SPCK - N T Wright
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Sixth Sunday of Easter Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Sixth Sunday of Easter Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Sixth Sunday of Easter - Year A Acts 17.22–31 1 Peter 3.13–22 John 14.15–21 In a spectacular (and presumably heavily abbreviated) speech, Paul takes on culturally sophisticated Athens with the new upside-down wisdom. He begins on their own territory, with the altar to the Unk…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Fifth Sunday of Easter Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Fifth Sunday of Easter Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Fifth Sunday of Easter - Year A Acts 7.55–60 1 Peter 2.2–10 John 14.1–14 I’m never quite sure what Jesus meant when he said ‘you will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father’. But I’m quite sure he did not mean ‘you will do lesser works than these’. An o…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The Fourth Sunday of Easter Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The Fourth Sunday of Easter Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Fourth Sunday of Easter - Year A Acts 2.42–47 1 Peter 2.19–25 John 10.1–10 A student of mine spent a long vacation working with local churches in central Africa. Next term, the College Head asked him, in my presence, what he wanted to do with his degree. ‘Work in third world …
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The Third Sunday of Easter Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The Third Sunday of Easter Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Third Sunday of Easter - Year A Acts 2.14a, 36–41 1 Peter 1.17–23 Luke 24.13–35 Today’s readings bubble over with the excitement of the new moment that has dawned in Israel’s story, in the world’s story, with the resurrection. It isn’t merely that God is offering a new kind o…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Second Sunday of Easter - Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Second Sunday of Easter - Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Second Sunday of Easter - Year A Acts 2.14a, 22–32 1 Peter 1.3–9 John 20.19–31 Jesus’ resurrection scattered new meanings all around, like light reflecting a thousand ways off a priceless jewel. The first thing was the validation of Jesus’ messianic ministry. His powerful dee…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Easter Day Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Easter Day Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
Easter Day- Year A Jeremiah 31.1–6 Colossians 3.1–4 John 20.1–18 Again you shall plant vineyards; the planters shall plant, and shall enjoy the fruit. Jeremiah echoes Deuteronomy’s promise of covenant renewal, and points forward to John’s Easter garden. Mary was on the right trac…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Palm Sunday Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Palm Sunday Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
Palm Sunday - Year A (Liturgy of the Passion) Isaiah 50.4–9a Philippians 2.5–11 Matthew 26.14—27.66 C. S. Lewis, writing as a literary critic, proposed a test for good writing: how often does it deserve to be read? Cheap magazine stories come at the bottom (once you know what hap…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The Fifth Sunday of Lent Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The Fifth Sunday of Lent Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Fourth Sunday of Lent - Year A Ezekiel 37.1–14 Romans 8.6–11 John 11.1–45 ‘Resurrection’ began as a metaphor for the return from exile. Ezekiel’s surreal vision was an image of Israel, ‘dead’ in Babylon, being restored to her own land. It goes with the promises of the previou…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The Fourth Sunday of Lent Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The Fourth Sunday of Lent Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Fourth Sunday of Lent- Year A 1 Samuel 16.1–13 Ephesians 5.8–14 John 9.1–41 Don’t miss the sinister moment towards the end of John’s great story. We were told from the beginning that the blind man’s condition from birth had nothing to do with previous sins, whether his own or…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The Third Sunday of Lent Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The Third Sunday of Lent Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Third Sunday of Lent - Year A Exodus 17.1–7 Romans 5.1–11 John 4.5–42 John’s great sprawling story (what an excellent move to have some of Jesus’ Johannine encounters in full during Lent) offers food for thought at every level. The antipathy between Jews and Samaritans wa…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The Second Sunday of Lent Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The Second Sunday of Lent Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Second Sunday of Lent - Year A Genesis 12.1–4a Romans 4.1–5, 13–17 John 3.1–17 ‘Leave country, kin and home, and go.’ And Abram went. The call was like that other word, to leave and cleave, spoken before the Fall: a marriage vow, a challenge and a pledge of loyalty. Like,…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The First Sunday of Lent Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The First Sunday of Lent Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
The First Sunday of Lent - Year A Genesis 2.15–17; 3.1–7 Romans 5.12–19 Matthew 4.1–11 Students set to translate Romans 5 often despair: some of its ‘sentences’ have neither subjects nor verbs nor objects, but are just collocations of indirect phrases. Paul at his most obliqu…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The Sunday Next Before Lent Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The Sunday Next Before Lent Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Sunday Next Before Lent - Year A Exodus 24.12–18 2 Peter 1.16–21 Matthew 17.1–9 The mountain, the glory, the fear. The old story thunders around the crags of scripture, and we hear it echoing from every side, rolling on down the valleys. Moses on the mountain with God. Joshua…
Lent for Everyone Year A - Easter Saturday Year A
Lent for Everyone Year A - Easter Saturday Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
EASTER SATURDAY Matthew 22.34 – 40 ‘So what’s your all-time favourite song, then?’I listened as John put his friend on the spot. They had been discussing music of various sorts and styles. This was a way of getting to the heart of the matter. ‘Let me play safe,’ the friend rep…
Lent for Everyone Year A - Easter Friday Year A
Lent for Everyone Year A - Easter Friday Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
EASTER FRIDAY Matthew 13.1–23 Reading Jesus’ parables in Easter week is particularly fruitful. Imagine Matthew’s friends reading his book, with their own Easter celebrations now a regular weekly feature of life, and hearing them in a whole new way. Jesus had spoken elsewhere, …
Lent for Everyone Year A - Easter Thursday Year A
Lent for Everyone Year A - Easter Thursday Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
EASTER THURSDAY Matthew 6.25 –34 Now, in Easter week, try reading the whole Sermon on the Mount as a blueprint for how Jesus’ Easter-people should live. Now at last, with Jesus leading the way through death to new life, we see what it might mean to be poor in spirit, to be meek, …
Lent for Everyone Year A - Easter Wednesday Year A
Lent for Everyone Year A - Easter Wednesday Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
ASTER WEDNESDAY Matthew 2.1–12 We are now going to do something rather different. We have followed the story which Matthew tells, the story of Jesus from before his birth to after his resurrection. But Matthew was of course writing for Christians who already knew more or less ‘wh…
Lent for Everyone Year A - Easter Tuesday Year A