Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 19 Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 19 Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 19 Proverbs 1.20-33 James 3.1-12 Mark 8.27-38 The first nine chapters of Proverbs introduce two personified figures: Lady Wisdom and Mistress Folly. Both appeal to ‘the sons of men’; we had better not try, in the interests of inclusivity, to flatten out the genders, since …
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 19 Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 19 Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 19 Jeremiah 4.11–28 1 Timothy 1.12–17 Luke 15.1–10 In a recent article, a priest from another tradition described the cheerful mixture of spiritualities which made up his regular personal prayer. It was a vivid and moving account of a busy man nourishing and cherishing a s…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 18 Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 18 Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 18 Jeremiah 18.1–11 Philemon 1–21 Luke 14.25–33 Luke 14 has more than its fair share of ‘hard sayings’. Hate your family; give up your possessions. A nice clear message for the end of the summer holidays. And, to back it up, a solemn warning: such carrying the cross requ…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 16 Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 16 Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 16 Jeremiah 1.4–10 Hebrews 12.18–end Luke 13.10–17 Moses said he wasn’t a speaker. Isaiah said his lips were tainted. Ezekiel fell on his face. And Jeremiah says he’s too young. One might, perhaps, be a trifle suspicious if God’s call to prophecy met with too ready a respo…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Proper 5 Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Proper 5 Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
Twelve Months of Sundays – Year A Ordinary Time Proper 5 Genesis 12.1–9 Romans 4.13–25 Matthew 9.9–13, 18–26 Abraham’s call (Abram, actually, at this stage; but just as we say the Archbishop was born in 1935, even though he wasn’t Archbishop then, so we don’t need to fuss about g…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Proper 7 Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Proper 7 Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
Twelve Months of Sundays – Year A Ordinary Time Proper 7 Genesis 21.8–21 Romans 6.1b–11 Matthew 10.24–39 The prince of peace comes with a sword. To that theological oxymoron we must add the sad, and still tragic, story of Abraham, Hagar and Ishmael. Go down into the Genesis story…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 5 Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 5 Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 5 1 Samuel 8.4-11 [12-15] 16-20 [11.14-15] 2 Corinthians 4.13-5.1 Mark 3.20-35 So: did God want Israel to have a king, or didn’t he? The question haunts not only this passage in 1 Samuel but much of the rest of the account of the monarchy, from the ill-fated Saul right dow…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Proper 6 Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Proper 6 Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
Twelve Months of Sundays – Year A Ordinary Time Proper 6 Genesis 18.1–15 Romans 5.1–8 Matthew 9.35—10.8 [9–23] Take the gospel reading (the longer version) and lay it, like a template, over the life of the average parish. What do you find? I know, I know. We don’t live in the fir…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 6 Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 6 Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 6 1 Kings 21.1–21a Galatians 2.15–21 Luke 7.36—8.3 ‘He loved me and gave himself for me.’ These words in Galatians 2.20, coupled with those in 1.4, probably form the earliest written statement of what we know as the doctrine of the atonement. They invite comment at sever…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 8 Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 8 Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 8 2 Kings 2.1–14 Galatians 5.1, 13–25 Luke 9.51–end ‘Leave the dead to bury their dead.’ One of Jesus’ starkest commands, this flies in the face of the sacred Jewish obligation to attend to the burial of one’s father ahead of all other duties, even saying one’s daily praye…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 7 Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 7 Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 7 1 Kings 19.1–15a Galatians 3.23–end Luke 8.26–39 Elijah went to Sinai, to hand back his commission. ‘I’ve done all this for you, and now they’re going to kill me. I’ve had enough.’ Fear and exhaustion generated self-destructive depression. What was he expecting? A volcan…
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Stephen Tells the Story
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Stephen Tells the Story
by SPCK - N T Wright
Stephen Tells the Story Acts 7.1-16 One of the most obvious differences between cricket and baseball is the way the ball is projected towards the person who is trying to hit it. As most people will know, the person who ‘pitches’ in baseball stands on a single spot, where he (or s…
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Stephen Becomes a Target
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Stephen Becomes a Target
by SPCK - N T Wright
Stephen Becomes a Target Acts 6.8-15 Without in any way wishing to complain, I do have a fellow feeling with Stephen in this passage. He has only just been appointed a ‘deacon’, with particular responsibility for helping organize the daily distribution of food to the community …
Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - Spiritual or Merely Human?
Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - Spiritual or Merely Human?
by SPCK - N T Wright
Spiritual or Merely Human? 1 Corinthians 2.14-3.4 Once, during the ‘hippy’ era in the late 1960s, I sang and played my guitar in a folk club on the west side of Vancouver. I was there a week, and got to know some of the other regular performers quite well. One was a young man wit…
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Stephen and Moses
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Stephen and Moses
by SPCK - N T Wright
Stephen and Moses Acts 7.17-34 Where do you get your sense of national identity? In America, people often look back to three great moments. First, there was the arrival in America of the first settlers from Europe, particularly from Britain. Second, there was the glorious revolut…
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Standing firm by God's Power
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Standing firm by God's Power
by SPCK - N T Wright
Standing Firm by God’s Power 1 Peter 5.8-14 One of the great advances in tropical medicine came when researchers discovered how malaria was spread. They had been trying to treat the disease for a long time, but it seemed hopeless. As fast as you helped one patient, three more wer…
Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - Stay the Way You Were Called
Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - Stay the Way You Were Called
by SPCK - N T Wright
Stay the Way You Were Called 1 Corinthians 7.17-24 I once sat in an entranced audience as one of the leading comedians of the day told a very long, very funny, story. The story itself was clever, witty, and amusing in all sorts of ways; but what fascinated me was the way he would…
Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - Speaking Clearly in Church