Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The First Sunday of Christmas Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The First Sunday of Christmas Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
The First Sunday of Christmas 1 Samuel 2.18–20, 26 Colossians 3.12–17 Luke 2.41–52 The boyhood stories of Jesus and Samuel jar slightly with one another. Samuel’s mother deliberately takes him to the Temple in order to leave him there; Jesus’ parents intend to take him home, but …
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The First Sunday of Lent Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The First Sunday of Lent Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
The First Sunday of Lent Deuteronomy 26.1–11 Romans 10.8b–13 Luke 4.1–13 These readings are not about ‘temptation’ so much as about true worship. Jesus recognized his temptations as distractions from worshipping and trusting the one true God. To see temptation in terms of rules w…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - The Fifth Sunday of Easter Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - The Fifth Sunday of Easter Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Fifth Sunday of Easter Acts 8.26-40 1 John 4.7-21 John 15.1-8 If you like evangelism, you’ll love Philip’s story. A spirit-led meeting with a court official, who happens to be reading Isaiah 53 and asking the right questions. There is time to converse at leisure; there is wat…
Revelation for Everyone - The Great Rescue
Revelation for Everyone - The Great Rescue
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Great Rescue Revelation 7.9-17 I stopped sleepwalking some time in my mid-twenties, but I can still remember the mixture of fear and excitement I used to feel when, eventually, I would wake up. In my dream, I had been in a room, in a house, in a corridor, somewhere which was …
Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians - The Gospel Comes to Thessalonica
Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians - The Gospel Comes to Thessalonica
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Gospel Comes to Thessalonica Thessalonians 1.1-5 I hesitated long over the decision. I had to make up my mind whether to admit to the university a student whose grades were not quite as high as we would normally require. She was clearly intelligent, and capable of hard work, …
Matthew for Everyone Part 2 - The Great Commandments, and David's Master
Matthew for Everyone Part 2 - The Great Commandments, and David's Master
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Great Commandment, and David’s Master Matthew 22.34-46 I watched on television a tennis match between two of the game’s finest players. Both had been playing well, but towards the end one of them seemed to rise to new heights. The match ended with two stunning games, when the…
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - The Gospel in Public
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - The Gospel in Public
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Gospel in Public Philippians 1.27-30 ‘Don’t let him see you’re afraid.’ My aunt hissed the words into my ear as the big dog came bounding up the street towards us. It seemed silly advice at the time. I was afraid. I was only seven years old and the previous year a small dog h…
Simply Jesus - The Hurricane
Simply Jesus - The Hurricane
by SPCK - N T Wright
The hurricane The gale of Rome and the high-pressure system of Jewish hopes. It takes one more wind to make the perfect storm. And, as in the original Massachusetts disaster, this one was of a different order altogether. To understand this great cyclone, this tropical hurricane, …
John for Everyone part 2 - The Hour Has Come
John for Everyone part 2 - The Hour Has Come
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Hour Has Come John 12.27-36 As I was walking into my study to begin working on this passage, I was alarmed to hear three loud explosions from the other side of the street. We live close to some important national buildings, and there is always a danger that terrorists will so…
Matthew for Everyone Part 1 - The Healing of the Paralytic
Matthew for Everyone Part 1 - The Healing of the Paralytic
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Healing of the Paralytic Matthew 9.1-8 ‘Authority’ has had a bad press, in much of the world, for a hundred years and more now. It goes together, in the popular mind, with nasty ideas like ‘repression’, ‘human rights abuses’, and such like. Think of ‘the authorities’, and wha…
New Testament Prayer for Everyone - The Inheritance and the Spirit
New Testament Prayer for Everyone - The Inheritance and the Spirit
by SPCK - N T Wright
PART 2 PRAYERS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT PRAYERS OF PAUL THE INHERITANCE AND THE SPIRIT Ephesians 1: 11-14 Not far from where I was born there is an ancient castle. It stands imposingly, high above the banks of a river, defying anyone to attack it. These days, the likely attacks come …
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - The Inheritance and the Spirit
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - The Inheritance and the Spirit
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Inheritance and the Spirit Ephesians 1.11-14 Not far from where I was born there is an ancient castle. It stands imposingly, high above the banks of a river, defying anyone to attack it. These days, the likely attacks come from bank managers and tax-collectors rather than mar…
Luke for Everyone - The Healing of the Paralytic Lowered Through the Roof
Luke for Everyone - The Healing of the Paralytic Lowered Through the Roof
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Healing of the Paralytic Lowered Through the Roof Luke 5.17-26 The day I am writing this, protesters are gathering in trucks and vans, getting ready to drive slowly down the long main road to the capital. Their aim is to cause as much disruption as possible to normal traffic,…
Matthew for Everyone Part 2 - The Healing of the Two Blind Men
Matthew for Everyone Part 2 - The Healing of the Two Blind Men
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Healing of the Two Blind Men Matthew 20.29-34 He came to see me early in the morning. He was a bit nervous at telling a clergyman how he was feeling, but he was determined to do it anyway. He told me he hadn’t been able to sleep too well the last few nights. He had a sense th…
Matthew for Everyone Part 1 - The Identity of John the Baptist
Matthew for Everyone Part 1 - The Identity of John the Baptist
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Identity of John the Baptist Matthew 11.7-15 One of the things that made the start of the twentieth century so dramatic was the invention of the motor car. It brought all kinds of new opportunities, new dangers, and new possibilities. But think for a moment of just one of the…
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - The Hidden Secret
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - The Hidden Secret
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Hidden Secret Philippians 4.10-13 It was very dark and gloomy that March. There was still snow in the air, and sometimes on the ground, until mid-way through the month. The sun seemed hardly to peer out from behind grey clouds, and a sharp north-easterly wind blew in off the …
Revelation for Everyone - The Letter to Laodicea
Revelation for Everyone - The Letter to Laodicea
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Letter to Laodicea Revelation 3.14-22 At the beginning of the year 2011, there were extraordinary floods in Australia. To begin with it was part of Queensland, the vast state in the north-east of the country. Then it was more of the state, and still more. Then the floodwaters…
Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians - The Lawless One