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Jeremiah for everyone - A Complicated Neighbourly and Family Relationship
Jeremiah for everyone - A Complicated Neighbourly and Family Relationship
by SPCK - John Goldingay
A Complicated Neighbourly and Family Relationship The London Olympics have just finished. I didn’t watch, but I did check the news each day because I was concerned not with the number of medals that Britain had won (I didn’t expect it to be many, though I was wrong) but with what…
Jeremiah for everyone - An Ambassador in Chains
Jeremiah for everyone - An Ambassador in Chains
by SPCK - John Goldingay
An Ambassador in Chains When Paul was apparently in prison in Rome, he wrote letters to a number of churches. In church today I was struck by a passage in which he describes himself as an ambassador in chains and asks the Christians in Ephesus to pray for him so that he’d be bold…
Jeremiah for everyone - Another Wicked Play on Words
Jeremiah for everyone - Another Wicked Play on Words
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Another Wicked Play on Words For a while I was the faculty representative on the president’s cabinet in our seminary, which means I had to get up early once a month for a meeting of people in the administration to discuss big policy questions (but not so much their ongoing implem…
Jeremiah for everyone - Bad News or Good News?
Jeremiah for everyone - Bad News or Good News?
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Bad News or Good News? It’s possible to be pretty gloomy about the future. Today’s news includes a white gunman killing six Sikh worshipers in a temple in Milwaukee, which other worshipers took as a hate crime reflecting the assumption that people dressed in Sikh fashion were Mus…
Jeremiah for everyone - Clay in the Potter's Hand
Jeremiah for everyone - Clay in the Potter's Hand
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Clay in the Potter's Hand There’s a neat Christian song that expresses our commitment to being “clay in the potter’s hand.” It’s a suggestive image. It means that we are malleable, open to being formed into what God wants us to be…
Jeremiah for everyone - Compassion Has the Last Word
Jeremiah for everyone - Compassion Has the Last Word
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Compassion Has the Last Word A variant on whether you see the glass as half full or half empty is whether you look to the future with hope or anxiety. I’m a mildly anxious person myself—I don’t worry much about particular threats or problems, but I’m susceptible to a vague unease…
Jeremiah for everyone - Cursed Be the Day I Was Born
Jeremiah for everyone - Cursed Be the Day I Was Born
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Cursed Be the Day I Was Born When my first wife’s multiple sclerosis starting taking more of an emotional and mental toll on her (though I don’t think we recognized that this was what was happening), it began to take more of a toll on me, too…
Jeremiah for everyone - Does God Really Punish?
Jeremiah for everyone - Does God Really Punish?
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Does God Really Punish? At dinner last night, one of our friends was troubled by the way the Old Testament speaks of God’s exercising violent judgment by means of Israel. I tried my usual ploy of asking whether she was as troubled by Jesus’ speaking of millions of people being th…
Jeremiah for everyone - Expect Great Things
Jeremiah for everyone - Expect Great Things
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Expect Great Things In the 1780s a shoemaker and part-time Baptist preacher near Northampton in England named William Carey used to do his work with a world map on the wall in front of him, and while he worked he’d pray for the nations of the world, many of whom knew little or no…
Jeremiah for everyone - Go Together Like a Horse and Carriage
Jeremiah for everyone - Go Together Like a Horse and Carriage
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Go Together Like a Horse and Carriage One of my first memories of being a wet-behind-the-ears young parish minister is an interview with a couple who wanted to get married in our church though they were not members of it…
Jeremiah for everyone - How Do You Get People to Change?
Jeremiah for everyone - How Do You Get People to Change?
by SPCK - John Goldingay
How Do You Get People to Change? In the 1960s a man called Arthur Blessitt moved from Louisiana to Hollywood in order to preach to hippies, runaways, addicts, bikers, prostitutes, flower children, and would-be actors and rock stars; he became known as the minister of Sunset Strip…
Jeremiah for everyone - I Don't Trust You
Jeremiah for everyone - I Don't Trust You
by SPCK - John Goldingay
I Don't Trust You In the latter years of my first wife’s life, from time to time I’d attempt to confront God about the way she was increasingly affected by her multiple sclerosis. God was inclined to be equally confrontational in his response (I could get away with a cry of pain …
Jeremiah for everyone - If Someone Disciplines You, It Implies Loving You
Jeremiah for everyone - If Someone Disciplines You, It Implies Loving You
by SPCK - John Goldingay
If Someone Disciplines You, It Implies Loving You In a television interview, the great tennis player Serena Williams was talking about an outburst she’d had at a lineswoman who claimed Serena had foot-faulted; Serena had been convinced she was wrong…
Jeremiah for everyone - If You Can Find Anyone
Jeremiah for everyone - If You Can Find Anyone
by SPCK - John Goldingay
If You Can Find Anyone Last night we watched a Woody Allen movie called Match Point about a man who commits adultery and murder but by pure luck gets away with it. The last shots of the movie make clear that he’ll always live with the burden of what he’s done…
Jeremiah for everyone - In the Interests of the living