SPCK - N T Wright
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Back to Peter
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Back to Peter
by SPCK - N T Wright
Back to Peter Acts 9.32-42 ‘When I look out of the window from where I am sitting, I have two quite different types of view. If I stretch my eyes and look through the trees (it is still spring, and the leaves have not yet blocked the view) I can see the ruined castle, standing on…
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Ananias and Saul
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Ananias and Saul
by SPCK - N T Wright
Ananias and Saul Acts 9.11-19a As the concert progressed, I watched the different players in the orchestra. There at the back sat a man who looked very, very bored. In fact, he disappeared for about half an hour at one point. (There are stories of musicians turning up in bars nea…
Acts for Everyone part 1 - The Conversion of Saul
Acts for Everyone part 1 - The Conversion of Saul
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Conversion of Saul Acts 9.1-9 When I was young, nobody much in the culture I knew practised yoga. It was regarded as peculiar, a bit too exotic, and probably likely to lead to dislocation of your joints. There was a suspicion, as well, that you might find yourself getting int…
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Philip and the Ethiopian
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Philip and the Ethiopian
by SPCK - N T Wright
Philip and the Ethiopian Acts 8.26-40 I was once visiting Cambridge (the English Cambridge, not the American one) to do some lectures. One afternoon I was working on the themes for the lectures still to come, when I found to my surprise an urgent thought in my head: Go to Evenson…
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Samaria, the Spirit and Simon Magus
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Samaria, the Spirit and Simon Magus
by SPCK - N T Wright
Samaria, the Spirit and Simon Magus Acts 8.4-25 As a bishop, one of the things I do quite a lot is to go round laying hands on people and praying for God’s holy spirit to come upon them. It is often a very moving and exciting time, not least at the Easter Vigil when we come in da…
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Signs of the New Covenant
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Signs of the New Covenant
by SPCK - N T Wright
Signs of the New Covenant Acts 4. 32-37 Some politicians’ phrases pass into folk legend. I am old enough ( just) to remember Harold Macmillan saying, ‘You’ve never had it so good.’ Some Americans can remember Roosevelt talking about the ‘New Deal’. And generations to come will st…
Acts for Everyone part 1 - The Stoning of Stephen
Acts for Everyone part 1 - The Stoning of Stephen
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Stoning of Stephen Acts 7.54-8.3 Francis Thompson was a strange and powerful English poet of the early twentieth century. He was a believing Christian, but his life had been sad and difficult in a number of ways. Yet in the middle of his personal suffering he discovered a str…
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Handmade Shrines
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Handmade Shrines
by SPCK - N T Wright
Handmade Shrines Acts 7.35-53 When you go into a store in my country, and you see a sign saying ‘Made by Hand’, you know what it means. ‘This is good quality; it wasn’t just turned out by some faceless machine or computer; someone has taken personal trouble over it; you will appr…
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Stephen and Moses
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Stephen and Moses
by SPCK - N T Wright
Stephen and Moses Acts 7.17-34 Where do you get your sense of national identity? In America, people often look back to three great moments. First, there was the arrival in America of the first settlers from Europe, particularly from Britain. Second, there was the glorious revolut…
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Stephen Tells the Story
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Stephen Tells the Story
by SPCK - N T Wright
Stephen Tells the Story Acts 7.1-16 One of the most obvious differences between cricket and baseball is the way the ball is projected towards the person who is trying to hit it. As most people will know, the person who ‘pitches’ in baseball stands on a single spot, where he (or s…
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Stephen Becomes a Target
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Stephen Becomes a Target
by SPCK - N T Wright
Stephen Becomes a Target Acts 6.8-15 Without in any way wishing to complain, I do have a fellow feeling with Stephen in this passage. He has only just been appointed a ‘deacon’, with particular responsibility for helping organize the daily distribution of food to the community …
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Problems of Family Living
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Problems of Family Living
by SPCK - N T Wright
Problems of Family Living Acts 6.1-7 Late one night there was a knock at the door. It was a good friend of ours. His hat was on crooked and he had wild excitement in his face. ‘It’s twins!’ he shouted as we ushered him in. ‘We had no idea! Two girls! The doctors hadn’t spotted it…
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Human Inventions and Divine Instructions
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Human Inventions and Divine Instructions
by SPCK - N T Wright
Human Interventions and Divine Instructions Acts 5.27-42 We stared at the parcel as it lay on the floor inside the front door. Nobody had heard the delivery man. Nobody knew why it had arrived at this time of the day. The parcel was bulky, somewhat misshapen, with various semi-le…
Acts for Everyone part 1 - The Words of This Life
Acts for Everyone part 1 - The Words of This Life
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Words of This Life Acts 5.17-26 When our second child was born, we had decided on names. If it was a boy, it would be Oliver; if it was a girl, it would be Emily. Well, it was a girl (we got our Oliver later); but when we looked at her, we both knew she wasn’t Emily. Who was …
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Healed by Peter's Shadow
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Healed by Peter's Shadow
by SPCK - N T Wright
Healed by Peter’s Shadow Acts 5.12-16 Imagine you are the manager of a great concert hall or opera house – the Metropolitan in New York, say, or the Albert Hall in London. For generations now this has been the place to which concert-goers have flocked in their thousands, week aft…
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Disaster
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Disaster
by SPCK - N T Wright
Disaster Acts 5.1-11 Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the great Victorian Baptist preacher, recounted the story of how, on one occasion, he was preaching as usual when he found himself denouncing some- one in the congregation whom he didn’t know. Words came into his mouth describing how …
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Look Upon Their Threats