John for Everyone Part 1 - The First Disciples
John for Everyone Part 1 - The First Disciples
by SPCK - N T Wright
The First Disciples John 1.35-42 I was staying with my uncle in Toronto. I was nineteen at the time. He took me with him for a day on one of his hobbies: clay-pigeon shooting. I hadn’t even seen the sport before, let alone done it. Little disks of clay are propelled from a machin…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Fifth Sunday of Easter Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Fifth Sunday of Easter Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Fifth Sunday of Easter Acts 11.1–18 Revelation 21.1–6 John 13.31–35 You only discover the flavour of today’s Gospel if you remember that it comes immediately after Judas’s departure, and immediately before Peter’s rash promise to lay down his life for Jesus – and Jesus’ sorro…
John for Everyone part 2 - The Final Challenge
John for Everyone part 2 - The Final Challenge
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Final Challenge John 12.44-50 One of the oldest clichés in the movie business is the final showdown between the arch-opponents. The hero and the villain have been plotting against one another all through the story. Their allies and helpers have struggled and fought. There hav…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Fifth Sunday of Lent Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Fifth Sunday of Lent Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Fifth Sunday of Lent (Passiontide begins) Isaiah 43.16–21 Philippians 3.4b–14 John 12.1–8 Two stark characterizations from John: the full-blown devotion of Mary and the brooding cynicism of Judas. (On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays I think this may perhaps be the same story …
Hebrews for Everyone - The God of Peace Be With You
Hebrews for Everyone - The God of Peace Be With You
by SPCK - N T Wright
The God of Peace Be With You Hebrews 13.17-25 I was chatting with a friend who had recently become a bishop. He was and is a wonderful man, scholarly, wise, outgoing, full of ideas and devotion and love and goodness. You might have thought any church would be glad to have him as …
2 Corinthians - The God of All Comfort
2 Corinthians - The God of All Comfort
by SPCK - N T Wright
The God of All Comfort 2 CORINTHIANS 4.13-18 ‘To Carthage then I came,’ wrote T. S. Eliot in one of his famous poems. One can imagine someone picking up the poem in a bookshop and wondering what on earth he was talking about. Had he gone to the real Carthage, in North Africa? If …
2 Corinthians - The God Who Comforts the Downcast
2 Corinthians - The God Who Comforts the Downcast
by SPCK - N T Wright
The God Who Comforts the Downcast 2 CORINTHIANS 7.2-10 What is your image of what a successful Christian ought to look like? Do you have in the back of your mind a picture of a person who goes through life in perfect faith and trust, obedient to God in everything, never afraid of…
Revelation bible study guide - The Golden Censer and the First Plagues
Revelation bible study guide - The Golden Censer and the First Plagues
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Golden Censer and the First Plagues Revelation 8 Bernard Levin was one of the greatest London journalists of the last generation. One of his many great loves was music. Levin relished the great moments of classical music, the operas of Mozart and Wagner in particular. He was …
Paul for Everyone Romans part 1 - The God of Both Jew and Gentile
Paul for Everyone Romans part 1 - The God of Both Jew and Gentile
by SPCK - N T Wright
The God of Both Jew and Gentile ROMANS 3.27-31 One of the things that regularly confuses Christians when they cross from Britain to North America, or vice versa, is that, as a friend of mine put it, ‘they sing the right hymns to the wrong tunes’. Sometimes there are quite differe…
Revelation for Everyone - The Golden Censer
Revelation for Everyone - The Golden Censer
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Golden Censer Revelation 8.1-5 Bernard Levin was one of the greatest London journalists of the last generation. In his later years he wrote mostly for The Times, at one point producing three columns a week so varied, so lively, and sometimes so controversial, that for numerou…
New Testament Prayer for Everyone - The God of Peace
New Testament Prayer for Everyone - The God of Peace
by SPCK - N T Wright
PART 2 PRAYERS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT OTHER EARLY CHRISTIAN PRAYERS THE GOD OF PEACE Hebrews 13: 20-21 This great blessing, the crowning glory of the final passage of the letter to the Hebrews, is still used regularly in many churches, especially in the Easter season. The writer ha…
Mark for Everyone - The Healing of the Demoniac
Mark for Everyone - The Healing of the Demoniac
by SPCK - N T Wright
Mark For Everyone MARK 5.1–20 The Healing of the Demoniac... ...The east side of the Sea of Galilee, rising steeply up to the Golan Heights, is still disputed territory, 2,000 years on from this story. For many years, it belonged to Syria; the Israelis took it in the war of 1967;…
Mark for Everyone - The Healing of the Paralytic
Mark for Everyone - The Healing of the Paralytic
by SPCK - N T Wright
Mark For Everyone MARK 2.1–12 The Healing of the Paralytic... ...Everyone was astonished, and they praised God. ‘We’ve never seen anything like this!’ they said . Most people don’t realize that this was probably Jesus’ own house. He had moved to Capernaum from Nazareth; the point…
Matthew for Everyone Part 1 - The Healing of the Demoniacs
Matthew for Everyone Part 1 - The Healing of the Demoniacs
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Healing of the Demoniacs Matthew 8.28-34 I was listening to some music last night that kept surprising me. It was a great symphony, with a wonderful tune that turned this way and that, sweeping us along, catching our emotions and lifting our spirits. Then, just when you thoug…
Mark for Everyone - The Healing of the Leper
Mark for Everyone - The Healing of the Leper
by SPCK - N T Wright
Mark For Everyone MARK 1.35–45 The Healing of a Leper... ...Oscar Wilde said he could resist everything except temptation. In rather the same way, some people can keep anything except a secret. However much you say ‘You won’t tell, will you?’, and however much people say ‘Oh no! …
Matthew for Everyone Part 1 - The Healing of the Leper and the Centurion's Servant
Matthew for Everyone Part 1 - The Healing of the Leper and the Centurion's Servant
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Healing of the Leper and the Centurion’s Servant Matthew 8.1-13 ‘Who’s in charge here?’ The policeman suddenly appeared in the doorway. Everyone stood still. It had been a wonderful party up to that point; a bit riotous, perhaps, but great fun. Now, we guessed, one of the nei…
John for Everyone Part 1 - The Healing of the Cripple
John for Everyone Part 1 - The Healing of the Cripple
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Healing of the Cripple John 5.1-9a There were two small boys playing in the overgrown garden. The old man who lived in the big house had been ill for many weeks, and though nurses and doctors came and went to the house nobody seemed to bother about what happened in the garden…
Luke for Everyone - The Healing of the Demoniac