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The Living God - A Personal God
The Living God - A Personal God
by SPCK - Alister McGrath
A personal God: love and faithfulness 2 A personal God All of us like to complain about our employers. I met up with someone I had known back in the days when I was a research student in Oxford. Over a cup of tea I asked him how he was getting on at the college where he now worke…
Lectionary Reflections Year A - Proper 11 Year A
Lectionary Reflections Year A - Proper 11 Year A
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Lectionary reflections - Year A Ordinary Time Proper 11 Isaiah 44.6–8 Romans 8.12–25 Matthew 13.24–30, 36–43 This section of Romans is part of a long and not always lucid discussion of life and death, slavery and freedom. In chapter 6, Paul has been explaining that our Christian …
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - The Fourth Sunday of Easter Year B
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - The Fourth Sunday of Easter Year B
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The Fourth Sunday of Easter Acts 4.5-12 1John 3.16-24 John 10.11-18 Today’s readings are deeply challenging. Christian mission has sometimes been done as though determined to prove that we are right and everyone else is wrong, whereas all of today’s writers think that Christians …
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - The Second Sunday of Easter Year B
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - The Second Sunday of Easter Year B
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
The Second Sunday of Easter John 20.19-31 Gaze on Jesus. He looks exhausted and worn out, as if he’s been on a long journey. But there is no mistake, it is certainly him. He’s appeared when he was least expected. Gaze on the disciples, nervous and jittery. What a state the discip…
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - Proper 7 Year B
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - Proper 7 Year B
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
Proper 7 Mark 4: 35-41 Gaze on the sea in stormy weather. Hear the roar of the gale crashing against the sails at full stretch and the creak of the feeble wooden hull. Watch the disciples, bailing out in vain. The rain is lashing their faces, soaking their clothes. Hear the fear …
JOHN: The people's bible commentary - LOVE ONE ANOTHER
JOHN: The people's bible commentary - LOVE ONE ANOTHER
by BRF - Richard A. Burridge
LOVE ONE ANOTHER When Judas has ‘gone out’ to begin the events leading to Jesus’ arrest and death, Jesus starts talking to his disciples. This introduces several themes which will recur through the Farewell Discourse of chapters 14—17…
Journeying with Matthew Lectionary Year A - Christmas
Journeying with Matthew Lectionary Year A - Christmas
by SPCK - Woodward, Gooder and Pryce
2 Christmas Exploring the text Matthew’s birth narrative begins in the same way that the genealogy began. Unfortunately this is masked in the English translation. Matthew 1.1 begins ‘a book [or record] of the genesis of Jesus the Messiah’ and Matthew 1.18 ‘the genesis of Jesus th…
Journeying with Matthew Lectionary Year A - Epiphany
Journeying with Matthew Lectionary Year A - Epiphany
by SPCK - Woodward, Gooder and Pryce
3 Epiphany Exploring the text People often speak of the ‘birth narratives’ of Matthew, and due to the influence both of Luke’s account and of popular renderings of the nativity, it is easy to miss that Matthew has very little in the way of a proper ‘birth narrative’. There is mat…
New Testament Wisdom for Everyone - Love One Another
New Testament Wisdom for Everyone - Love One Another
by SPCK - N T Wright
3 THE GREAEST OF THE VIRTUES LOVE ONE ANOTHER John 15: 9-17 Like an innocent child wandering by itself into a kitchen and pressing the switches that will set the house on fire, some biblical texts have been taken out of their original setting and used in ways that would have horr…
New Testament Prayer for Everyone - Grace, Love and Fellowship
New Testament Prayer for Everyone - Grace, Love and Fellowship
by SPCK - N T Wright
PART 2 PRAYERS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT PRAYERS OF PAUL GRACE, LOVE AND FELLOWSHIP 2 Corinthians 13: 13 The final sentence of 2 Corinthians is one of the most famous lines anywhere in Paul – so famous, in fact, that many people who hear it, or say it regularly, don’t even realize it …
New Testament Wisdom for Everyone - God's Strange Wisdom
New Testament Wisdom for Everyone - God's Strange Wisdom
by SPCK - N T Wright
1 THE WISDOM OF THE SPIRIT GOD’S STRANGE WISDOM 1 Corinthians 2: 6-13 When my sister celebrated her twenty-first birthday, she and I were at university, a long way from home. So a cousin of my father’s, who lived nearby, invited the two of us to dinner to celebrate. He and his wi…
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - Proper 13 Year B
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - Proper 13 Year B
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Proper 13 Exodus 16. 2-4, 9-15 Ephesians 4. 1-16 John 6: 24-35 This is a very revealing set of questions and answers between Jesus and the people following him. It tells us a lot about what the people thought they were looking for in Jesus, and gives us one of Jesus’s own central…
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - Proper 16 Year B
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - Proper 16 Year B
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Proper 16 Joshua 24. 1-2a,14-18 Ephesians 6. 10-20 John 6: 56-69 Peter’s tale: That’s about the only time I ever remember being sure that I’d got it right. Oh, I don’t mean that I had doubts about what came out of my mouth when I was preaching to people after the Lord had risen. …
Enabling Church: inclusion of disabled people - Author's introduction
Enabling Church: inclusion of disabled people - Author's introduction
by SPCK - Gordon Temple and Lin Ball
Author’s Introduction: Living interdependently The life experience of those in the African bush is so different from that of those in Europe, as I discovered on a trip to Malawi and Uganda. I felt privileged to spend time with some of the poorest people on the planet: blind peopl…
How God Became King - 10e Temple, Kingdom and Cross
How God Became King - 10e Temple, Kingdom and Cross
by SPCK - N T Wright
Temple, Kingdom and Cross One particular symbol stood high above all others in first-century Palestinian Judaism. Indeed, it stood proudly upon a hill, where it could not be hidden. The Temple in Jerusalem was not simply a ‘religious’ building in our modern sense or even in the s…
Mere Apologetics - 1b The Basic Themes of Christian Apologetics
Mere Apologetics - 1b The Basic Themes of Christian Apologetics
by SPCK - Alister McGrath
The Basic Themes of Christian Apologetics Before exploring these possibilities, we need to think a little more about the nature of apologetics. What issues does it engage? How does it help us proclaim and communicate the gospel? We could summarize the three tasks faced by apologi…
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - Day of Pentecost Year B
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - Day of Pentecost Year B
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Day of Pentecost Acts 2.1-21 Romans 8.22-27 John 15.26-27; 16.4b-15 The Holy Spirit has been in danger in recent years of becoming the soppy one of the Trinity. Think about it for a bit – the Holy Spirit doesn’t go off and do uncomfortable and challenging things like getting cruc…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 12 Year B