Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - Provision for the Sanctuary
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - Provision for the Sanctuary
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Provision for the Sanctuary NUMBERS 7: 1-8: 4 We want to build a “proper chapel” at our seminary. We outgrew the original chapel decades ago, and for services we use an auditorium or a church adjacent to the campus. Now, one of the great cultural strengths of the United States is…
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - Save First, Spend Afterward
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - Save First, Spend Afterward
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Save First, Spend Afterward Genesis 41:25-57 Writers and TV producers have noted that the cell phone and other technological devices have undermined some of the staple plot devices that make novels and movies work. In Casablanca, Rick need not have been in any doubt as to why Ils…
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - Saturday
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - Saturday
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Saturday Genesis 1: 31- 2: 3 At the end of a week, many people wish they could look back over the week’s work and smile in satisfaction because they have a sense of a worthwhile job completed. But instead, they simply think with relief, “Thank God it’s Friday!” or wish, as Mark K…
Isaiah for Everyone - Second-Degree Manslaughter
Isaiah for Everyone - Second-Degree Manslaughter
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Second-Degree Manslaughter Isaiah 1: 21-2: 5 The other Sunday, halfway on our five-minute drive to church there was a huge police presence off to the left of our street, with police cars and barriers and police officers apparently searching waste land and dumpsters. Some aspects …
Job for Everyone - Same Old, Same Old
Job for Everyone - Same Old, Same Old
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Same Old, Same Old Job 11: 1-20 As I write it is Holy Week, and last Sunday we read the passion story from Matthew with its exotic account of tombs opening in Jerusalem so that people came out and wandered around after Jesus’ death and in anticipation of his resurrection. It’s an…
Joshua, Judges and Ruth for Everyone - Roots; or, Home Is Where Your Share Is
Joshua, Judges and Ruth for Everyone - Roots; or, Home Is Where Your Share Is
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Roots; or, Home Is Where Your Share Is JOSHUA 17:12- 19:21 Waiting for the jazz to start last night, I was reading a book about the opening chapters of Matthew’s Gospel (other people who are on their own stare at their iPhones). It noted how the list of names occupying the bulk o…
Exodus and Leviticus - Seeing God
Exodus and Leviticus - Seeing God
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Seeing God EXODUS 24: 1- 18 A Christian song by Michael W. Smith called “Open the Eyes of My Heart, Lord” declares, “I want to see You; to see You high and lifted up, shinin’ in the light of Your glory.” Another song, “I Want to Know You,” by Andy Park, several times repeats the …
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - Sarai Becomes Sarah
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - Sarai Becomes Sarah
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Sarai Becomes Sarah Genesis 17: 15-19 On my father’s birth certificate, our family name is spelled Gouldingay. It was just a slip; I can imagine my grandfather and grandmother (hardly out of their teens) being a bit nervous when they registered the birth, and it seems they confus…
Exodus and Leviticus - Rock of Ages Cleft For Me
Exodus and Leviticus - Rock of Ages Cleft For Me
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Rock of Ages Cleft for Me EXODUS 33: 12-23 In the County of Somerset in the West of England there is a canyon called Cheddar Gorge (yes, where the cheese comes from). One day in 1763 a young minister was caught in a tumultuous thunderstorm in the cliffs nearby. The minister, Augu…
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - Shoot The Messenger
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - Shoot The Messenger
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Shoot the Messenger 2 Kings 6:24-7:20 I muse from time to time on why it is that many Christians today fret about war more than Christians in previous ages. It’s not simply because they are following Jesus—at least, most previous generations of Christians did not think this way, …
Joshua, Judges and Ruth for Everyone - She's a Moabite, for Goodness' Sake!
Joshua, Judges and Ruth for Everyone - She's a Moabite, for Goodness' Sake!
by SPCK - John Goldingay
She’s a Moabite, for Goodness’ Sake RUTH 1:19b-2: 9 I was just reading the story of a man called Maxo who died in the earthquake in Haiti a couple of weeks ago when his house collapsed on top of him. His cousin in New York called Maxo a hustler, but his story showed how he was al…
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - Should Our Sister Be Treated Like a Whore?
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - Should Our Sister Be Treated Like a Whore?
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Should Our Sister Be Treated Like a Whore? Genesis 33:18-34:31 There were a couple in the seminary who got into a tangle in their relationship. The man had lost his wife in an accident. He seemed to be doing all the right things in the way he coped: grieving but keeping her memor…
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - Sex in the City
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - Sex in the City
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Sex in the City Deuteronomy 22: 13-30 I’ve been reading a book that interweaves the story of three iconic 1960s singer-songwriters—Carole King, Carly Simon, and Joni Mitchell. The key to Joni Mitchell’s life story and music is something that happened when she was a teenager and t…
Exodus and Leviticus - Sex and Taboos
Exodus and Leviticus - Sex and Taboos
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Sex and Taboos LEVITICUS : 15: 1-33 “Sexual intercourse began / in nineteen sixty-three / (which was rather late for me),” the poet Philip Larkin wrote in his poem “Annus mirabilis.” It was the decade when the pill made it possible to separate sex from procreation. My prospective…
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - Sour Hour of Prayer
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - Sour Hour of Prayer
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Sour Hour of Prayer 1 Samuel 1: 9-11 For Hannah, too, the hour of prayer was initially sour, though eventually sweet. Presumably she prayed when she was at home in the village, as other Israelites did, but the occasion when the family went to Shiloh would be a natural time for sp…
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - So Abraham Went
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - So Abraham Went
by SPCK - John Goldingay
So Abraham Went Genesis 12: 3-6a I first visited the Middle East six years after Israel occupied the West Bank. We were based mostly in Tel Aviv, but we had not been there long before we drove up into the West Bank and went to Nablus, one of its three most important towns. The na…
Isaiah for Everyone - Stand Firm, Or You Won't Stand At All
Isaiah for Everyone - Stand Firm, Or You Won't Stand At All
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Stand Firm, Or You Won’t Stand At All I mentioned in an early volume of The Old Testament for Everyone receiving a call from a Jewish lawyer in Los Angeles who had self-published a book titled Twenty-six Reasons Why Jews Don’t Believe in Jesus and wanted me to make sure that his …
Job for Everyone - Sovereignty without Principle?