PAUL AND THE FAITHFULNESS OF GOD - The Real Beginning: Socrates, Plato and Aristotle
PAUL AND THE FAITHFULNESS OF GOD - The Real Beginning: Socrates, Plato and Aristotle
by SPCK - N T Wright
Chapter Three ATHENE AND HER OWL: THE WISDOM OF THE GREEKS 2. The Shape and Content of First-Century Philosophy (ii) The Real Beginning: Socrates, Plato and Aristotle First, then, the four great schools. All western philosophy traces itself back to Plato, and thereby to Socrates.…
Poem: Nothing else matters
Poem: Nothing else matters
by Marjorie Dobson
Poem: Nothing else matters Nothing else matters now. Who cares if you’re poor, or wealthy? Who cares if you’re a banker, or unemployed? Who cares if you own a stately mansion, or you’re homeless,? Who cares what colour you are, or what your background is? Who cares how many degre…
Poem/Reflection: Consolation
Poem/Reflection: Consolation
by Marjorie Dobson
Poem/Reflection: Consolation We, who never met Jesus as a man; never sat at his feet to listen to his teaching; never had the chance to ask him a question; never felt his personal touch of healing; never heard one of his stories from his own lips; never witnessed his attacks on t…
Prayer: God of history and parable
Prayer: God of history and parable
by Marjorie Dobson
Prayer: God of history and parable God of history and parable, the stories from the Bible so often give us guidance about our own behaviour and show us how we can trust in you throughout our lives. Today we reflect on the story of Naaman and Elisha and the child who pointed the w…
Conversation
Conversation
by Marjorie Dobson
3rd Sunday in Lent John 4: 5-42, Exodus 17: 1-7 Prayer: Conversation Listening God, you are concerned with our conversations. You hear our sharp debates. You are aware of our differences of opinion. You encourage our attempts at reconciliation. You rejoice when we begin to unders…
Poem: A man with a devil
Poem: A man with a devil
by Marjorie Dobson
Poem: A man with a devil It took a man with a problem – a man with a devil inside him, they said – to recognize the real nature of Jesus first. There was the knowledge that here stood an enemy of evil. There was fear that the holiness of God could drive that evil away. There was …
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - Proper 12 Year B
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - Proper 12 Year B
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Proper 12 2 Kings 4. 42-44 Ephesians 3: 14-21 John 6: 1-21 The story of the feeding of the five thousand is found in all four Gospels, making it one of the best attested of Jesus’s miracles. John’s Gospel sometimes uses memories and stories that clearly come from different source…
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - Proper 5 Year B
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - Proper 5 Year B
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Proper 5 Genesis 3: 8-15 2 Corinthians 4: 13-5: 1 Mark 3: 20-35 Things are moving at a relentless pace for Jesus in these early chapters of Mark’s Gospel. Already he is being followed everywhere he goes by large crowds of people. Already he has made bitter enemies out of the loca…
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - Proper 24 Year B
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - Proper 24 Year B
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Proper 24 Isaiah 53.4-12 Hebrews 5.1-10 Mark 10.35-45 There is an extraordinary consistency in what the New Testament tells us about the mission of Jesus Christ. At the heart of all the great biblical accounts of why the Son comes and how he saves us is the cross. No New Testamen…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - The Second Sunday Before Lent Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - The Second Sunday Before Lent Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Second Sunday Before Lent Proverbs 8.1, 22–31 Colossians 1.15–20 John 1.1–14 Eyebrows will be raised at the reappearance of John’s prologue so soon after Christmas. But our surprise at the lectionary’s turns and twists is nothing to that launched upon the world by John’s fa…
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - The Fourth Sunday of Epiphany Year B
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - The Fourth Sunday of Epiphany Year B
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
The Fourth Sunday of Epiphany Mark 1.21-28 Gaze on a classroom, when a new teacher arrives. The pupils are nervous but so is the teacher. It will only be a few moments before it is clear where the power lies. Can the teacher hold the attention of the class, or will the children…
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - The Fourth Sunday before Advent Year B
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - The Fourth Sunday before Advent Year B
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
The Fourth Sunday before Advent Mark 12: 28-34 Gaze on Jesus still in the Temple after hours of debate. Imagine him standing in the outer Temple courts where the doves are fluttering and goats bleating and penned ready for sacrifice. Five hundred years old, the Temple is the gold…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 12 Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 12 Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 12 Hosea 1.2–10 Colossians 2.6–19 Luke 11.1–13 Part of the prophetic vocation seems to have been to carry the pain of the message in one’s own soul. Thus it was, at least, with Hosea. Married to a prostitute, he felt not only the pain of Israel but also the pain of God, se…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 20 Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 20 Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 20 Proverbs 31.10-31 James 3.13-4.3, 7-8a Mark 9.30-37 Fortunately, Jesus stopped the disciples in their tracks before they acted out James 4 as well as James 3. Envy and selfish ambition, yes; but covetousness had not yet led to murder. The internecine strife in Jerusalem…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 20 Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 20 Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 20 Jeremiah 8.18—9.1 1 Timothy 2.1–7 Luke 16.1–13 The first thing to get clear about the ‘parable of the wicked mammon’ is that it is precisely a parable. It is not advice about financial management: Jesus is not telling people to cheat their bosses. It makes sense within …
The Women's Bible Commentary - Jesus and the New Community
The Women's Bible Commentary - Jesus and the New Community
by SPCK - Newsom, Ringe and Lapsley
Jesus and the New Community A new section of Mark’s narrative opens with a summary statement of Jesus’ healing and teaching beside the Sea of Galilee, where persons come to him from all the places he will later go. This compact summary closes with the unclean spirits recognizing …
LWPT Meditations - Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year B