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Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - The Promise of a Poisoned Chalice
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - The Promise of a Poisoned Chalice
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Promise of a Poisoned Chalice Psalm 75 The news today tells of two men called Abu Elias and Robert who were interviewed as they sat at the bottom of the stairs of the Convent of Our Lady of Saydnaya, a city high in the mountains north of Damascus. It is one of the few communi…
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - God’s Faithfulness, Not Mine
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - God’s Faithfulness, Not Mine
by SPCK - John Goldingay
God’s Faithfulness, Not Mine Psalm 143 Contrary to the resolve she had announced a few days ago, first thing this morning my wife sat at her computer checking the news. Eventually I asked her what had happened to her resolve to begin the day with her time of devotion, and in horr…
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - Thine Is the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - Thine Is the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Thine Is the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory Psalm 145 A student once asked me why the Lord’s Prayer is so different from the prayers in the Psalms, which characteristically cry out to God and issue protests to God because of people’s urgent needs. I wasn’t sure, but in due cou…
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - The Praise of God, the Eternal Creator, Is Finished and Completed
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - The Praise of God, the Eternal Creator, Is Finished and Completed
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Praise of God, the Eternal Creator, Is Finished and Completed Psalm 150 The heading I have given for this final psalm is the rabbis’ footnote to the Hebrew text of the Psalms. We have come a long way from Psalm 1, where we began with an exhortation to pay heed to Yahweh’s Tea…
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - How to Persuade Your Heart
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - How to Persuade Your Heart
by SPCK - John Goldingay
How to Persuade Your Heart Psalm 103 Some years ago I went through one of those periods when God didn’t seem to be real. I don’t mean I was going through some intellectual questioning, though I have done that at other times, but rather that I didn’t feel that God was there. I wou…
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - Fear or Reverence
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - Fear or Reverence
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Fear or Reverence Psalm 76 Last week I was lecturing on the Psalms at a college in Michigan, and I referred to the extraordinary freedom that the Psalms assume we have in our relationship with God. You can say anything to God. In relation to God, we are like children in relation …
Psalms for Everyone - Death Cathches You When You Don't Expect It To
Psalms for Everyone - Death Cathches You When You Don't Expect It To
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Death Catches You When You Don’t Expect It To Psalm 49 We recently buried the second-oldest member of our congregation, who until she faded away quickly at the end had regularly attended church. We drove quite a way to the cemetery, and I wondered why, until I discovered that her…
Psalms for Everyone - Wake Up, God!
Psalms for Everyone - Wake Up, God!
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Wake Up, God! Psalm 44 In connection with Psalm 20 I’ve mentioned that our church has just had to accept that we could no longer afford to pay the salary of a pastor. I mentioned this to one of my sons in England, who expressed surprise that such a thing could happen, surmising t…
Psalms for Everyone - When Suffering Links to Sin
Psalms for Everyone - When Suffering Links to Sin
by SPCK - John Goldingay
When Suffering Links to Sin Psalm 38 A friend of mine recently gave me a moving description of the Alcoholics Anonymous group to which he belongs. People go to meetings because they are desperate. They know they cannot kick their habit on their own. It’s more like a disease. They…
Psalms for Everyone - I Am Going to Die
Psalms for Everyone - I Am Going to Die
by SPCK - John Goldingay
I Am Going to Die Psalm 39 I didn’t think much about dying until my grandson was born, and then the thought came to me that I could die now; I had done my job for the human race’s future by fathering a son who had himself fathered a son. I thought about it again three or four yea…
Psalms for Everyone - When Life Continues to Be Darkness
Psalms for Everyone - When Life Continues to Be Darkness
by SPCK - John Goldingay
When Life Continues to Be Darkness Psalm 43 I’ve just been reading a Darfuri refugee’s account of how he came to be in a camp in Chad. As a farmer in Sudan he was tortured by the application of a clothes iron to his back, his legs, his hands, and his head because the members of o…
Psalms for Everyone - Bless Us, and Enable Other People to see for Themselves
Psalms for Everyone - Bless Us, and Enable Other People to see for Themselves
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Bless Us, and Enable Other Peoples to See for Themselves Psalm 67 “God bless America.” The fact that this weekend has been characterized by commemorations of September 11 has made that plea once more resound. Now, the Old Testament is inclined to make a distinction between blessi…
Psalms for Everyone - On Pleading with the King
Psalms for Everyone - On Pleading with the King
by SPCK - John Goldingay
On Pleading with the King Psalm 5 Tomorrow, South Sudan becomes a separate country, independent of northern Sudan. No one knows what the future will bring for it, but if you belong to South Sudan, you hope that it means an end to the conflict between the south and the north and t…
Psalms for Everyone - The Outrageous Confession
Psalms for Everyone - The Outrageous Confession
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Outrageous Confession Psalm 47 In church yesterday we made our usual outrageous confessions, such as the declaration that Jesus is Lord. They are outrageous because the day’s news seems to belie them. Dozens of people have died in an attack on a mosque in Pakistan. Car bombs …
Psalms for Everyone - Is This the City?
Psalms for Everyone - Is This the City?
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Is This the City? Psalm 48 When my first wife and I moved to the United States, people would ask what I would miss about England, to which I would answer not fish and chips or even Indian food but proximity to France and to Israel. Since the move I haven’t been to Israel, partly …
Psalms for Everyone - Will God Let You In? Will God Let You In?
Psalms for Everyone - Will God Let You In? Will God Let You In?
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Will God Let You In? Will God Let You In? Psalm 24 Five days before the Egyptian army crossed the Suez Canal in September 1973, aiming to recapture Sinai from Israel, I was in Sinai climbing what in Arabic is called “Mount Moses,” the mountain traditionally regarded as Mount Sina…
Psalms for Everyone - Our Handiwork and God's
Psalms for Everyone - Our Handiwork and God's
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Our handiwork and God’s Psalm 28 In the news last weekend was a story about an unemployed and deep-in-debt hairdresser in his forties who went to a “Money Cometh to You” conference at a church in Vermont to listen to a visiting preacher who promised that the Lord could not only s…
Psalms for Everyone - I Whistle a Happy Tune