Acts for Everyone part 1 - Peter's Rescue and Rhoda's Mistake
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Peter's Rescue and Rhoda's Mistake
by SPCK - N T Wright
Peter’s Rescue and Rhoda’s Mistake Acts 12.6-19 One of the sure touches of a master writer is knowing how to create a seriously funny scene in the middle of an extremely serious one. Think of Shakespeare’s subplots, with the gravedigger scene in Hamlet providing dark humour when …
Mark for Everyone - Peter’s Declaration of Jesus’ Messiahship
Mark for Everyone - Peter’s Declaration of Jesus’ Messiahship
by SPCK - N T Wright
Mark For Everyone MARK 8.22–30 Peter’s Declaration of Jesus’ Messiahship... ...It’s quite a walk from Bethsaida to Caesarea Philippi. Even in a car, on modern roads, the trip takes an hour or two. Bethsaida is near the north shore of the Sea of Galilee; Caesarea Philippi is away …
Luke for Everyone - Peter Denies Jesus
Luke for Everyone - Peter Denies Jesus
by SPCK - N T Wright
Peter Denies Jesus Luke 22.54-71 I was fortunate enough to be involved in a service commemorating the life and witness of Wang Zhiming. He was a Chinese pastor who, after maintaining a clear Christian witness in the days of Mao’s cultural revolution, was executed in front of a la…
John for Everyone part 2 - Peter Denies Jesus
John for Everyone part 2 - Peter Denies Jesus
by SPCK - N T Wright
Peter Denies Jesus John 18.15-27 There is a part of the human brain which seems to be closed off for much of the time, but which can be reached at once through the sense of smell. You can be walking down the street, thinking of something completely different, when a single sniff …
Matthew for Everyone Part 2 - Peter's Denial
Matthew for Everyone Part 2 - Peter's Denial
by SPCK - N T Wright
Peter’s Denial Matthew 26.69-75 In his novel Thinks . . . , the English writer David Lodge tells the story of a woman who discovers, after his death, that her husband, whom she had loved and trusted, had been regularly unfaithful to her for several years. At the same time, she me…
Luke for Everyone - Peter's Declaration of Jesus' Messiahship
Luke for Everyone - Peter's Declaration of Jesus' Messiahship
by SPCK - N T Wright
Peter’s Declaration of Jesus’ Messiahship Luke 9.18-27 ‘When did you first know’, I asked my friend, ‘that you wanted to be a philosopher?’ (He was at this time already a senior professor of philosophy.) ‘Oh, that’s easy,’ he replied. ‘I knew when I was sitting in my first lectur…
New Testament Prayer for Everyone - Persistence in Prayer
New Testament Prayer for Everyone - Persistence in Prayer
by SPCK - N T Wright
PART 1 NEW TESTAMENT TEACHING ON PRAYER THE TEACHING OF JESUS PERSISTENCE IN PRAYER Luke 11: 1-13 The telephone rang. It was a message that my younger son, a singer, was about to get on an aeroplane to go with his choir to the other side of the world. If I was quick, I might just…
Acts for Everyone Part 2 - Preaching and Prison in Philippi
Acts for Everyone Part 2 - Preaching and Prison in Philippi
by SPCK - N T Wright
Preaching and Prison in Philippi Acts 16. 11-24 A friend of mine, a few years after being ordained, was sent to work in an inner suburb where, for a long time, vice had reigned unchecked. The police knew what was going on but were following a policy of containment rather than con…
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Problems of Family Living
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Problems of Family Living
by SPCK - N T Wright
Problems of Family Living Acts 6.1-7 Late one night there was a knock at the door. It was a good friend of ours. His hat was on crooked and he had wild excitement in his face. ‘It’s twins!’ he shouted as we ushered him in. ‘We had no idea! Two girls! The doctors hadn’t spotted it…
Matthew for Everyone Part 2 - Preparations for Jesus' Death
Matthew for Everyone Part 2 - Preparations for Jesus' Death
by SPCK - N T Wright
Preparations for Jesus’ Death Matthew 26.1-13 I stood at the bottom of the rock face. It was cold. The sun never penetrated that side of the mountain. I looked at the massive boulders around the foot of the climb, and then let my eye wander up the different routes, made famous by…
Revelation for Everyone - Preparing The Final Plagues
Revelation for Everyone - Preparing The Final Plagues
by SPCK - N T Wright
Preparing the Final Plagues Revelation 15.1-8 What is it that attracts people to the Christian message? What is it that draws them to worship the God whom Christians call ‘father’? If you went round your local church and asked people that, you would (I suspect) get a wide variety…
Luke for Everyone - Prediction of Peter's Betrayal
Luke for Everyone - Prediction of Peter's Betrayal
by SPCK - N T Wright
Prediction of Peter’s Denial Luke 22.24-38 Imagine a football manager trying to prepare his squad for the match of their lives. They are facing their greatest opponents, with a major trophy at stake. He needs them to be totally focused on the task in hand. He has just outlined to…
Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - Praying with the Mind as Well as Spirit
Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - Praying with the Mind as Well as Spirit
by SPCK - N T Wright
Praying with Mind as Well as Spirit 1 Corinthians 14.13-19 Paul for Everyone When you look at another person, what do you see? I don’t mean what shape, what colour, what size of person are you looking at; I mean, how do you think about who they are? How do you observe them as a w…
New Testament Prayer for Everyone - Praying With Mind As Well As Spirit
New Testament Prayer for Everyone - Praying With Mind As Well As Spirit
by SPCK - N T Wright
PART 1 NEW TESTAMENT TEACHING ON PRAYER THE TEACHING OF PAUL PRAYING WITH MIND AS WELL AS SPIRIT 1 Corinthians 14: 13-19 When you look at another person, what do you see? I don’t mean what shape, what colour, what size of person are you looking at; I mean, how do you think about …
Simply Good News - Praying the Good News
Simply Good News - Praying the Good News
by SPCK - N T Wright
Praying the Good News When Jesus went about telling people the good news, he gave them a prayer to pray. The word gospel, meaning ‘good news,’ doesn’t feature explicitly in this prayer. But what the prayer does instead is to give us an important way of getting inside the good new…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Proper 18 Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Proper 18 Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
Twelve Months of Sundays – Year A Ordinary Time Proper 18 Exodus 12.1–14 Romans 13.8–14 Matthew 18.15–20 Jesus’ followers are to struggle to live by the law of reconciliation. It’s always a struggle, but it’s always a law. Some say, of course, that Jesus couldn’t have spoken, as …
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 17 Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 17 Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 17 Song of Solomon 2.8-13 James 1.17-27 Mark 7.1-8, 14-15, 21-23 The main bit missing from Mark 7 is about nullifying God’s word through human tradition. Hmmm. Granted, there are two different issues at stake here: cleanness and uncleanness (with a further subdivision: cle…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 17 Year C