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1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - How Saul Lost Some Donkeys and Found More Than He Bargained For
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - How Saul Lost Some Donkeys and Found More Than He Bargained For
by SPCK - John Goldingay
How Saul Lost Some Donkeys and Found More than He Bargained For 1 Samuel 8: 21- 9: 27 A friend of mine begins his church ministry tomorrow, fifteen years after he first had a sense that he might be called to the ministry. Of course he has been involved in ministry in different se…
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - How to be a Dysfunctional Royal Family
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - How to be a Dysfunctional Royal Family
by SPCK - John Goldingay
How to Be a Dysfunctional Royal family 1 Samuel 17: 55- 18: 16 Queen Elizabeth II declared 1992 her annus horribilis, her “horrible year.” The phrase is a riff on the expression annus mirabilis, “miracle year,” the phrase devised by the poet John Dryden to describe 1666, the year…
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - How to Recycle Your Killer Instinct
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - How to Recycle Your Killer Instinct
by SPCK - John Goldingay
How to Recycle Your Killer Instinct 1 Samuel 17: 1- 54 It was the Oscars last weekend (I went to a great jazz concert two blocks away, though I was nearly late because of the road closures in Hollywood), and against the odds, The Hurt Locker beat Avatar (which grossed fifty times…
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - I Have Kept Yahweh's Ways
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - I Have Kept Yahweh's Ways
by SPCK - John Goldingay
I Have Kept Yahweh’s Ways? 2 Samuel 22: 21- 51 Last night I was talking to one of our students who served in the U.S. forces in Iraq as an antiterrorism operative. Like many soldiers, he came home with trauma that he has subsequently had to try to talk through over a period of ye…
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - I Will Not Offer Worship That Costs Me Nothing
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - I Will Not Offer Worship That Costs Me Nothing
by SPCK - John Goldingay
I Will Not Offer Worship That Costs Me Nothing 2 Samuel 24: 16b- 25 As we left a concert last night, one of my friends commented that he always emerges from live music with renewed energy. I am the same. It reminded me of how I felt after a terrific, animated, dynamic worship ser…
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - I Would Rather Fall into God's Hands than into Human Hands
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - I Would Rather Fall into God's Hands than into Human Hands
by SPCK - John Goldingay
I Would Rather Fall into God’s Hands than into Human Hands 2 Samuel 24: 1- 16a By a nice coincidence, it’s census month in the United States. Many an advertisement is urging us to make sure we fill in forms; even the announcements in church repeat the exhortation, and the governm…
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - Introduction
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - Introduction
by SPCK - John Goldingay
INTRODUCTION As far as Jesus and the New Testament writers were concerned, the Jewish Scriptures that Christians call the “Old Testament” were the Scriptures. In saying that, I cut corners a bit, as the New Testament never gives us a list of these Scriptures, but the body of writ…
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - Is Saul among the Prophets Too?
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - Is Saul among the Prophets Too?
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Is Saul among the Prophets, Too? 1 Samuel 10: 1- 16 For most of church history, visions and prophecies and miraculous healings have been uncommon events in the mainline churches, but during the time when I was teaching in England, they came to be more common once more, and we use…
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - It Takes a Miracle
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - It Takes a Miracle
by SPCK - John Goldingay
It Takes a Miracle 1 Samuel 1:19b-24 In Joshua, Judges, and Ruth for Everyone I referred to one of my students who spent last year preparing to get married but also developed increasingly intense headaches. A month or so before her wedding date she had an MRI that suggested a bra…
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - It Takes a Miracle- Yahweh and Eli
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - It Takes a Miracle- Yahweh and Eli
by SPCK - John Goldingay
It Takes a Miracle 1 Samuel 1:12-19a Because she kept on pleading before Yahweh, and Eli was watching her mouth and Hannah was speaking in her heart (only her lips were quivering, and her voice was not audible), Eli thought she was drunk. Eli said to her, “How long will you behav…
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - Leaderly Calculation and Mother Love
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - Leaderly Calculation and Mother Love
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Leaderly Calculation and Mother Love 2 Samuel 19: 41- 21: 22 We care about what happens to the bodies of our loved ones. My wife and I long ago agreed that we would be cremated and then have our ashes scattered in the valley where we had spent the first night of our honeymoon. No…
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - Little Thing Can Have Terrible Consequences and Foreshadow Tragedy
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - Little Thing Can Have Terrible Consequences and Foreshadow Tragedy
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Little Things Can Have Terrible Consequences and Foreshadow Tragedy 2 Samuel 6: 1- 23 I write this during Holy Week. In my Bible study group this week someone was expressing his unease with the way we speak of God’s sending his Son to be crucified. Is God some sort of masochist? …
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - On Following Up Your Good Ideas but Not Taking Yourself Too Seriously
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - On Following Up Your Good Ideas but Not Taking Yourself Too Seriously
by SPCK - John Goldingay
On Following Up Your Good Ideas but Not Taking Yourself Too Seriously 2 Samuel 5: 1- 25 I am coming to the end of my fortieth year as a professor. On Sunday evening, the day before yet another new quarter started, a friend asked me a question that unintentionally made me feel rat…
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - On Giving Up Your Son
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - On Giving Up Your Son
by SPCK - John Goldingay
On Giving Up Your Son 1 Samuel 1: 25- 2: 10 As I write, two anniversaries have recently passed. Just over thirty years ago the Shah of Iran was ousted and the Ayatollah Khomeini returned from exile to become the “Leader” of Iran, a more powerful position than that of the presiden…
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - Sour Hour of Prayer
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - Sour Hour of Prayer
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Sour Hour of Prayer 1 Samuel 1: 9-11 For Hannah, too, the hour of prayer was initially sour, though eventually sweet. Presumably she prayed when she was at home in the village, as other Israelites did, but the occasion when the family went to Shiloh would be a natural time for sp…
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - The Fog of War
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - The Fog of War
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Fog of War 1 Samuel 13: 23- 14: 52 I recently watched a British movie called In the Loop, a Monty Pythonesque version of how we came to invade Iraq. It was a cynical, fictionalized account of how the implications of intelligence from the Middle East got turned upside down to …
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - The God of the Storm
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - The God of the Storm
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The God of the Storm 2 Samuel 22: 1- 20 The song says, “It never rains in Southern California,” but it goes on to say that they never warn you that it does sometimes pour. I myself never needed galoshes in Britain, where we usually have only gentle rain, though we have it rather …
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - The Grief of a Sister and the Strife Between Brothers