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Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - On Watching Your Son Die
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - On Watching Your Son Die
by SPCK - John Goldingay
On Watching Your Son Die Genesis 21: 15-32 Today I read about the death of the young son of the leader of the opposition party in the U.K. parliament. The boy had been born with cerebral palsy and a severe form of epilepsy, and in a sense his parents had been watching him die all…
Psalms for Everyone - Praise and Thanksgiving as a Key to Prayer-I
Psalms for Everyone - Praise and Thanksgiving as a Key to Prayer-I
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Praise and Thanksgiving as a Key to Prayer-I Psalm 9: 1-18 Yesterday a pastor in Florida invited me to look at his blog, where he had written about God’s renewing the church. When God renewed the church (as happened with the emergence of Pentecostalism a century ago, for instance…
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - Sarai Becomes Sarah
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - Sarai Becomes Sarah
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Sarai Becomes Sarah Genesis 17: 15-19 On my father’s birth certificate, our family name is spelled Gouldingay. It was just a slip; I can imagine my grandfather and grandmother (hardly out of their teens) being a bit nervous when they registered the birth, and it seems they confus…
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - The Deceiver Deceived
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - The Deceiver Deceived
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Deceiver Deceived Genesis 29:14b-31 The chapters in Genesis for Everyone regularly begin with a story making a link with our own world, but who needs a story to introduce the account of Jacob’s wedding? If I made a list of the moments in the Bible that I would most like to ha…
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - The Cry from Sodom
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - The Cry from Sodom
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Cry from Sodom Genesis 18: 16-20 Any day I write, there are cries arising from the world. To test that statement, I just went to get today’s newspaper. On the front page is a photo of a woman who lost a leg and whose husband and son died in a NATO bombing in Afghanistan. In t…
Job for Everyone - The God Who Whispers in Our Ears
Job for Everyone - The God Who Whispers in Our Ears
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The God Who Whispers in Our Ears Job 36 1-25 A young man comes to see me from time to time to discuss what is going on between him and God. He used to seem depressed, but the depression lifted when he came to acknowledge that he was attracted to other men rather than to women. He…
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - The Pain of Motherhood
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - The Pain of Motherhood
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Pain of Motherhood Genesis 3: 14-16a I wrote an e-mail to someone this week and had an astonishing reply which, after the main part of the message, went on, “Oh, by the way. . . .” Actually it didn’t literally say that, but that is how it came across, because the news that fo…
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - The Price the Family Begin to Pay
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - The Price the Family Begin to Pay
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Price the Family Begins to Pay 2 Samuel 12: 15b- 13: 14 At a concert last night a singer was telling us the background to a song about her grandfather. He was French-Canadian, spoke mostly in French, and died when she was a child. For both reasons she feels she never really g…
Job for Everyone - The Way I Have Walked (I)
Job for Everyone - The Way I Have Walked (I)
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Way I Have Walked Job 31 1-12 A year after my first wife Ann died, I was out to dinner with a group that included a former colleague whose wife had died a while previously. He had remarried a year or so later, and I was intrigued to hear the story. He began from the aftermath…
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - The Test
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - The Test
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Test Genesis 21: 33- 22: 2 I am writing at the beginning of Lent, and I have been thinking about the story of Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness, when he was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the Devil. Every time I get to the end of that sentence, I hav…
Psalms for Everyone - The Wretched of the Earth
Psalms for Everyone - The Wretched of the Earth
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Wretched of the Earth Psalm 9: 19- 10: 18 My stepdaughter and her husband spend their lives seeking to make known the plight of Darfuri refugees in Chad; they make dangerous visits there from time to time. They tell horrifying stories about the way the Sudanese government tre…
Psalms for Everyone - Throwing Things onto God
Psalms for Everyone - Throwing Things onto God
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Throwing Things onto God Psalm 55 A therapist friend of mine has described to me the process she goes through after spending a day listening to clients, who unburden themselves of their hurts, sufferings, and sins. It seems that these burdens have to go somewhere, a little like t…
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - Two Guys Who Need Their Heads Banged Together
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - Two Guys Who Need Their Heads Banged Together
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Two Guys Who Need Their Heads Banged Together Genesis 25: 23- 26: 5 There’s a weird thing about babies (well, many weird things). I often reflected on our having two sons, born of the same mother and father, more or less brought up in the same way by the same parents, who turned …
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - To Love and to Cherish, to Desire and to Dominate
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - To Love and to Cherish, to Desire and to Dominate
by SPCK - John Goldingay
To Love and to Cherish, to Desire and to Dominate Genesis 3: 16b There is a Jewish story about the first human couple. Often such a Jewish midrash takes up a puzzling aspect of the biblical text and seeks to explain it or imagine something it might imply, using other scriptural m…
Joshua, Judges and Ruth for Everyone - Welcome to the Wild Wild North
Joshua, Judges and Ruth for Everyone - Welcome to the Wild Wild North
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Welcome to the Wild Wild North JOSHUA 11: 1- 15 As you drive north from Lake Galilee on the road that leads from Jerusalem or from the Mediterranean, you can fork right and cross the Bridge of the Daughters of Jacob toward Damascus along the route that Abraham would have taken wh…
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - Your Name Will Be Abraham
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - Your Name Will Be Abraham
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Your Name Will Be Abraham Genesis 17: 1-6 Names are important. My middle name is Edgar, which was my father’s first name. When I was being baptized, family legend says my grandmother leaned over to my mother and asked why it was not also to be my first name. My mother allegedly r…
Gazing on the Gospels Year C - Proper 10 Year C
Gazing on the Gospels Year C - Proper 10 Year C
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
Proper 10 Luke 10: 25-37 Gaze on the victim in this story, the traveller who has been mugged and beaten and left in a stinking alleyway, bleeding and sore, miles from home. Imagine you are that victim. Someone comes near and hears your moans. He peers down at you...
Gazing on the Gospels Year C - Proper 14 Year C