Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - Not with Our Parents
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - Not with Our Parents
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Not with Our Parents Deuteronomy 5: 1-15 This week I read an e-mail from a student now doing graduate work elsewhere: “I quit my job on Monday as I was averaging four hours of sleep a night and came down with two colds in the first two weeks of school. Best decision of the year.”…
Job for Everyone - On Accepting Your Ignorance
Job for Everyone - On Accepting Your Ignorance
by SPCK - John Goldingay
On Accepting Your Ignorance Job 38 16-38 In my seminary in England we once produced a dramatic version of the story of Job; I was the screenwriter, and one of my colleagues was the director. She wanted to have God appearing on stage during the dialogues between Job and his friend…
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - Not You but God
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - Not You but God
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Not You But God Genesis 45:1-28 Last night we had a group of students in our home for dessert after class. One of them asked what is my favorite book in the Bible (the answer is Ecclesiastes) and then what is my disabled wife’s favorite book. I am not aware that she ever had one,…
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - Now I Know
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - Now I Know
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Now I Know Genesis 22: 11- 19 In 1969, as the Vietnam war reached its peak, the Canadian Jewish poet and songwriter Leonard Cohen recorded a song about “The Story of Isaac.” The first two verses imaginatively retell the story from Isaac’s angle, but then the song ricochets into a…
Job for Everyone - On Birth and Death
Job for Everyone - On Birth and Death
by SPCK - John Goldingay
On Birth and Death Job 10: 1-22 Yesterday a girl in her twenties was telling me about the death of her grandmother a day or two before. Like many people of her generation, she was very close to her grandmother, and the loss is a significant one. And yesterday another young woman …
Exodus and Leviticus - Now I will Seal a Covenant
Exodus and Leviticus - Now I will Seal a Covenant
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Now I Will Seal a Covenant EXODUS 34: 1-26 Visiting Jerusalem brings many striking experiences for sober-minded Westerners. The celebration of a bar mitzvah or bat mitzvah at the Western Wall is an occasion of enthusiastic rejoicing, dancing, and singing as Torah scrolls are carr…
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - On Appointing a New Leader
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - On Appointing a New Leader
by SPCK - John Goldingay
On Appointing a New Leader NUMBERS 27:12-23 The rector of a church I know has announced that she intends to retire in a few months, and the church is in the midst of the process for appointing a new rector. The present rector has been there for twenty years and has led the church…
Joshua, Judges and Ruth for Everyone - On the Unimportance of Spiritual Insight
Joshua, Judges and Ruth for Everyone - On the Unimportance of Spiritual Insight
by SPCK - John Goldingay
On the Unimportance of Spiritual Insight JUDGES 5:31b- 6: 24 I have just been talking to a couple I have not seen for a year or two, exchanging news about our children and their marriages and their families. This other couple has several daughters. The last of these was almost th…
Exodus and Leviticus - One Kind of Fear Turns to Another
Exodus and Leviticus - One Kind of Fear Turns to Another
by SPCK - John Goldingay
One Kind of Fear Turns to Another EXODUS 13: 17- 14: 31 This weekend our rector is on a discernment retreat, and next weekend he is away preaching at a church in another city. I was a bit slow on the uptake, and someone else had to whisper to me that this is code for his wonderin…
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - On Watching Your Son Die
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - On Watching Your Son Die
by SPCK - John Goldingay
On Watching Your Son Die Genesis 21: 15-32 Today I read about the death of the young son of the leader of the opposition party in the U.K. parliament. The boy had been born with cerebral palsy and a severe form of epilepsy, and in a sense his parents had been watching him die all…
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - One Fatal Mistake
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - One Fatal Mistake
by SPCK - John Goldingay
One Fatal Mistake NUMBERS 20: 1-13 A few years ago a bright young church leader in England whom I knew slightly made one mistake, and his ministry was finished. It must have been devastating for him; it was devastating for people who had set their hopes on him as a symbol of some…
Psalms for Everyone - One Thing
Psalms for Everyone - One Thing
by SPCK - John Goldingay
One Thing Psalm 27 Soon after I came to the United States, I attended an inaugural lecture by a man who (we were told) was a full-time pastor and a half-time professor. I laughed because I assumed it was a joke—how could you be a full-time this and a half-time that? (He also told…
Exodus and Leviticus - Promises and Warnings and Promises
Exodus and Leviticus - Promises and Warnings and Promises
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Promises and Warnings and Promises LEVITICUS 26: 3- 46 Yesterday a student from a two-thirds-world country came to see me to talk about wealth and poverty, about the idea that God exercised a preferential option for the poor, about whether it was okay for us to enjoy the wealth w…
Psalms for Everyone - Praise and Thanksgiving as a Key to Prayer-II
Psalms for Everyone - Praise and Thanksgiving as a Key to Prayer-II
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Praise and Thanksgiving as a Key to Prayer-II Psalm 40 As usual we had a time of sharing praise and prayer concerns in church yesterday, and as usual I had more success getting people to share prayer concerns than to share reasons for thanksgiving. As far as I remember the only t…
Exodus and Leviticus - Praying for the Enemy
Exodus and Leviticus - Praying for the Enemy
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Praying for the Enemy EXODUS 8: 8- 32 I think it’s easier for my church to pray for the present U.S. president than it was to pray for his predecessor. They like the present president; they find it easy to identify with him (he is African American and so are most of them); and th…
Psalms for Everyone - Praise and Thanksgiving as a Key to Prayer-I
Psalms for Everyone - Praise and Thanksgiving as a Key to Prayer-I
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Praise and Thanksgiving as a Key to Prayer-I Psalm 9: 1-18 Yesterday a pastor in Florida invited me to look at his blog, where he had written about God’s renewing the church. When God renewed the church (as happened with the emergence of Pentecostalism a century ago, for instance…
Exodus and Leviticus - Picking Up the Story
Exodus and Leviticus - Picking Up the Story
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Picking Up the Story EXODUS 1: 1-14 As I write in the month of May, the TV series are running down or working their way to the kind of cliffhanger I referred to in the introduction, hoping to keep us in suspense for the fall: “Get out of that problem/threat”! One or two long-runn…
Exodus and Leviticus - Pharaoh Flip-Flop