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Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - Creation Asserts Itself
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - Creation Asserts Itself
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Creation Asserts Itself Genesis 3: 1-3 A talking snake? But this is a parable, remember. In Julia Bolden’s version of the story, the tempter is a parrot, and God’s ban concerns television; Adam and Eve are not to watch the good and- bad-knowledge channel. A parrot flies in throug…
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - Do We Ever Learn?- Take Two
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - Do We Ever Learn?- Take Two
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Do We Ever Learn? Take Two Genesis 26: 6- 33 A few weeks ago, the great U.S. novelist John Updike died. I think I had tried to read one of his novels years ago but failed. In light of the eulogies, I thought I should try again, so I started with Too Far to Go, over which one of t…
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - Do We Ever Learn?
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - Do We Ever Learn?
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Do We Ever Learn Genesis 20: 1-13 There was a man who used to come to talk to me from time to time when he had gotten into a mess with a woman (well, he came at other times, too). He was married and ought to have known better, but he didn’t. He would blame the women: they were at…
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - Friday Afternoon
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - Friday Afternoon
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Friday Afternoon Genesis 1: 27-30 My wife and I have friends who used to keep an animal or two, and when we stayed with them for the weekend we were introduced to a calf called Jeremy. It was at Sunday lunch that we met him. They brought Jeremy up, had him slaughtered and cut up,…
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - Fool by Name, Fool by Nature
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - Fool by Name, Fool by Nature
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Fool by Name and Fool by Nature 1 Samuel 24: 1- 25: 44 You sometimes wonder how on earth a certain woman ended up marrying a certain man, but sometimes you can see that a couple are a good match. My office is located between the offices of two of my married colleagues; I joke tha…
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - Friendship
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - Friendship
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Friendship 1 Samuel 20: 1- 21: 16 I know someone now in her eighties who lived for forty or fifty years with a friend. They had separate jobs, but in the rest of life they were inseparable, involved together in church and social life and spending their holidays together. The frie…
Job for Everyone - Friendship
Job for Everyone - Friendship
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Where Could I Go But to the Lord? Job 5: 1-27 The story goes that sometime in the 1930s a Mississippi music teacher and Baptist deacon named James Coats was at the bedside of one of his neighbors, whose name was Joe Keyes. Joe was dying, and James asked him if he knew where he wo…
Exodus and Leviticus - From Guerrilla to Fugitive
Exodus and Leviticus - From Guerrilla to Fugitive
by SPCK - John Goldingay
From Guerrilla to Fugitive EXODUS 2: 11- 25 There is a special kind of irregular verb (popularized by the British TV series Yes Minister) that describes the same action differently according to who speaks and who is being referred to. A well-known example is “I am firm; you are o…
Exodus and Leviticus - Giving to God
Exodus and Leviticus - Giving to God
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Giving to God LEVITICUS 1: 1- 2: 16 In our seminary in England, faculty and students worked as teams in planning and leading worship. While this was a great privilege and I enjoyed it when it was my team’s turn, my heart would also sink somewhat when our period of duty arrived be…
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - Helping People Get Back on Their Feet
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - Helping People Get Back on Their Feet
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Helping People Get Back on Their Feet Deuteronomy 15: 1- 18 According to a legal record from July 6, 1773, James Best, a laborer, “doth voluntarily put himself Servant to Captain Stephen Jones Master of the Snow Sally” (a snow was a kind of sailing ship). Jones would take Best fr…
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - God’s Laws as the Way to Blessing
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - God’s Laws as the Way to Blessing
by SPCK - John Goldingay
God’s Laws as the Way to Blessing Psalm 119: 1-24 After church today, a friend asked me a question that had arisen out of a conversation he’d had with a co-worker. My friend was surprised that the co-worker was willing to work seven days a week—what about the commandment concerni…
Exodus and Leviticus - How to Check Things out with God
Exodus and Leviticus - How to Check Things out with God
by SPCK - John Goldingay
How to Check Things Out with God EXODUS 32: 30-33: 11 Throughout most of my life, I have had a particular place where I pray each day. At the moment it is an ancient recliner chair sitting in front of my desk. Next to it is a little table where I keep a Bible and a prayer noteboo…
Exodus and Leviticus - How to build a Church
Exodus and Leviticus - How to build a Church
by SPCK - John Goldingay
How to Build a Church 1 EXODUS 25: 1- 26: 30 At our church we have just begun inviting ourselves to make offerings for work that needs to be done to the buildings. We have a list of priorities, like the replacement of some wooden beams that have rotted in the rains (it is Califor…
Exodus and Leviticus - How to Celebrate
Exodus and Leviticus - How to Celebrate
by SPCK - John Goldingay
How to Celebrate LEVITICUS 23: 1- 24:9 When my parents could afford it, two or three times as a teenager I was able to go to “camps,” as they would be called in the United States (I am glad to say there were no tents in sight; we slept in school dormitories). It was at one of the…
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - How to Be the Bad Guy
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - How to Be the Bad Guy
by SPCK - John Goldingay
How to Be the Bad Guy 2 Kings 21:1-26 I sometimes wish I knew what was going to happen in the future, though when I think about it, I am not so sure it’s a good idea. When my wife was diagnosed with her multiple sclerosis, if I had known how it would progress over four decades, I…
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - I Have Kept Yahweh's Ways
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - I Have Kept Yahweh's Ways
by SPCK - John Goldingay
I Have Kept Yahweh’s Ways? 2 Samuel 22: 21- 51 Last night I was talking to one of our students who served in the U.S. forces in Iraq as an antiterrorism operative. Like many soldiers, he came home with trauma that he has subsequently had to try to talk through over a period of ye…
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - I Don't Sweat
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - I Don't Sweat
by SPCK - John Goldingay
I Don’t Sweat Genesis 15: 6b-7 On the day before his inauguration as president, someone asked Barack Obama whether he was sweating. “Nah, I don’t sweat,” he replied. “You ever see me sweat?” Not yet, but it’s early, a news report commented. When I was about to move to the United …
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - Human Beings as Gardeners