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Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - Stuff Happens
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - Stuff Happens
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Stuff Happens Genesis 12: 6b-10 Three or four years ago, a friend of mine got a job as a youth pastor on the East Coast. It meant his wife had to give up her job in California, but she had originally come from the East Coast, and she was entirely happy to make the move. They foun…
Job for Everyone - The Awe-Inspiring Creator
Job for Everyone - The Awe-Inspiring Creator
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Awe-Inspiring Creator Job 36 26-37: 24 The window by my desk looks out over our patio, where I can see geraniums starting to bloom, blue jays coming to bathe in the fountain, and squirrels trying to remember where they stored their nuts. A plant of basil sits on a table and w…
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - The Audacity of Hope
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - The Audacity of Hope
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Audacity of Hope Genesis 5: 21-32 At a lunch the weekend after Tony Blair became British prime minister in 1997, I was talking with a woman at our table. The event had reminded me of the election of Harold Wilson’s government in Britain in 1964, and I had been thinking of the…
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - The Competition to Be the Shrewdest Sheep Farmer
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - The Competition to Be the Shrewdest Sheep Farmer
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Competition to Be the Shrewdest Sheep Farmer Genesis 30:22-43 After church this morning, one of our senior laypeople asked me about Hagar. Someone had implied in a comment to her that Hagar was a prostitute and/or a concubine. In effect I explained that Hagar’s status was mor…
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - The Deceiver Deceived
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - The Deceiver Deceived
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Deceiver Deceived Genesis 29:14b-31 The chapters in Genesis for Everyone regularly begin with a story making a link with our own world, but who needs a story to introduce the account of Jacob’s wedding? If I made a list of the moments in the Bible that I would most like to ha…
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - The Cry from Sodom
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - The Cry from Sodom
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Cry from Sodom Genesis 18: 16-20 Any day I write, there are cries arising from the world. To test that statement, I just went to get today’s newspaper. On the front page is a photo of a woman who lost a leg and whose husband and son died in a NATO bombing in Afghanistan. In t…
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - The Creation Story as a Historical Parable
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - The Creation Story as a Historical Parable
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Creation Story as a Historical Parable Genesis 2: 4a Once when our sons were young we were driving through northern France, across a plain with a range of mountains in the background. In the back seat our younger son (who was about twelve) started giving a lecture on how thes…
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - The Dreamer
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - The Dreamer
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Dreamer Genesis 37:5-36 I have known one or two people who had dreams or visions or words from God (indeed, I have had one or two myself). Sometimes these have been rather general and uncheckable, though edifying and at worst harmless. Sometimes they have been vindicated by e…
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - The Expulsion and Its Consequences
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - The Expulsion and Its Consequences
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Expulsion and Its Consequences Genesis 3: 23-24 I was once walking through the seminary campus when I spotted a former student, whom I had known quite well, sitting in a patio area with rather a disconsolate look. When I asked him if he was OK, he replied, “I’ve made a train …
Isaiah for Everyone - The Destiny of All That Is Humanly Impressive
Isaiah for Everyone - The Destiny of All That Is Humanly Impressive
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Destiny of All That is Humanly Impressive Isaiah 2: 6-22 It’s Holy Week, and for more than twenty years a magnificent church not far from where we live put on a glorious Easter pageant in the weeks leading up to Easter, “the largest and most spectacular passion play” in the w…
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - The First Romance?
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - The First Romance?
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The First Romance? Genesis 24: 49- 25: 6 Ann and I were sitting in a restaurant waiting for dinner to arrive. There should have been jazz, but the restaurant had been busted by the city authorities for not having a music license, so it was quiet, and I was reading to Ann from Bar…
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - The First Family, the First Worship, the First Acceptance, the First Rejection
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - The First Family, the First Worship, the First Acceptance, the First Rejection
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The First Family, the First worship, the First Acceptance, the First Rejection Genesis 4: 1-5a I once went through quite a long period of time (several years, I think) when God did not seem very real. I didn’t exactly doubt whether God was there; it was just that I didn’t feel Go…
Job for Everyone - The God of Wrath
Job for Everyone - The God of Wrath
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The God of Wrath Job 9: 1-35 We were preparing dinner for people in a homeless shelter on Friday when out of the blue my pastor asked me, “What do you say when people ask you why the God of the Old Testament is so different from the God of the New Testament?” Quick as a flash I r…
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - The God of the Storm
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - The God of the Storm
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The God of the Storm 2 Samuel 22: 1- 20 The song says, “It never rains in Southern California,” but it goes on to say that they never warn you that it does sometimes pour. I myself never needed galoshes in Britain, where we usually have only gentle rain, though we have it rather …
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - The Grief of a Sister and the Strife Between Brothers
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - The Grief of a Sister and the Strife Between Brothers
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Grief of a Sister and the Strife between Brothers 2 Samuel 13: 15- 14: 24 I once knew someone who was sexually abused on an ongoing basis by a family member when she was a young girl. She never told me the details of what happened, and to be honest I never wanted her to do so…
Job for Everyone - The God Who Whispers in Our Ears
Job for Everyone - The God Who Whispers in Our Ears
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The God Who Whispers in Our Ears Job 36 1-25 A young man comes to see me from time to time to discuss what is going on between him and God. He used to seem depressed, but the depression lifted when he came to acknowledge that he was attracted to other men rather than to women. He…
Joshua, Judges and Ruth for Everyone - The Importance of a Game Plan
Joshua, Judges and Ruth for Everyone - The Importance of a Game Plan
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Importance of a Game Plan JOSHUA 8: 1-21 Three weeks ago I went to my first American football game. It was also my first experience of tailgating in the warm sunshine and of eating breakfast burritos, which (accompanied by mimosas) were perhaps the highlight of the day. I was…
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - The Last Words of David