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1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - A House and a Household
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - A House and a Household
by SPCK - John Goldingay
A House and a Household 2 Samuel 7: 1- 29 One of my colleagues likes to remind people that Jesus never talks about our establishing God’s kingdom or furthering it or building it or extending it. In the Gospels, the only things we do to God’s kingdom are wait for it, see it, enter…
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - A Last Act of Loyalty to Saul
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - A Last Act of Loyalty to Saul
by SPCK - John Goldingay
A Last Act of Loyalty to Saul 1 Samuel 30: 1- 31: 13 When I first came to California, students would sometimes ask how long I would be here, thinking it might just be for sabbatical. At first I would reply, “I want to die here,” which was a way of saying, “I am here permanently,”…
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - A Summons, not a Call
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - A Summons, not a Call
by SPCK - John Goldingay
A Summons, Not a Call 1 Samuel 3: 1- 4: 1a One of my friends is going through the “discernment process” whereby the Episcopal Church seeks to decide whether she is called to ordained ministry. It involves meetings with a group of people from your local church, with diocesan offic…
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - Absalom's Coup
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - Absalom's Coup
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Absalom’s Coup 2 Samuel 14: 25- 16: 23 When I was an assistant pastor, a leading political figure in the Church of England came to speak at a conference at our church, and talked about policies for which he was working in the Church of England. It was clear that the man was a ski…
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - Acknowledgments
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - Acknowledgments
by SPCK - John Goldingay
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The translation at the beginning of each chapter (and in other biblical quotations) is my own. I have stuck closer to the Hebrew than modern translations often do when they are designed for reading in church so that you can see more precisely what the text says. T…
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - Appoint Us a King
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - Appoint Us a King
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Appoint Us a King 1 Samuel 7: 15- 8: 20 Almost every day, television and the newspapers report the cost that ordinary people pay for their government. Sometimes the cost lies in expenditure that may be inevitable. Representatives have to be paid salaries and expenses and need bui…
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - As Far as this Yahweh Has Helped Us
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - As Far as this Yahweh Has Helped Us
by SPCK - John Goldingay
As Far as This Yahweh Has Helped Us 1 Samuel 7: 2- 14 “Helping” can have a variety of connotations. On one occasion a tire came off my wife’s wheelchair when we were on our way to church. As I was bending down trying to get the tire back on, with Ann still in the chair, a car dri…
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - But the Thing David Had Done Was Displeasing in Yahweh's Eyes
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - But the Thing David Had Done Was Displeasing in Yahweh's Eyes
by SPCK - John Goldingay
But the Thing David Had Done Was Displeasing in Yahweh’s Eyes 2 Samuel 11: 1- 27 There is a news item today about a state governor who had to resign because of a sex scandal a couple of years ago but is now trying to rehabilitate himself in the eye of the public. As governor, one…
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - David on the Run
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - David on the Run
by SPCK - John Goldingay
David on the Run 1 Samuel 22: 1- 23: 24 The other day, a student was discussing his future plans with me. He believed God was telling him that he should stay at the seminary for another year to do further courses to improve his chances of getting into a doctoral program, that he …
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - Everyone Is Against Me
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - Everyone Is Against Me
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Everyone is against Me 1 Samuel 18: 17- 19: 24 Last night I watched a Jordanian Oscar-nominated movie called Captain Abu Raed, whose central figure is an airport janitor at Amman Airport (just up the street from Jabesh-gilead, actually). In a subordinate plot point, he gets to kn…
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - Far Be It from Me to Sin by Not Praying for You
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - Far Be It from Me to Sin by Not Praying for You
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Far Be it from Me to Sin by Not Praying for You 1 Samuel 11: 14- 12: 25 The day of my wife’s memorial service was also the day I received the page proofs for a writing project. Someone who was reading those proofs, when he heard that Ann had died after living with multiple sclero…
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - Fool by Name, Fool by Nature
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - Fool by Name, Fool by Nature
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Fool by Name and Fool by Nature 1 Samuel 24: 1- 25: 44 You sometimes wonder how on earth a certain woman ended up marrying a certain man, but sometimes you can see that a couple are a good match. My office is located between the offices of two of my married colleagues; I joke tha…
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - Friendship
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - Friendship
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Friendship 1 Samuel 20: 1- 21: 16 I know someone now in her eighties who lived for forty or fifty years with a friend. They had separate jobs, but in the rest of life they were inseparable, involved together in church and social life and spending their holidays together. The frie…
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - GLOSSARY
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - GLOSSARY
by SPCK - John Goldingay
GLOSSARY aide A supernatural agent through whom God appears and works in the world. Standard English translations call them “angels,” but this rather suggests ethereal figures with wings, wearing diaphanous white dresses. Aides are humanlike figures; hence it is possible to give …
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - How Are The Mighty Fallen
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - How Are The Mighty Fallen
by SPCK - John Goldingay
How Are the Mighty Fallen 2 Samuel 1: 1- 2: 31 The day before yesterday was Education and Sharing Day in the United States, a day established in honor of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who died in 1994. During his lifetime some of his followers believed him to be the messiah, …
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - How Not to Display Accurate Empathy I
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - How Not to Display Accurate Empathy I
by SPCK - John Goldingay
How Not to Display Accurate Empathy I 1 Samuel 1:1-8 I don’t very often shout out loud when I read an e-mail, but I did so a few weeks ago when a message came from a friend of mine who had returned to a country in Asia two or three years ago. She and her husband had been longing …
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - How Not to Display Accurate Empathy II
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - How Not to Display Accurate Empathy II
by SPCK - John Goldingay
It Takes a Miracle 1 Samuel 1: 12-19a A little while ago a woman came to see me to talk about the way her husband was abusing her. It involved some physical abuse; he had hit her once or twice, but the background was not that he was an inherently violent person or a drunkard. The…
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - How Not to Evade the Draft