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Imagining the Lectionary: Held firm and strong (Epiphany 3B)
Imagining the Lectionary: Held firm and strong (Epiphany 3B)
by David Perry
Imagining the Lectionary: Held firm and strong (Epiphany 3B) Reflection accompanying images “Held firm and strong 1”, “Held firm and strong 2” and “Held firm and strong 3” The cross-shaped mooring bollards in the photographs convey such a real sense of hefty, unbreakable streng…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - The Fourth Sunday before Advent Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - The Fourth Sunday before Advent Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Fourth Sunday Before Advent Deuteronomy 6.1-9 Hebrews 9.11-14 Mark 12.28-34 For once the lectionary hits the jackpot. These readings dovetail perfectly, revealing powerfully the continuity and discontinuity between Christianity and the Old Testament. The key is the bit we mig…
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - The Fourth Sunday of Advent Year B
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - The Fourth Sunday of Advent Year B
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
Gazing on the Gospel - Year B The Fourth Sunday of Advent Luke 1.26-38 Gaze on two Renaissance masterpieces: the Annunciation by Titian, and the Annunciation by Tintoretto. Even if you have never seen them let your imagination conjure them up... Both depict the same story, but th…
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - The Fourth Sunday of Easter Year B
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - The Fourth Sunday of Easter Year B
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
The Fourth Sunday of Easter John 10.11-18 Gaze on the desolate mountains, the stony ground where sheep must scavenge for food, and the scant grass that only blazed in brief spring. Other dangers abounded, snakes lurked and wolves prowled and threatened the flocks and who was ther…
Mark for Everyone - In the High Priest’s House
Mark for Everyone - In the High Priest’s House
by SPCK - N T Wright
Mark For Everyone MARK 14.53–72 In the High Priest’s House... ...Jesus retains his integrity at the cost of his life. Peter loses his integrity to save his skin. Mark has contrasted them vividly. The double picture is put together in another of Mark’s ‘sandwiches’. Peter arrives …
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - The Fifth Sunday of Easter Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - The Fifth Sunday of Easter Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Fifth Sunday of Easter Acts 8.26-40 1 John 4.7-21 John 15.1-8 If you like evangelism, you’ll love Philip’s story. A spirit-led meeting with a court official, who happens to be reading Isaiah 53 and asking the right questions. There is time to converse at leisure; there is wat…
New Testament Prayer for Everyone - To The Only Wise God
New Testament Prayer for Everyone - To The Only Wise God
by SPCK - N T Wright
PART 2 PRAYERS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT PRAYERS OF PAUL TO THE ONLY WISE GOD Romans 16: 25-27 I watched as the children played in the swimming pool. The water was about four feet deep. Three of them stood side by side, with linked arms. Then they squatted down, with only their noses …
THE WOMEN'S BIBLE COMMENTARY - Grace to You and Peace in God and Christ
THE WOMEN'S BIBLE COMMENTARY - Grace to You and Peace in God and Christ
by SPCK - Newsom, Ringe and Lapsley
Grace to You and Peace in God and Christ (1 Thessalonians 1: 1-10) Paul’s usual claim of apostolic authority (1 Cor. 1:1; 2 Cor. 1:1; Gal. 1:1) and his less acclaimed self-designation “slave of Christ” (Phil. 1:1; Rom. 1:1) are absent from his introduction. Instead, Paul simply n…
The Women's Bible Commentary - Jesus' Parables of God's Realm
The Women's Bible Commentary - Jesus' Parables of God's Realm
by SPCK - Newsom, Ringe and Lapsley
Jesus’ Parables of God’s Realm Chapter 4 presents a more extended example of Jesus’ teaching—teaching in parables, colourful little stories that suggest a comparison to think about, to puzzle over. The dominant comparison is of the realm of God and the life of seeds. Although the…
THE WOMEN'S BIBLE COMMENTARY - The Main Point
THE WOMEN'S BIBLE COMMENTARY - The Main Point
by SPCK - Newsom, Ringe and Lapsley
The Main Point Hebrews 04: 14-10: 39 The central section consists in large part a series of technically sophisticated allegorical arguments from Scripture arguing that Jesus is a suitable and effective high priest, indeed, the great high priest of “the true tent that the Lord, an…
Hymn: Life is tough, but God will hold us
Hymn: Life is tough, but God will hold us
by Andrew Pratt
Life is tough, but God will hold us through each hardship of our lives, when our hope is torn to ribbons grace is present, love survives. God will feed us bread of heaven, finest wine to slake our thirst. Those who grieve will know God's comfort, those who waited will be first.…
Intangible strands bind your people together
Intangible strands bind your people together
by Andrew Pratt
Intangible strands bind your people together, as one in your Body, so wonderf'lly made, close joined by humanity, sisters and brothers, yet fractured and broken, you find us dismayed; For we have not trusted the person of Jesus, the risks that he took, the example You gave. When …
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…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 17 Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 17 Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 17 Song of Solomon 2.8-13 James 1.17-27 Mark 7.1-8, 14-15, 21-23 The main bit missing from Mark 7 is about nullifying God’s word through human tradition. Hmmm. Granted, there are two different issues at stake here: cleanness and uncleanness (with a further subdivision: cle…
New Testament Prayer for Everyone - Practical Prayer
New Testament Prayer for Everyone - Practical Prayer
by SPCK - N T Wright
PART 1 NEW TESTAMENT TEACHING ON PRAYER THE TEACHING OF PAUL PRACTICAL PRAYER Ephesians 6: 18-20 Imagine an eagle with clipped wings. Imagine a great oceangoing liner stuck in the Sahara sands. Imagine a basketball player with his ankles tied together. Imagine a railway locomotiv…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 23 Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 23 Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 23 Job 23.1-9, 16-17 Hebrews 4.12-16 Mark 10.17-31 Two moments jump out at us from this intense little drama. Jesus looks at the man and loves him; not, perhaps, our natural reaction to someone claiming to keep six out of ten commandments perfectly. (A pity Job 23.11–12 is…
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