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Mark The People's Commentary - Old and New in Religion
Mark The People's Commentary - Old and New in Religion
by BRF - Dick France
DISREPUTABLE COMPANY Tax collectors are probably never popular, but in Roman Palestine their reputation stood at an all-time low. In Galilee they represented Herod Antipas, the unpopular half-Jewish ruler, who in turn represented Roman occupation. So a tax collector was a collabo…
Mark The People's Commentary - More trouble on the Sabbath
Mark The People's Commentary - More trouble on the Sabbath
by BRF - Dick France
More trouble on the Sabbath The encounter in the cornfields may have been just a chance meeting which gave rise to an argument. But this time there is certainly nothing accidental about the confrontation in the synagogue. It almost looks as though the man has been ‘planted’ to pr…
Lectionary Reflection Year C - A First Monster
Lectionary Reflection Year C - A First Monster
by SPCK - N T Wright
A First Monster Revelation 13.1-10 He wasn’t acting alone. That was the conclusion the enquiry reached after a long investigation into the background of a strange murder in a city street. A foreign diplomat had been stabbed by a young man who ran away, but was caught. At his tria…
Revelation for Everyone - Final Judgement
Revelation for Everyone - Final Judgement
by SPCK - N T Wright
Final Judgement Revelation 20.7-15 John was not the first to suppose that after God’s great act of rescue and restoration there might be a further challenge, a final fling of the powers of evil against the already-redeemed people of God. In one of his favourite books of scripture…
John The People's Commentary - Bread from Heaven
John The People's Commentary - Bread from Heaven
by BRF - Richard A. Burridge
Bread from Heaven Jesus and the crowd have been debating the meaning of the feeding and the last section concentrated on the issue of Jesus’ identity. Suddenly it is no longer a matter of whether he is ‘the prophet like Moses’ who can feed people in the mountains as Moses did. Hi…
Psalms for Everyone - From Birth through Youth to MIddle Age and Old Age
Psalms for Everyone - From Birth through Youth to MIddle Age and Old Age
by SPCK - John Goldingay
From Birth through Youth to Middle Age and Old Age Psalm 71 Several people in our church are in their eighties or nineties, and yesterday several things made me think about the lifelong nature of their following Christ. The Gospel passage was Jesus’ story about laborers getting t…
Psalms for Everyone - How to Stand Tall-II
Psalms for Everyone - How to Stand Tall-II
by SPCK - John Goldingay
How to Stand Tall-II Psalm 54 I found myself thinking and talking about Martin Luther King Jr. again yesterday (see the comment on Psalm 52), the day set for the dedication of his memorial and the anniversary of his “I Have a Dream” speech. It fit neatly with the Scriptures that …
Psalms for Everyone - How to Stand Tall-I
Psalms for Everyone - How to Stand Tall-I
by SPCK - John Goldingay
How to Stand Tall-I Psalm 52 The dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial was scheduled this weekend in Washington (but a threatened hurricane has caused a delay in this event). Inevitably, perhaps, there’s some difference of opinion about whether it is the right sort of…
Psalms for Everyone - The Marriage Challenge
Psalms for Everyone - The Marriage Challenge
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Marriage Challenge Psalm 45 When you’re young and you get married, you have to get your parents’ approval, but when you’re old and you get married, you have to get your children’s approval. So I was nervous about telling my sons that I was getting married again eighteen month…
Psalms for Everyone - Being Blesses and Being a Blessing
Psalms for Everyone - Being Blesses and Being a Blessing
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Being Blessed and Being a Blessing Psalm 21 Yesterday a young Christian man set off an explosion in Oslo, Norway, to preoccupy security forces, then took a ferry to a nearby small island. Hundreds of young people with political connections or political involvement were at camp th…
Psalms for Everyone - The Judge is on Your Side
Psalms for Everyone - The Judge is on Your Side
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Judge Is on Your Side Psalm 7 If you are an Orthodox Jew in Brooklyn and are accused of some wrongdoing, you can hire an Orthodox private eye who wears a black frock coat and a fedora—though when he goes undercover, he confines himself to a skullcap and fringed prayer shawl t…
Psalms for Everyone - I Will Survive
Psalms for Everyone - I Will Survive
by SPCK - John Goldingay
I Will Survive Psalm 34 Our preacher yesterday told us how two years ago she had married a man who was soon abusing her. So after a short while she had to decide to leave him, though it was enough time for her to be pregnant. Thus she soon found herself divorced, jobless, and a s…
Psalms for Everyone - The Lowly Will Inherit the Land
Psalms for Everyone - The Lowly Will Inherit the Land
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Lowly Will Inherit the Earth Psalm 37: 1-20 The day before yesterday, in a demonstration that turned violent, the police station a quarter of a mile from where I lived as a child in Birmingham, England, and a quarter of a mile from my church there, was set on fire. One has a …
Psalms for Everyone - The Mystery of Sin
Psalms for Everyone - The Mystery of Sin
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Mystery of Sin Psalm 19 One of the Christians I know who have had affairs had three such relationships and got away with two without anyone knowing. Then some people discovered about the third (I don’t know what his wife might have suspected), which was how he came to be talk…
Psalms for Everyone - Thus Far and No Further
Psalms for Everyone - Thus Far and No Further
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Thus Far and No Further Psalm 8 The crying of babies and sucklings is hard to listen to yet hard to avoid. In the area that is now South Sudan, one in seven children dies before his or her fifth birthday. In Darfur, countless young girls have been raped and abducted. The media re…
Four Gospels, One Jesus - Preface to the SPCK Classics Edition
Four Gospels, One Jesus - Preface to the SPCK Classics Edition
by SPCK - Richard A Burridge
Preface to the SPCK Classics Edition It is hard to believe, looking back over more than twenty years, how the idea for this account of the four gospels’ portraits of Jesus first came to me and how the chapters almost seemed to write themselves…
Simply Good News - Roman Good News
Simply Good News - Roman Good News
by SPCK - N T Wright
1, part c Roman Good News Let me turn now to another illustration. This one comes from the time and place where Jesus himself burst on the scene with his original good news, where Saint Paul went with the gospel: the world of the early Roman Empire. Come back with me to the first…
JOHN: The people's bible commentary - The Task of the Spirit