within three months. I was both worried and sympathetic (he had been looked after too well by his first wife and had no idea how to cook), but it ha…
Isaiah for everyone - If only...
Isaiah for everyone - If only...
by SPCK - John Goldingay
If Only… I was talking this week to a student who told me that his wife had left him. They had been married for five years and she had discovered he was addicted to porn; I don’t know how he had kept it secret for so long. I don’t know, and he doesn’t know, if this is the end of …
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs for Everyone - Love Is as Fierce as Death