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Early Christian Letters for Everyone - God's New Commandment
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - God's New Commandment
by SPCK - N T Wright
God’s New Commandment 1 John 2. 3-14 Sometimes when we sing hymns, the hymns tell a story. They move from one idea to another, in a linear fashion. There is something satisfying about this. We all like stories, and even when the ‘story’ is a sequence of ideas, it makes sense to u…
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - God's Patience
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - God's Patience
by SPCK - N T Wright
God’s Patience 2 Peter 3.11-18 Early Christian Letters for Everyone 11Since everything is going to dissolve in this way, what sort of people should you be? You should live lives that are holy and godly, 12as you look for God’s day to appear, and indeed hurry it on its way – the d…
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Hospitality for God's People
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Hospitality for God's People
by SPCK - N T Wright
Hospitality for God’s People 3 John 1-8 One of the more exciting and entertaining parts of the Internet revolution is the kind of software that lets you zoom in, all the way from satellites in space, on a particular country, then a particular town, then a particular street, and f…
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Humanity and Faith
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Humanity and Faith
by SPCK - N T Wright
Humanity and Faith James 4.1-10 Schoolchildren of a certain age form exclusive friendships. Great human dramas are played out on a small scale when your daughter comes home in tears because her ‘best friend’ has declared she isn’t her best friend any more, but has taken up with s…
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Humble Shepherds
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Humble Shepherds
by SPCK - N T Wright
Humble Shepherds 1 Peter 5.1-7 From time to time the television or the newspapers tell us that there is a crisis of ‘leadership’. What that means, often enough, is that the media disapprove of the actual political leaders we happen to have at the moment, but even without that rat…
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Humility and Faith
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Humility and Faith
by SPCK - N T Wright
Humility and Faith James 4.1-10 Schoolchildren of a certain age form exclusive friendships. Great human dramas are played out on a small scale when your daughter comes home in tears because her ‘best friend’ has declared she isn’t her best friend any more, but has taken up with s…
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Introduction
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Introduction
by SPCK - N T Wright
INTRODUCTION On the very first occasion when someone stood up in public to tell people about Jesus, he made it very clear: this message is for everyone. It was a great day – sometimes called the birthday of the church. The great wind of God’s spirit had swept through Jesus’ follo…
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Introduction
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Introduction
by SPCK - N T Wright
INTRODUCTION Early Christian Letters On the very first occasion when someone stood up in public to tell people about Jesus, he made it very clear: this message is for everyone. It was a great day – sometimes called the birthday of the church. The great wind of God’s spirit had sw…
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Living by Trust in God
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Living by Trust in God
by SPCK - N T Wright
Living by Trust in God James 4.11-17 One of the most memorable minor characters in C. S. Lewis’s famous ‘Narnia’ stories is the strange and increasingly sinister ‘Uncle Andrew’ in The Magician’s Nephew. Uncle Andrew is, in fact, the ‘magician’ of the title, and his nephew Digory …
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Living in a Pagan World
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Living in a Pagan World
by SPCK - N T Wright
Living in a Pagan World 1 Peter 2.11-17 I woke up gradually that morning. I had been tired out by the events of the previous day, and I had been sleeping so deeply that I seemed to be emerging slowly from a warm, dark tunnel. It’s not an unpleasant feeling, but when eventually I …
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Marriage and Its Challenges
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Marriage and Its Challenges
by SPCK - N T Wright
Marriage and Its Challenges 1 Peter 3.1-7 I remember a wise preacher pointing out that even when people are free to make up their own minds and form their own decisions, most of them quickly find a framework to fit into. They adopt a stereotype; they fit into a pattern; they beha…
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Newborn Babies
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Newborn Babies
by SPCK - N T Wright
Newborn Babies 1 Peter 1.22-2.3 I was in the car the other day when a programme came on the radio which won my admiration – for sheer daring. An interviewer had gone to a farm where they were raising different kinds of deer, whose meat they were selling as venison to smart restau…
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - No Favourites
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - No Favourites
by SPCK - N T Wright
No Favourites James 2.1-13 I have often been embarrassed in church, but one of the worst moments was on Easter morning many years ago. I had arrived at the service in what I thought was good time, but there was already a large queue outside and it wasn’t moving. Clearly the place…
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Patience and Trust
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Patience and Trust
by SPCK - N T Wright
Patience and Trust James 5.7-12 When my sister and I were reckoned to be old enough not to need a babysitter any more, my parents occasionally went out for the evening, leaving us on our own. Normally this worked fine. We could see to ourselves, the front door was locked, and in …
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - People of the Lie
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - People of the Lie
by SPCK - N T Wright
People of the Lie 1 John 2. 15-29 The late psychotherapist M. Scott Peck once wrote a book called People of the Lie. It wasn’t, perhaps, as famous as his remarkable (though still controversial) book The Road Less Travelled, but I found it more thought-provoking. In People of the …
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Praying in the Faith
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Praying in the Faith
by SPCK - N T Wright
Praying in the Faith James 5.13-20 There are many things in life which look extremely odd to someone who doesn’t know what’s going on. Imagine watching someone making a musical instrument if you’d never heard music in your life. What, you might think, can such an object possibly …
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Prophecy Made Sure
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Prophecy Made Sure
by SPCK - N T Wright
Prophecy Made Sure 2 Peter 1.12-21 I am writing this in the middle of winter. First thing in the morning, when I get up, there is no sunlight visible at all. The sky is dark. But, if the clouds are not too thick, there is a light which from ancient times has been seen as an early…
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Ransomed by Grace