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Disciples stories
Disciples stories
by Avis Palmer
Disciples stories Chorus: Christ is the way, and the truth and the life, In every age the same. Listen and pray, in joy and in strife, All ways he speaks your name. Walking along by the lake shore Christ talked with fishermen. "Follow me now, come and explore", Each day he calls …
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - Proper 23 Year B
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - Proper 23 Year B
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
Proper 23 Mark 10: 17-31 Gaze at the man kneeling before Jesus, with such an expression of expectation. He is devoted to this new, charismatic leader. He firmly believes he is already a disciple, and now he has asked for a special message for him, personally. He obviously has tre…
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - Proper 25 Year B
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - Proper 25 Year B
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Proper 25 Jeremiah 31.7-9 Hebrews 7.23-28 Mark 10.46-52 Some theologies sound a bit vague about what happens to Jesus after the resurrection. His work is completed, once for all, on the cross, he is vindicated by the Father through the resurrection, and that’s that. Then, dependi…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 2 Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 2 Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 2 2 Kings 5.1–14 1 Corinthians 9.24–27 Mark 1.40–45 Naaman’s wife’s maid knew more about Elisha’s healing powers than the king of Israel. All the king could do was tear his clothes and rage against his Syrian counterpart, suspecting that a request for healing was a disgu…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 11 Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 11 Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 11 2 Samuel 7.1-14a Ephesians 2.11-22 Mark 6.30-34, 53-56 Read 2 Samuel 7 through the eyes of a second-Temple Jew, and watch New Testament theology come into focus. This passage, read messianically at Qumran and elsewhere, fuses together four things. God promises David a p…
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - The Second Sunday of Easter Year B
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - The Second Sunday of Easter Year B
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The Second Sunday of Easter Acts 4.32–35 1 1 John 1.1—2.2 John 20.19–31 The recent popularity of The Lord of the Rings has helpfully given new vitality to the word ‘fellowship’. The people who make up the ‘fellowship of the ring’ are not natural allies. They have little in comm…
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - Proper 15 Year B
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - Proper 15 Year B
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
Proper 15 John 6: 51-58 Gaze on a typical communion service. In some churches people sit patiently in their pew before being stewarded to the rail. In others, people get up and go when it suits them. There is the circle of people around the altar – the elderly and arthritic stand…
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - Proper 21 Year B
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - Proper 21 Year B
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
Proper 21 Mark 9: 38-50 Gaze on Archbishop Cranmer, being led to the stake to die by fire because he would not act against his conscience. In many ways the sixteenth century was more like the time of Jesus than it is ours. Cranmer would have understood more fully the risks and da…
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - Easter Day Year B
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - Easter Day Year B
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
Easter Day Mark 16.1-8 or John 20.1-18 Gaze at the women, determined to do women’s work, and to honour the body of their friend. They come to anoint him with spices, not thinking ‘This is useless, why bother?’ They do not look for miracles, only the performance of a tradition. Bu…
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - The Fourth Sunday before Advent Year B
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - The Fourth Sunday before Advent Year B
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
The Fourth Sunday before Advent Mark 12: 28-34 Gaze on Jesus still in the Temple after hours of debate. Imagine him standing in the outer Temple courts where the doves are fluttering and goats bleating and penned ready for sacrifice. Five hundred years old, the Temple is the gold…
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Ascension!
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Ascension!
by SPCK - N T Wright
Ascension! Acts 1.9-14 We were having supper with some friends who had recently moved to western Canada. ‘So,’ my wife began, ‘does Vancouver feel like home?’ ‘It’s not home,’ replied the wife energetically. ‘It’s heaven!’ ‘Well, my dear,’ commented her husband, a theologian, rep…
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Look Upon Their Threats
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Look Upon Their Threats
by SPCK - N T Wright
Look upon Their Threats Acts 4. 23-31 In the early summer of 1989, I went to Jerusalem to teach, and to work on a couple of books, one of which was about Jesus himself. One day, sitting in my borrowed room at St George’s Cathedral, I was struggling with a few pages I was trying t…
Lectionary Reflections Year A - Christ the King Year A
Lectionary Reflections Year A - Christ the King Year A
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Lectionary reflections - Year A Sundays Before Advent Christ the King Ezekiel 34.11–16, 20–4 Ephesians 1.15–23 Matthew 25.31–46 Matthew 25 is all about preparedness. First of all, there are the foolish bridesmaids, who ran out of oil and so missed the wedding; then there is the s…
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - Proper 18 Year B
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - Proper 18 Year B
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Proper 18 Isaiah 35. 4-7a James 2.1-17 Mark 7. 24-37 I suppose it’s comforting, in an Eeyore-ish kind of way, to know that ours is not the only generation of Christians to think that belief is simply a matter of the words you use, and that it doesn’t need to affect ordinary life …
Acts for Everyone part 1 - God's Rescue Plan
Acts for Everyone part 1 - God's Rescue Plan
by SPCK - N T Wright
God’s Rescue Plan Acts 2.37-41 It’s one thing to discover you are driving along the wrong road. It may be frustrating, and even embarrassing if you have people in the car who thought you knew where you were going. But you can at least admit the mistake, turn round and set off aga…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Proper 24 Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Proper 24 Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
Ordinary Time - Proper 24 Exodus 33.12–23 1 Thessalonians 1.1–10 Matthew 22.15–22 The multiple echoes of Exodus 33 bounce around the New Testament. The first letter to the Thessalonians, held by many to be the first surviving Christian writing, offers another reminder that the go…
Lectionary Reflections Year A - Proper 7 Year A