SPCK - N T Wright
Matthew for Everyone Part 2 - The Temple Tax
Matthew for Everyone Part 2 - The Temple Tax
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Temple Tax Matthew 17.22-27 Jesus told them they were going to be fishers of men, not of money (4.19)! This is one of the most peculiar little stories in the whole New Testament. What on earth does it mean? One day the bishop parked his car, as usual, outside his house. He kn…
Matthew for Everyone Part 2 - Humility and Danger
Matthew for Everyone Part 2 - Humility and Danger
by SPCK - N T Wright
Humility and Danger Matthew 18.1-7 Among the saddest sights in our world, some of the worst, I think, are the glimpses we get of children in need. I think of three children grubbing around in a stinking, smouldering garbage heap on the edge of a South American city. They are bare…
Matthew for Everyone Part 2 - The Question about Elijah
Matthew for Everyone Part 2 - The Question about Elijah
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Question about Elijah Matthew 17.9-13 The young student nervously approached the professor after the lecture. He’d been thinking for some while about doing graduate work after his degree, and this teacher’s lectures were the ones he’d most enjoyed. Could he perhaps have a bri…
Matthew for Everyone Part 2 - Faith that Moves Mountains
Matthew for Everyone Part 2 - Faith that Moves Mountains
by SPCK - N T Wright
Faith that Moves Mountains Matthew 17.14-21 She was a strong swimmer, and by now she was ready to tackle the challenge of swimming in the sea. A bathing pool is all right to begin with, but it’s a bit tame compared with ocean rollers. For a while it was simply exhilarating. She a…
Matthew for Everyone Part 2 - The Transfiguration
Matthew for Everyone Part 2 - The Transfiguration
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Transfiguration Matthew 17.1-8 Mount Tabor is a large, round hill in central Galilee. When you go there today with a party of pilgrims, you have to get out of your bus and take a taxi to the top. They say that God is especially pleased with the Mount Tabor taxi-drivers, becau…
Matthew for Everyone Part 2 - Jesus Predicts His Death
Matthew for Everyone Part 2 - Jesus Predicts His Death
by SPCK - N T Wright
Jesus Predicts His Death Matthew 16.21-28 When Lewis Carroll had become famous through his story Alice in Wonderland, he decided to follow it up with a second book in which both he and his readers would need to learn how to think inside out. In Alice through the Looking Glass he …
Matthew for Everyone Part 2 - Peter's Declaration of Jesus' Messiahship
Matthew for Everyone Part 2 - Peter's Declaration of Jesus' Messiahship
by SPCK - N T Wright
Peter’s Declaration of Jesus’ Messiahship Matthew 16.13-20 The Tibetan Buddhists believe in the transmigration of souls. When someone dies, they suppose that the soul of that person goes immediately into a different body, the body of a child born at the same instant. This belief …
Matthew for Everyone Part 2 - The Leaven of the Pharisees
Matthew for Everyone Part 2 - The Leaven of the Pharisees
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Leaven of the Pharisees Matthew 16.1-12 Our generation is bombarded with signs. Drive along a city street, especially at night, and your eyes will be dazzled with signs of all sorts. Some of them are necessary to tell you where to go and where not to go: if you ignore red and…
Matthew for Everyone Part 2 - Introduction
Matthew for Everyone Part 2 - 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…
Matthew for Everyone Part 1 - Glossary
Matthew for Everyone Part 1 - Glossary
by SPCK - N T Wright
GLOSSARY accuser, see the satan age to come, see present age apostle, disciple, the Twelve ‘Apostle’ means ‘one who is sent’. It could be used of an ambassador or official delegate. In the New Testament it is sometimes used specifically of Jesus’ inner circle of twelve; but Paul …
Matthew for Everyone Part 1 - The Feeding of the Four Thousand
Matthew for Everyone Part 1 - The Feeding of the Four Thousand
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Feeding of the Four Thousand Matthew 15.29-39 I went to the cinema the other day with my two nephews and niece. It wasn’t an ordinary cinema. It was a three-dimensional production. Instead of looking at an ordinary movie, it seemed as though everything was coming out of the s…
Matthew for Everyone Part 1 - The Canaanite Woman
Matthew for Everyone Part 1 - The Canaanite Woman
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Canaanite Woman Matthew 15.21-28 One of the great moral and cultural issues of the last hundred years has been racial identity. The world was horrified to learn that the German Nazis had killed six million people whose only crime was to be Jews. The world was then increasingl…
Matthew for Everyone Part 1 - Discussions of Clean and Unclean
Matthew for Everyone Part 1 - Discussions of Clean and Unclean
by SPCK - N T Wright
Discussions of Clean and Unclean Matthew 15.1-9 All churches have jokes about the power of tradition. How many Anglicans (or Methodists, or Baptists, or Roman Catholics . . . or whatever you like) does it take to change a light bulb? Five, comes the answer: one to change the bulb…
Matthew for Everyone Part 1 - Jesus Walks on Water
Matthew for Everyone Part 1 - Jesus Walks on Water
by SPCK - N T Wright
Jesus Walks on Water Matthew 14.23-36 Curiously, only one great picture of this scene has ever been painted (by Conrad Witz in 1444). You might have thought it would make an ideal subject: Jesus as a shimmering figure on the water, the frightened disciples huddling in the boat, a…
Matthew for Everyone Part 1 - The Death of John the Baptist
Matthew for Everyone Part 1 - The Death of John the Baptist
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Death of John the Baptist Matthew 14.1-12 Imagine a movie set in a desert. The plot requires that the hero should travel across barren, dusty country for several days, somehow surviving not only the heat and drought but also the attacks of predators. At the very beginning of …
Matthew for Everyone Part 1 - The Parable of the Weeds Explained
Matthew for Everyone Part 1 - The Parable of the Weeds Explained
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Parable of the Weeds Explained Matthew 13.36-43 I have on my desk a photograph of a sunset. The sun is going down over one of my favourite countryside scenes, lighting up the sky above and silhouetting, on the skyline, hills I have loved since boyhood. The sun is mostly behin…
Matthew for Everyone Part 1 - The Parable of the Weeds
Matthew for Everyone Part 1 - The Parable of the Weeds
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Parable of the Weeds Matthew 13.24-35 Why doesn’t God do something?’ That is perhaps the most frequent question that people ask Christian leaders and teachers – and those of some other faiths, too. Tragedies happen. Horrific accidents devastate lives and families. Tyrants and…
Matthew for Everyone Part 1 - The Parable of the Sower Explained