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John for Everyone part 2 - The Spirit and the World
John for Everyone part 2 - The Spirit and the World
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Spirit and the World John 16.1-11 I once saw a film based on one of Charles Dickens’s novels. The film was about poverty and the degrading effect it has on people. One of the most depressing scenes was in a lawyer’s office, as the relatives of a man imprisoned for debt were d…
Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians - Children of the Light
Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians - Children of the Light
by SPCK - N T Wright
Children of the Light Thessalonians 5.1-11 The story is told of a minister who dreamed that he was preaching a sermon, and woke up to find it was true. One can hardly imagine that happening to St Paul – although there is the famous story of the lad who nodded off during one of Pa…
Paul for Everyone Romans part 1 - Children of God, Led by the Spirit
Paul for Everyone Romans part 1 - Children of God, Led by the Spirit
by SPCK - N T Wright
Children of God, Led by the Spirit ROMANS 8.12-17 Debt is one of the great problems of today’s world. When I was younger, banks didn’t allow many people to run into debt. Credit cards hadn’t been invented. Student loans were not even thought of. Of course, people still got into d…
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - Children, Parents, Slaves and Masters
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - Children, Parents, Slaves and Masters
by SPCK - N T Wright
Children, Parents, Slaves and Masters Ephesians 6.1-9 My first experience of a building site was disillusioning. I was part of the work crew building a factory. (I did the job for four weeks during a university holiday.) Right from the start it became clear that, with only one ex…
John for Everyone Part 1 - God's Son Breaks the Sabbath
John for Everyone Part 1 - God's Son Breaks the Sabbath
by SPCK - N T Wright
God’s Son Breaks the Sabbath John 5.9b-18 I woke up to hear a voice speaking a language I didn’t understand. Where was I? What was going on? A dim light from the other side of the room reminded me. I was at the conference. I was sharing a room with a colleague from the university…
John for Everyone part 2 - Mary Magdalene and the Risen Jesus
John for Everyone part 2 - Mary Magdalene and the Risen Jesus
by SPCK - N T Wright
Mary Magdalene and the Risen Jesus John 20.11-18 The first time I went to stay with a family in Germany, I learnt enough German before the trip to know the basic rules of politeness. When people say ‘you’ in German, there are two forms, like the old English ‘ye’ (for more than on…
Acts for Everyone Part 2 - Roman Citizenship Comes in Useful
Acts for Everyone Part 2 - Roman Citizenship Comes in Useful
by SPCK - N T Wright
Roman Citizenship Comes in Useful Acts 22.23-30 CAN YOU PROVE IT? The sign in the shop selling alcohol challenges all and sundry. I was once buying a drink in one of the small bars in O’Hare Airport in Chicago and was astonished, as a bald and bearded middle-aged man, to be asked…
Hebrews for Everyone - The God of Peace Be With You
Hebrews for Everyone - The God of Peace Be With You
by SPCK - N T Wright
The God of Peace Be With You Hebrews 13.17-25 I was chatting with a friend who had recently become a bishop. He was and is a wonderful man, scholarly, wise, outgoing, full of ideas and devotion and love and goodness. You might have thought any church would be glad to have him as …
2 Corinthians - The God of All Comfort
2 Corinthians - The God of All Comfort
by SPCK - N T Wright
The God of All Comfort 2 CORINTHIANS 4.13-18 ‘To Carthage then I came,’ wrote T. S. Eliot in one of his famous poems. One can imagine someone picking up the poem in a bookshop and wondering what on earth he was talking about. Had he gone to the real Carthage, in North Africa? If …
Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians - The Lord's Coming
Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians - The Lord's Coming
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Lord’s Coming Thessalonians 4.13-18 How do you describe the colour blue to a blind person? If someone has never been able to see, how can you even convey the idea of colour, let alone the difference between colours? That difficulty faces Christians whenever we talk about the …
Matthew for Everyone Part 1 - The Parable of Clean and Unclean
Matthew for Everyone Part 1 - The Parable of Clean and Unclean
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Parable of Clean and Unclean Matthew 15.10-20 One of the best-loved characters in children’s stories is Winnie-the- Pooh. In one escapade of this down-to-earth, loveable toy bear (the creation of the writer A. A. Milne), Pooh attempts to trap an Elephant – or, as he mispronou…
Matthew for Everyone Part 2 - The Priests and the Guards
Matthew for Everyone Part 2 - The Priests and the Guards
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Priests and the Guards Matthew 28.11-15 In the world of science, there is a particular form of behaviour that occurs when a long-held belief is under attack. The most famous instance of it was when Copernicus (1473–1543) argued that Earth and the other planets go round the su…
Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians - The Sending of Timothy
Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians - The Sending of Timothy
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Sending of Timothy Thessalonians 3.1-5 The young adult daughter of some friends of ours went on a trip round the world, and was so enjoying life that, at one stage, she didn’t phone home for several weeks. Her parents had no way of getting in touch, and were beside themselves…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Third Sunday Before Advent Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Third Sunday Before Advent Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Third Sunday Before Advent Job 19.23–27a 2 Thessalonians 2.1–5, 13–17 Luke 20.27–38 The overall theme (‘resurrection’) is obvious, but the detail is daunting. It seems a shame, as the translators’ footnotes say, that the Hebrew of Job 19.26 is ‘incomprehensible’. The old vers…
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - To Live or to Die?
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - To Live or to Die?
by SPCK - N T Wright
To Live or to Die? Philippians 1.18b-26 One of the great questions that people have asked throughout human history, and still address particularly to religious leaders, is this: where do we go when we die? Until recently, most people in what used to be the Christian Western world…
Paul for Everyone Romans part 2 - To God Be the Glory
Paul for Everyone Romans part 2 - To God Be the Glory
by SPCK - N T Wright
To God Be the Glory ROMANS 11.33-36 I was taken yesterday to see the site of a new bridge across a river. We parked the car in a grassy wood and set off to walk. The trees were quite thick to begin with, and I couldn’t see the river, though I could hear it. I assumed the bridge w…
2 Corinthians - Unbearably Crushed
2 Corinthians - Unbearably Crushed
by SPCK - N T Wright
Unbearably Crushed 2 CORINTHIANS 1.8-14 You watch from a distance as a friend walks down the street. You see him turn and go into a house. He strides in cheerfully and purposefully. You wait for a few minutes. Then you see him come out again – only now you see, to your horror, th…
Poem: Always missing, never grasping