Lectionary Reflection Year C - The Fourth Sunday of Advent Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - The Fourth Sunday of Advent Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The Fourth Sunday of Advent Micah 5.2–5a Hebrews 10.5–10 Luke 1.39–45 The readings from Micah and Hebrews are so dauntingly obscure that it is tempting simply to concentrate on the lovely passage from Luke. Luke’s is the only Gospel that has any of John the Baptist’s biography be…
Lectionary Reflection Year C - The Fourth Sunday of Lent Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - The Fourth Sunday of Lent Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The Fourth Sunday of Lent Joshua 5.9–12 2 Corinthians 5.16–21 Luke 15.1–3, 11b–32 Luke, the expert writer, puts the prodigal son as the third of a set of stories about losing and finding. All of the stories emphasize God’s joy at finding what had been lost, but the story of the p…
Lectionary Reflection Year C - The Fourth Sunday of Epiphany Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - The Fourth Sunday of Epiphany Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The Fourth Sunday of Epiphany Ezekiel 43.27—44.4 1 Corinthians 13.1–13 Luke 2.22–40 Today’s reading from Ezekiel is chosen, presumably, because it connects well to the account in Luke of Jesus’ presentation in the temple. Both talk about the proper fulfilment of the law, and the …
Lectionary Reflections Year A - The Third Sunday of Easter Year A
Lectionary Reflections Year A - The Third Sunday of Easter Year A
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The Third Sunday of Easter - Year A Acts 2.14a, 36–41 1 Peter 1.17–23 Luke 24.13–35 In his poem, ‘The Lake Isle of Innisfree’,1 W. B. Yeats pictures a man so consumed with longing for home that even in the middle of a busy street, all he hears is the sound of the lake, more real …
Lectionary Reflection Year C - The Third Sunday of Advent Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - The Third Sunday of Advent Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The Third Sunday of Advent Zephaniah 3.14–20 Philippians 4.4–7 Luke 3.7–18 The book of Zephaniah is not, on the whole, cheerful reading, and almost everything about it is disputed by the various commentaries on it. No one is absolutely sure when it was written, despite its firm p…
Lectionary Reflection Year C - The Third Sunday of Lent Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - The Third Sunday of Lent Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The Third Sunday of Lent Isaiah 55.1–9 1 Corinthians 10.1–13 Luke 13.1–9 On the face of it, today’s readings from Isaiah and Corinthians could hardly provide a greater contrast. The passage from Isaiah is lyrical, joyful, full of assurance, whereas Paul’s tone in 1 Corinthians 10…
Lectionary Reflection Year C - The Third Sunday of Epiphany Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - The Third Sunday of Epiphany Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The Third Sunday of Epiphany Nehemiah 8.1–3, 5–6, 8–10 1 Corinthians 12.12–31a Luke 4.14–21 The book of Nehemiah is an exciting and inspiring story. It is written in the first person, and its narrative is vivid and action-packed. Nehemiah, one of the many Jews carried away into e…
Lectionary Reflection Year C - The Sunday Next Before Lent Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - The Sunday Next Before Lent Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The Sunday Next Before Lent Exodus 34.29–35 2 Corinthians 3.12—4.2 Luke 9.28–36 Today’s lectionary readings give us the rare chance to see one biblical author doing a thorough exegesis of another. In the passage from 2 Corinthians, Paul is referring directly to today’s reading fr…
Lectionary Reflection Year C - The Third Sunday of Easter Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - The Third Sunday of Easter Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The Third Sunday of Easter Zephaniah 3.14–20 Acts 9.1–20 John 21.1–19 This final chapter of John’s Gospel is a chapter full of echoes, back to the earthly ministry of Jesus and forward to the life of the Church after the ascension. For example, compare the story of the miraculous…
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Trinity Sunday Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Trinity Sunday Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Trinity Sunday Proverbs 8.1–4, 22–31 Romans 5.1–5 John 16.12–15 From very early on in the life of the Church, Christians read the figure of ‘Wisdom’ in Proverbs as a reference to Jesus. They assumed that God had already shown, in hints, characters and patterns of relating, what h…
John for Everyone part 2 - The Spirit and the World
John for Everyone part 2 - The Spirit and the World
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Spirit and the World John 16.1-11 I once saw a film based on one of Charles Dickens’s novels. The film was about poverty and the degrading effect it has on people. One of the most depressing scenes was in a lawyer’s office, as the relatives of a man imprisoned for debt were d…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The Second Sunday of Christmas Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The Second Sunday of Christmas Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Second Sunday of Christmas - Year A Jeremiah 31: 7-14 Ephesians 1: 3-14 John 1: 1-18 C. S. Lewis said that it sometimes seemed an anticlimax to move from the broad poetic sweep of the Old Testament to the narrow focus and seemingly mundane concern of the New. No chance of tha…
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