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Exodus and Leviticus - How to Pray for Rebels
Exodus and Leviticus - How to Pray for Rebels
by SPCK - John Goldingay
How to Pray for Rebels EXODUS 32: 1-29 You could say I came to the United States to avoid the responsibility of leadership. I was the head of a seminary and got paid more than my colleagues because it was my job to lie awake worrying about its future. Metaphorically speaking, on …
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - How To Render To Caesar
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - How To Render To Caesar
by SPCK - John Goldingay
How Not to Render to Caesar 2 Kings 15:1-16:20 A recent graduate of our seminary was telling me on Friday that the seminary faculty is divided between people who avoid saying things that students would disagree with and people who don’t mind saying such things. The logic (she thi…
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - In the Beginning
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - In the Beginning
by SPCK - John Goldingay
In the Beginning Genesis 1: 1 Our son and daughter-in-law were showing us photographs of our two grandchildren. In one of them, the two children were sitting in the back of the car looking very solemn. “I think we had just had the birds-and-the-bees talk,” our son explained. Wher…
Exodus and Leviticus - Knowing and Acknowledging Again
Exodus and Leviticus - Knowing and Acknowledging Again
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Knowing and Acknowledging Again EXODUS 11: 1-10 EXODUS and Leviticus for Everyone 1Yahweh said to Moses, “There is yet one more blow I shall bring on Pharaoh and on Egypt. After that, he will send you off from here. When he sends you off, it will be complete. He will finally thro…
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - Last Chance to take the Torah and The Prophets Seriously
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - Last Chance to take the Torah and The Prophets Seriously
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Last Chance to Take the Torah and the Prophets Seriously 2 Kings 22:1-23:24 Being the principal of a seminary occupied the middle ten years of my time as a professor. I had felt no desire to be in that position, but once it became clear that it was the right thing for a time, I r…
Exodus and Leviticus - Knowledge and Acknowledgement
Exodus and Leviticus - Knowledge and Acknowledgement
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Knowledge and Acknowledgement EXODUS 9: 1-21 Eventually Pharaoh’s ministers of state see the point and surely risk their lives with the boldness of their confrontation of Pharaoh: “Do you not yet acknowledge that Egypt is lost?” (10:7). Can he not see they are like animals caught…
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday Genesis 1:6-19 At the weekend my wife and I like to have lunch by the ocean, and while doing so we watch the surf hurling itself at the beach. No matter how hard giant waves batter the beach, they will never climb the rocks to where we sit, still less t…
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - Meanwhile in Judah
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - Meanwhile in Judah
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Meanwhile in Judah 1 Kings 14:21-15:24 A couple of weeks ago a student asked me with some anxiety whether there was any evidence that any of the events in the Old Testament actually happened. Were there any records from surrounding peoples that people such as Abraham or Moses or …
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - Negotiations and Love Songs
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - Negotiations and Love Songs
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Negotiations and Love Songs NUMBERS 30:1- 16 About a year after he got married, one of my students set off from Los Angeles for Chicago, driving the opposite way to the one recommended in the song “Route 66,” in order to begin graduate school. Only subsequently in an e-mail did h…
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - Nationalization
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - Nationalization
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Nationalization Genesis 47:1-26 In the recession of 2008 and its aftermath, a new n-word was uttered in hushed tones in the United States. To many people, “nationalization” was as frightening a notion as government-organized health insurance. But the question had to be asked: Was…
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - On Mutual Support
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - On Mutual Support
by SPCK - John Goldingay
On Mutual Support Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone NUMBERS 32:1- 42 1Now the Reubenites and the Gadites had much livestock, very extensive, and they looked at the country of Jazer and Gilead: this was a place for cattle. 2So the Gadites and Reubenites came and said to Moses, …
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - On Killing Enemies
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - On Killing Enemies
by SPCK - John Goldingay
On Killing Enemies Deuteronomy 7: 1-6 In the modern age, the way the Old Testament talks about the Israelites’ destroying people troubles many Jews and Christians in the United States. It did not do so before the modern period, and it is not felt as so much of a problem in other …
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - On Letting Your Son Die
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - On Letting Your Son Die
by SPCK - John Goldingay
On Letting Your Son Die Genesis 22: 3- 10 What on earth does it do to you to have your father go to the edge of killing you? What does it do to your relationship to your father, and what does it do to your view of God? A seminary colleague of mine in England, who (like me) was al…
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - What do You Most Want?
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - What do You Most Want?
by SPCK - John Goldingay
What do You Most Want? 1 Kings 3:1-15 I used to ask a friend of mine from time to time, “What would you like to do?” The question would usually relate to concerts; I would outline possibilities to her, but she would usually ask me to decide. Just last week she protested that this…
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - The Low Murmuring Sound
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - The Low Murmuring Sound
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Low Murmuring Sound 1 Kings 19:1-21 I am inclined to think that nothing I do in seeking to fulfill my vocation achieves anything. My vocation is to help people understand the Old Testament and let their thinking and their lives be shaped by it. I am passionately committed to …
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - On Challenging the Gods and God
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - On Challenging the Gods and God
by SPCK - John Goldingay
On Challenging the Gods and God Psalm 82 Two friends who live in the Philippines had lunch with us a week or so ago while on a visit home in the United States. One of them, a Chinese American, told us that in the Philippines he had a sense of the presence of evil spirits that he …
Exodus and Leviticus - A Rule of Life