Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - The Praise of God, the Eternal Creator, Is Finished and Completed
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - The Praise of God, the Eternal Creator, Is Finished and Completed
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Praise of God, the Eternal Creator, Is Finished and Completed Psalm 150 The heading I have given for this final psalm is the rabbis’ footnote to the Hebrew text of the Psalms. We have come a long way from Psalm 1, where we began with an exhortation to pay heed to Yahweh’s Tea…
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - Wishing and Hoping
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - Wishing and Hoping
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Wishing and Hoping Psalm 130-131 It’s the beginning of Advent, when we start thinking about the first coming of Jesus but also about his second coming. The sermon on Sunday related to why the second coming matters and the reason for believing it will happen. It matters because Je…
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - How to Persuade Your Heart
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - How to Persuade Your Heart
by SPCK - John Goldingay
How to Persuade Your Heart Psalm 103 Some years ago I went through one of those periods when God didn’t seem to be real. I don’t mean I was going through some intellectual questioning, though I have done that at other times, but rather that I didn’t feel that God was there. I wou…
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - The God of Redress
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - The God of Redress
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The God of Redress Psalm 94 As I write, hundreds of people are encamped in a park near Wall Street, their base for protesting the fact that the 1 percent of the U.S. population, of whom Wall Street is a symbol, have a greater net worth than the entire bottom 90 percent, with many…
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - What Sabbath Worship Looks Like?
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - What Sabbath Worship Looks Like?
by SPCK - John Goldingay
What Sabbath Worship Looks Like? Psalm 92 If I am preaching on Sunday, instead of giving a ten- to fifteen-minute sermon after the Scripture readings (Episcopalians are not used to long sermons), I have gotten into the habit of talking for a few minutes after each of the three re…
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - Is the Earth Vulnerable?
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - Is the Earth Vulnerable?
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Is the Earth Vulnerable? Psalm 93 I just saw a fabulous picture of the earth taken from above the North Pole. I know in theory that Canada, Greenland, Russia, Norway, and Alaska almost meet in the Arctic, but I am so used to the regular Mercator Projection world map that I don’t …
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - God’s Time and Our Time
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - God’s Time and Our Time
by SPCK - John Goldingay
God’s Time and Our Time Psalm 90 My first mother-in-law used to say that time went faster the older you got, and I used to tell myself that really she was simply afraid of the approach of death. As I have gotten older, I have realized that she was right, and I see that my realiza…
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - Shadow of the Almighty
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - Shadow of the Almighty
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Shadow of the Almighty Psalm 91 I have a vivid memory from when I was a teenager of watching a filmstrip (a prehistoric antecedent of DVDs) that told the story of five young men from the United States who went to a rainforest in Ecuador to seek to bring the gospel of Christ to th…
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - A Cry from the Grave
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - A Cry from the Grave
by SPCK - John Goldingay
A Cry from the Grave Psalm 88 Last night we watched a movie called Incendies about a family caught in an intracommunity conflict in Lebanon in the 1970s and 1980s. It was a fictional movie, but much of the story could be replicated in factual accounts of what happened to people d…
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - Has God Changed?
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - Has God Changed?
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Has God Changed? Psalm 77 One of our students came to see me to ask me to meet with another student whose life seemed to be falling apart and who was talking about suicide. The woman had been married for twenty years; her first husband had been “the love of her life.” Then he bec…
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - Fear or Reverence
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - Fear or Reverence
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Fear or Reverence Psalm 76 Last week I was lecturing on the Psalms at a college in Michigan, and I referred to the extraordinary freedom that the Psalms assume we have in our relationship with God. You can say anything to God. In relation to God, we are like children in relation …
Two Sons
Two Sons
by Pam Webster
Two Sons Luke 15:11-32 There must be more to life than this. I don’t want to be here, I’m wasted. I want to be Out There, living my life, enjoying the pleasures, seeing the world. It seems there is more, so much more - hunger, disgrace, self-loathing, that dawning realisation tha…
The Living God - The God of Jesus of Nazareth
The Living God - The God of Jesus of Nazareth
by SPCK - Alister McGrath
Which God Are We Talking About? 1 The God of Jesus of Nazareth Don’t tell them – show them! That was the advice I was given when trying to improve my preaching more than 30 years ago. My early attempts were not particularly successful. I remember two people coming up to me after …
PAUL AND THE FAITHFULNESS OF GOD - Material Culture
PAUL AND THE FAITHFULNESS OF GOD - Material Culture
by SPCK - N T Wright
2. The Rhetoric of Empire (II) Material Culture Augustus claimed – it has since become a cliché – that he found Rome brick and left it marble. As Galinsky points out, this was more than simply a metaphor.44 New shiny buildings dominated the centre of the city, with new temples in…
PAUL AND THE FAITHFULNESS OF GOD - Republic Restored, Empire Established: Augustus
PAUL AND THE FAITHFULNESS OF GOD - Republic Restored, Empire Established: Augustus
by SPCK - N T Wright
2. The Reality of Empire (III) Republic Restored, Empire Established: Augustus The many scholarly debates about Augustus have included the question: did he really claim to have restored the republic? If he did, what did he mean by that, and was it true? Was he, as the highly infl…
PAUL AND THE FAITHFULNESS OF GOD - The Rhetoric of Empire