Search Results
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - The Journey Actually Begins
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - The Journey Actually Begins
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Journey Actually Begins NUMBERS 9: 15-10: 36 Although I make decisions easily (though this does not mean I make them wisely), when it was a question of deciding to take my disabled wife six thousand miles from Britain to California to a place we had visited only once and wher…
Exodus and Leviticus - The Life Is in the Blood
Exodus and Leviticus - The Life Is in the Blood
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Life Is In the Blood LEVITICUS : 17: 1- 18: 30 A month ago a woman came to see me to talk about the general difficulties of her life. Her mother had died some time previously. She was barely on speaking terms with her father. She certainly was not on speaking terms with her m…
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - The Lord of The Flies
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - The Lord of The Flies
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Lord of the Flies 2 Kings 1:2-18 There are more positive and less positive understandings of human nature. The word zebub means fly, so the title “Master Zebub” or “Lord Zebub” would mean “Lord Fly” or “Lord of the Fly.” Now Lord of the Flies was a mid-twentieth-century novel by …
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - The Man Who Drives Like a Madman
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - The Man Who Drives Like a Madman
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Man Who Drives Like a Madman 2 Kings 9:1-37 My parents so loved movie star Bette Davis that they named my sister after her. They married in 1938, the year Bette Davis won an Oscar for her central role in the film Jezebel. As “Jezebel” she is Julie Marsden, a powerful, proud, …
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - The Pain of Motherhood
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - The Pain of Motherhood
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Pain of Motherhood Genesis 3: 14-16a I wrote an e-mail to someone this week and had an astonishing reply which, after the main part of the message, went on, “Oh, by the way. . . .” Actually it didn’t literally say that, but that is how it came across, because the news that fo…
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - The Personal and The Political
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - The Personal and The Political
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Personal and the Political 1 Kings 17:1-24 I have just deleted an e-mail from a student in whose life I saw something of a miracle a few months ago. She had been diagnosed as having a brain tumor and was hastily scheduled for an emergency operation to try to remove it. The su…
Psalms for Everyone - Who Can I Turn To?
Psalms for Everyone - Who Can I Turn To?
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Who Can I Turn To? Psalm 4 We were at the farmer’s market (in Britain one would call it a street market). I really wanted new potatoes, which the New York Times had assured me should be available, but I was not surprised that East Coast information on such matters does not necess…
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - The Peak of Rebellion
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - The Peak of Rebellion
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Peak of Rebellion Genesis 6: 1-4 We had a friend in England who had been sexually abused on an ongoing basis by her uncle, who was a minister. The abuse had happened when she was a little girl (she was then in her forties), but all her life she had been trying to come to term…
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - The Price the Family Begin to Pay
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - The Price the Family Begin to Pay
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Price the Family Begins to Pay 2 Samuel 12: 15b- 13: 14 At a concert last night a singer was telling us the background to a song about her grandfather. He was French-Canadian, spoke mostly in French, and died when she was a child. For both reasons she feels she never really g…
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - The Rhythm of Pilgrimage
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - The Rhythm of Pilgrimage
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Rhythm of Pilgrimage Deuteronomy 15: 19- 16: 17 Five or six miles from where I live is an Episcopal church whose leadership and congregation recently decided to withdraw from its identification with the Episcopal Church in the United States, while staying Anglican in a broade…
Joshua, Judges and Ruth for Everyone - The Story Reaches Its Lowest Point (I)
Joshua, Judges and Ruth for Everyone - The Story Reaches Its Lowest Point (I)
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Story Reaches Its Lowest Point (I) JUDGES 19:1-30 One of the Oscar contenders at the time I write is the movie Precious, the story of a teenager whose life is characterized by systematic abuse in the context of her family, including rape and incest on the part of her father a…
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - The Splendor is Gone
1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone - The Splendor is Gone
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Splendor is Gone 1 Samuel 4: 1b- 22 In his sermon yesterday, our rector (slightly apologetically) told us he had been watching a TV series about a psychopathic boy whom a police officer had adopted. The boy’s stepfather gave him a “code”: Don’t kill innocent people; make sure…
Job for Everyone - The Way I Have Walked (I)
Job for Everyone - The Way I Have Walked (I)
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Way I Have Walked Job 31 1-12 A year after my first wife Ann died, I was out to dinner with a group that included a former colleague whose wife had died a while previously. He had remarried a year or so later, and I was intrigued to hear the story. He began from the aftermath…
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - The Test
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - The Test
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Test Genesis 21: 33- 22: 2 I am writing at the beginning of Lent, and I have been thinking about the story of Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness, when he was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the Devil. Every time I get to the end of that sentence, I hav…
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - The Subtle Link between God’s Grace and People’s Response
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - The Subtle Link between God’s Grace and People’s Response
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Subtle Link between God’s Grace and People’s Response Psalm 78: 1-37 Yesterday in church the Old Testament reading was the giving of the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20, and we followed that reading with some congregational discussion of which of these commands seem most import…
Joshua, Judges and Ruth for Everyone - The Universal and the Local
Joshua, Judges and Ruth for Everyone - The Universal and the Local
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Universal and the Local JOSHUA 22:1- 34 Like a number of denominations, the Anglican/Episcopal church to which I belong is in a mess because different parts of the world and different groups in the same parts of the world hold conflicting views about the real nature of Christ…
Job for Everyone - The Way We Were and the Way I Thought We Would Be
Job for Everyone - The Way We Were and the Way I Thought We Would Be
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Way We Were and the Way I Thought We Would Be Job 29: 1-25 They say that if your spouse dies after a time of illness and/or gradual decline, initially your memories are dominated by the nature of those last months, but that eventually older memories come to reassert themselve…
Psalms for Everyone - The Wretched of the Earth