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Gazing on the Gospels Year B - Proper 15 Year B
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - Proper 15 Year B
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
Proper 15 John 6: 51-58 Gaze on a typical communion service. In some churches people sit patiently in their pew before being stewarded to the rail. In others, people get up and go when it suits them. There is the circle of people around the altar – the elderly and arthritic stand…
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - Proper 21 Year B
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - Proper 21 Year B
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
Proper 21 Mark 9: 38-50 Gaze on Archbishop Cranmer, being led to the stake to die by fire because he would not act against his conscience. In many ways the sixteenth century was more like the time of Jesus than it is ours. Cranmer would have understood more fully the risks and da…
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - The Third Sunday before Advent Year B
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - The Third Sunday before Advent Year B
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
The Third Sunday before Advent Mark 1: 14-20 Gaze on the Sea of Galilee. No one who comes here remains unmoved. What is it about particular places that give them a holiness at their very core? Why does this place emanate such undisputed beauty? It is referred to in the Jewish Tal…
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - The Fourth Sunday before Advent Year B
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - The Fourth Sunday before Advent Year B
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
The Fourth Sunday before Advent Mark 12: 28-34 Gaze on Jesus still in the Temple after hours of debate. Imagine him standing in the outer Temple courts where the doves are fluttering and goats bleating and penned ready for sacrifice. Five hundred years old, the Temple is the gold…
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - Proper 9 Year B
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - Proper 9 Year B
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
Proper 9 Mark 6: 1-13 Gaze on all the preparations we make for a journey these days. Count the suitcases, shoulder bags, plastic bags, camera cases and picnic hampers that we pile into the back of the car. Today we even need ‘SatNav’ to find our way for us. Gone are the days when…
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Ascension!
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Ascension!
by SPCK - N T Wright
Ascension! Acts 1.9-14 We were having supper with some friends who had recently moved to western Canada. ‘So,’ my wife began, ‘does Vancouver feel like home?’ ‘It’s not home,’ replied the wife energetically. ‘It’s heaven!’ ‘Well, my dear,’ commented her husband, a theologian, rep…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Proper 18 Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Proper 18 Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
Twelve Months of Sundays – Year A Ordinary Time Proper 18 Exodus 12.1–14 Romans 13.8–14 Matthew 18.15–20 Jesus’ followers are to struggle to live by the law of reconciliation. It’s always a struggle, but it’s always a law. Some say, of course, that Jesus couldn’t have spoken, as …
Lectionary Reflections Year A - Proper 15 Year A
Lectionary Reflections Year A - Proper 15 Year A
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Lectionary reflections - Year A Ordinary Time Proper 15 Isaiah 56.1, 6–8 Romans 11.1–2a, 29–32 Matthew 15.10–28 This strange story of the Canaanite woman clearly scratches an itch for Matthew’s readers. If you put this version and Mark’s version side by side (Mark 7.24–30), you w…
Acts for Everyone part 1 - More than He Bargained for
Acts for Everyone part 1 - More than He Bargained for
by SPCK - N T Wright
There was once a young man who sneaked into church hoping nobody would notice him. The only reason he’d come was because he was keen on a girl who sang in the choir, and he hoped that if he was in the service he’d be able to see her at the end of the service and ask her out. He w…
Paul and the Faithfulness of God - Imperial Cult under the Julio-Claudians: Conclusion
Paul and the Faithfulness of God - Imperial Cult under the Julio-Claudians: Conclusion
by SPCK - N T Wright
**THE EAGLE HAS LANDED:ROME AND THE CHALLENGE OF EMPIRE The Religion of Empire (iv) Imperial Cult under the Julio-Claudians: Conclusion** For the purposes of a book on Paul, we need not take the story further. None of the three emperors who followed Nero in quick succession were …
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…
Simply Good News - A Different Kind of God
Simply Good News - A Different Kind of God
by SPCK - N T Wright
A Different Kind of God That’s why the stories about Jesus – the four Gospels or good-news books – are quite complicated. They show Jesus not parachuting down from a great height to dispense solutions to all problems nor zapping everything into shape like some kind of Superman, b…
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…
The Power of the Parable - The Visionary Dream of God
The Power of the Parable - The Visionary Dream of God
by SPCK - John Dominic Crossan
chapter 10 The Visionary Dream of God The Parable Gospel According To John The Power of the Parables HOW FICTION BY JESUS BECAME FICTION ABOUT JESUS When you think of World Heritage Sites, you usually imagine ancient places and ruined cities. But one site is emphatically neither.…
New Testament Wisdom for Everyone - Love One Another