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Isaiah for everyone - The Servant's Servant
Isaiah for everyone - The Servant's Servant
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Servant’s Servant A few weeks ago I had to preach at the ordination of a friend. She asked me to choose a passage as a Scripture reading from which I would preach. She laughed when I told her it would be the first of these two paragraphs, because (she commented) everyone knew…
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs for Everyone - The Way of a Man Can Be Strange
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs for Everyone - The Way of a Man Can Be Strange
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Way of a Man Can Be Strange A newly married couple came to talk to us about a tension within their marriage (as if we were experts, being married for only a year ourselves). The husband is a lively, young man whom his wife regards as handsome…
Jeremiah for everyone - Truth to Power
Jeremiah for everyone - Truth to Power
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Truth to Power As I write, the Australian founder of Wikileaks is effectively a prisoner in the Ecuadorean embassy in London. If he leaves the embassy, Britain will arrest him and hand him over to authorities in Sweden that have sought his extradition…
Jeremiah for everyone - Uncircumcised Ears
Jeremiah for everyone - Uncircumcised Ears
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Uncircumcised Ears I had an odd experience yesterday. My wife initiated a quite ordinary and reasonable conversation about moving around some of the furniture and repainting the walls and replacing the dining furniture that’s falling apart…
Jeremiah for everyone - Why Do the Faithless Do Well?
Jeremiah for everyone - Why Do the Faithless Do Well?
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Why Do the Faithless Do Well? In connection with Jeremiah’s opening chapter, I mentioned a “How” question in connection with disability. There’s also a “Why” question. My first wife was wheelchair-bound and unable to do anything for herself for the last twelve years of her life…
Isaiah for everyone - Wishing and Hoping and Thinking and Praying, Planning, and Dreaming
Isaiah for everyone - Wishing and Hoping and Thinking and Praying, Planning, and Dreaming
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Wishing and Hoping and Thinking and Praying, Planning, and Dreaming On Thursday I took part in interviewing a prospective new faculty member and on Friday my wife and I took part in a student retreat, and I now see a feature these events had in common. The interviewee referred to…
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs for Everyone - With Modesty There Is Wisdom
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs for Everyone - With Modesty There Is Wisdom
by SPCK - John Goldingay
With Modesty There Is Wisdom In an earlier volume of The Old Testament for Everyone I referred to the fact that I’m inclined to think that nothing I do as a teacher or writer or pastor makes any difference to anyone…
Isaiah for everyone - Wishing and Hoping and Thinking and Praying, Planning, and Dreaming (2)
Isaiah for everyone - Wishing and Hoping and Thinking and Praying, Planning, and Dreaming (2)
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Wishing and Hoping and Thinking and Praying, Planning, and Dreaming (2) When I was about eight, we went for a family holiday to stay with some friends. One morning as breakfast was about to begin I went back to our bedroom to get a sweater or something (it was an English summer) …
Jeremiah for everyone - Wounds Too Severe for Treatment
Jeremiah for everyone - Wounds Too Severe for Treatment
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Wounds Too Severe for Treatment Days after the publication of his memoir, the writer Christopher Hitchens was struck down by cancer. He died eighteen months later, but through his illness he kept writing because that’s what writers do…
Jeremiah for everyone - Another Wicked Play on Words
Jeremiah for everyone - Another Wicked Play on Words
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Another Wicked Play on Words For a while I was the faculty representative on the president’s cabinet in our seminary, which means I had to get up early once a month for a meeting of people in the administration to discuss big policy questions (but not so much their ongoing implem…
Isaiah for everyone - Choose Your Ending
Isaiah for everyone - Choose Your Ending
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Choose Your Ending There’s a classic movie called The French Lieutenant’s Woman, set in nineteenth-century England, that tells of a tortuous relationship in which a man is powerfully drawn to a woman who hardly belongs to his class and when he is already committed to marrying som…
Jeremiah for everyone - If Someone Disciplines You, It Implies Loving You
Jeremiah for everyone - If Someone Disciplines You, It Implies Loving You
by SPCK - John Goldingay
If Someone Disciplines You, It Implies Loving You In a television interview, the great tennis player Serena Williams was talking about an outburst she’d had at a lineswoman who claimed Serena had foot-faulted; Serena had been convinced she was wrong…
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs for Everyone - If Two People Lie Together, They Can Be Warm
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs for Everyone - If Two People Lie Together, They Can Be Warm
by SPCK - John Goldingay
If Two People Lie Together, They Can Be Warm A friend of mine lost his wife some years ago and got married again to a family friend within three months. I was both worried and sympathetic (he had been looked after too well by his first wife and had no idea how to cook), but it ha…
Isaiah for Everyone - Meanwhile, back in Jerusalem
Isaiah for Everyone - Meanwhile, back in Jerusalem
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Meanwhile, Back in Jerusalem I have just come off the phone from a conversation with a former student in England who was in tears about failing a degree program. She doesn’t claim that her exam performance was brilliant; she sees herself as a poor examinee. But she doesn’t think …
Jeremiah for everyone - Lucky Figs and Unlucky Figs
Jeremiah for everyone - Lucky Figs and Unlucky Figs
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Lucky Figs and Unlucky Figs We walked past a supermarket last night and marveled at the size of the truck delivering produce, and we wondered how quickly the supermarket would empty if there were a big earthquake (answer: about two hours)…
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs for Everyone - Nightmares and Dreams (1)
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs for Everyone - Nightmares and Dreams (1)
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Nightmares and Dreams (1) A student of mine from southern Africa once gave me an account of aspects of her life at home. In homestead life in her grandparents’ day, her grandfather had eleven wives; each had six to ten children. His wives’ huts stood in a half-moon, his in the ce…
Jeremiah for everyone - Who Am I?