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Exodus and Leviticus - Coping with Crises
Exodus and Leviticus - Coping with Crises
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Coping with Crises EXODUS 20: 22- 22: 14 When I worked as a pastor, the Inland Revenue treated me as self-employed rather than as an employee. I am not sure why this was, and I didn’t feel self-employed. I had a boss (my rector) who made it clear that he was my boss, and I had em…
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - Enter the Queen of Sheba
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - Enter the Queen of Sheba
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Enter the Queen of Sheba 1 Kings 10:1-29 The news yesterday reported on one of the unbreakable rules of capitalism: whatever regulations are put in place to control capitalism, people will find a way around them. Interestingly, one of its examples was the Old Testament ban on len…
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - Ensuring justice
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - Ensuring justice
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Ensuring Justice NUMBERS 35:1- 36: 13 A Florida lawyer commented this month that it is becoming more and more common to hear news accounts of people convicted of first-degree murder, sentenced to death, then released many years later after it is determined (usually through DNA te…
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - Eating with God
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - Eating with God
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Eating with God NUMBERS 28:1- 29: 40 A week ago, our church had a homecoming/harvest barbecue. Alas, I missed it because I had arranged to be elsewhere, but I was there in my imagination, partly because I know these guys know how to barbecue. As I write now, in my imagination I c…
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - Finding Yourself in Your Family Story
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - Finding Yourself in Your Family Story
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Finding Yourself in Your Family Story NUMBERS 1: 1-2: 34 My son Mark just came across a photo from exactly twelve years ago. My wife, Ann, and my mother are sitting at a picnic table; I am lying on the grass (“typically,” Mark said; I am not sure what to make of that). Somewhere …
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - Fear
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - Fear
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Fear Genesis 31:55- 32:24a There is something to be said for fear. On one seminary study tour to Israel and Palestine, we were on our way back from Beersheba to Jerusalem. The Israeli authorities were advising groups to follow a route that stayed in Israeli territory rather than …
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - Facing the Other Set of Facts
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - Facing the Other Set of Facts
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Is Anything Stable? Psalm 89: 1-37 My wife once lived in a house on the side of a canyon in California that seemed capable of tumbling into the ocean if there was an earthquake, and after one worrying quake not far away she took to checking the weekly earthquake reports. Apparent…
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - Five Pushy Women
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - Five Pushy Women
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Five Pushy Women NUMBERS 26:52- 27: 11 I just came across someone’s list of the five feminist biblical scholars who had most influenced him. The idea of “feminist” biblical scholars is that these are people who in their study of Scripture are conscious of their particular identit…
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - How Not to Display Accurate Empathy II
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - How Not to Display Accurate Empathy II
by SPCK - John Goldingay
It Takes a Miracle 1 Samuel 1: 12-19a A little while ago a woman came to see me to talk about the way her husband was abusing her. It involved some physical abuse; he had hit her once or twice, but the background was not that he was an inherently violent person or a drunkard. The…
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - How It All Goes Wrong (Again)
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - How It All Goes Wrong (Again)
by SPCK - John Goldingay
How It All Goes Wrong (Again) NUMBERS 25:1- 26: 51 Numbers cause us some anxiety. I am often discouraged by the numbers of people in our church, afraid it is dying (the average age is quite high). A shrinking church will seem to be a failing church. So from time to time I glance …
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - How To Manipulate the Old Man in Order to Get Things Done
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - How To Manipulate the Old Man in Order to Get Things Done
by SPCK - John Goldingay
How to Manipulate the Old Man in Order to Get Things Done 1 Kings 1:1-53 I have friends in Kyrgyzstan, where a few weeks ago there were protests against the president and the government on the part of the opposition party and its supporters, citing widespread government corruptio…
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - How to Gain and Lose God's Sympathy
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - How to Gain and Lose God's Sympathy
by SPCK - John Goldingay
How to Gain and Lose God’s Sympathy 2 Kings 20:1-21 My wife Ann had multiple sclerosis for forty-two years until she died a year ago. We and other people prayed for her healing on lots of occasions in many ways, supported by a number of high-profile figures in the world of prayin…
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - How to Live in a Contractual Relationship with God
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - How to Live in a Contractual Relationship with God
by SPCK - John Goldingay
How to Live in a Contractual Relationship with God Genesis 28:16-29: 14a I was trying to explain to a group of Christians the difference between a covenant and a contract in order to suggest that God’s relationship with us is more like the former than the latter. I have a contrac…
Joshua, Judges and Ruth for Everyone - How to Increase the Odds against Yourself
Joshua, Judges and Ruth for Everyone - How to Increase the Odds against Yourself
by SPCK - John Goldingay
How to Increase the Odds against Yourself JUDGES 7: 1-25 Two weeks ago a man tried to blow up a plane going from Amsterdam to Detroit, and one week ago when I came back from London to Los Angeles after Christmas, it took two hours to board the plane rather than the usual half hou…
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - How To Make War
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - How To Make War
by SPCK - John Goldingay
How to Make War (or How to Make War Impractical) Deuteronomy 19: 1- 20: 20 Last night at dinner, a friend of mine was hopping mad about a meeting she had attended the previous night, when an ex-marine who had become a pacifist was lamenting the wrongness of the war in Afghanistan…
Joshua, Judges and Ruth for Everyone - How to Get Taken In
Joshua, Judges and Ruth for Everyone - How to Get Taken In
by SPCK - John Goldingay
How to Get Taken In JOSHUA 9: 1-21 I have known people who seem to consult God about every detail of their lives, from what to have for dinner to what courses to take next quarter, what college to attend, where to buy a house, or whom to marry. To be honest, I consulted God about…
Exodus and Leviticus - How to Ordain a Priest
Exodus and Leviticus - How to Ordain a Priest
by SPCK - John Goldingay
How to Ordain a Priest EXODUS 28: 1- 29: 37 I shall shortly have completed forty years teaching in seminary, and a bit longer than this in being a priest and pastor. A few years after I started seminary teaching, I became embarrassed to realize that I no longer believed that with…
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - I Will Not Offer Worship That Costs Me Nothing