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Mere Apologetics - 5b Why Does the Reasonableness of Christianity Matter?
Mere Apologetics - 5b Why Does the Reasonableness of Christianity Matter?
by SPCK - Alister McGrath
Why Does the Reasonableness of Christianity Matter? Why is this point so important? Why should we need to show that Christian belief is reasonable? Why not just assert it? One of the apologetic points we need to emphasize here is that it is difficult to defend ideas that seem cou…
The Minister as Entrepreneur - 6 Definitions of the entrepreneur
The Minister as Entrepreneur - 6 Definitions of the entrepreneur
by SPCK - Michael Volland
Definitions of the entrepreneur In the Introduction to this book I proposed my own definition of the entrepreneur. I shall open this chapter by spending a little more time with that definition before moving on to consider an alternative definition suggested by Bill Bolton and Joh…
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - Trinity Sunday Year B
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - Trinity Sunday Year B
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
Trinity Sunday John 3: 1-17 Gaze at this conversation, taking place at night in Jesus’ rooms, somewhere in a dark Jerusalem back street. The room is barely lit by a small earthen oil lamp. Jesus and his unexpected guest sit cross-legged on cushions. The furnishings of the room ar…
Lectionary Reflections Year A - Proper 13 Year A
Lectionary Reflections Year A - Proper 13 Year A
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Lectionary reflections - Year A Ordinary Time Proper 13 Isaiah 55.1–5 Romans 9.1–5 Matthew 14.13–21 The pain in Paul’s words is tangible, and made even more poignant by the victorious assurance of the end of chapter 8. Paul has just been asserting that nothing can ‘separate us fr…
Simply Good News - A Different Kind of God
Simply Good News - A Different Kind of God
by SPCK - N T Wright
A Different Kind of God That’s why the stories about Jesus – the four Gospels or good-news books – are quite complicated. They show Jesus not parachuting down from a great height to dispense solutions to all problems nor zapping everything into shape like some kind of Superman, b…
Scripture and the Authority of God - Scripture within Contemporary Culture
Scripture and the Authority of God - Scripture within Contemporary Culture
by SPCK - N T Wright
Scripture within Contemporary Culture Scripture in Today’s World: Five Areas The Bible doesn’t just live within the church, because the church (if it is true to its own nature and vocation) is always open to God’s world. Our contemporary culture impinges on the questions that are…
The Lord and His Prayer - Give Us This Day
The Lord and His Prayer - Give Us This Day
by SPCK - N T Wright
Give Us This Day CHAPTER THREE The danger with the prayer for bread is that we get there too soon. We come to prayer, aware of urgent needs, or at least wants. It’s tempting to race through the Lord’s Prayer, as far as ‘on earth as it is in heaven’, so that we can then take a dee…
Imagining the Lectionary: The utter incongruity of faith devoid of practical compassion (Proper 25A; Ordinary 30A)
Imagining the Lectionary: The utter incongruity of faith devoid of practical compassion (Proper 25A; Ordinary 30A)
by David Perry
Imagining the Lectionary: The utter incongruity of faith devoid of practical compassion (Proper 25A; Ordinary 30A) Reflection accompanying images “Autumn leaves in abandoned steel sink” A pile of autumn leaves in the bottom of a kitchen sink is a profoundly incongruous and unex…
Revelation bible study guide - New Heaven, New Earth, New Jerusalem
Revelation bible study guide - New Heaven, New Earth, New Jerusalem
by SPCK - N T Wright
New Heaven, New Earth, New Jerusalem Revelation 21:1-21 There are some moments in life when we say to ourselves, “Everything is going to be different now. This is entirely new. This is a whole new world opening up.”...
New Testament Prayer for Everyone - The Inheritance and the Spirit
New Testament Prayer for Everyone - The Inheritance and the Spirit
by SPCK - N T Wright
PART 2 PRAYERS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT PRAYERS OF PAUL THE INHERITANCE AND THE SPIRIT Ephesians 1: 11-14 Not far from where I was born there is an ancient castle. It stands imposingly, high above the banks of a river, defying anyone to attack it. These days, the likely attacks come …
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Stephen Tells the Story
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Stephen Tells the Story
by SPCK - N T Wright
Stephen Tells the Story Acts 7.1-16 One of the most obvious differences between cricket and baseball is the way the ball is projected towards the person who is trying to hit it. As most people will know, the person who ‘pitches’ in baseball stands on a single spot, where he (or s…
CHRISTIANITY AND THE RENEWAL OF NATURE - 1 Renewing the face of the earth: Human responsibility and the environment
CHRISTIANITY AND THE RENEWAL OF NATURE - 1 Renewing the face of the earth: Human responsibility and the environment
by SPCK - Sebastian C.H. Kim and Jonathan Draper
Renewing the face of the earth: Human responsibility and the environment Some modern philosophers have spoken about the human face as the most potent sign of what it is that we can’t master or exhaust in the life of a human other – a sign of the claim upon us of the other, of the…
Lectionary Reflections Year A - Proper 10 Year A
Lectionary Reflections Year A - Proper 10 Year A
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Lectionary reflections - Year A Ordinary Time Proper 10 Isaiah 55.10–13 Romans 8.1–11 Matthew 13.1–9, 18–23 Why is God so profligate? With the second half of today’s reading from Matthew, the emphasis switches from God’s action to our response; but the first half of the story is …
Nativity from Above
Nativity from Above
by Andy Lindley
Not scriptural accurate, but I wanted to convey, as the scriptures do also, the impact of Jesus' birth on the breadth of humanity from the lowly shepherds, gentiles, jews and even wise and noble. The light emanates from Christ, mirroring John's gospel, and that Jesus is the light…
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - Day of Pentecost Year B
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - Day of Pentecost Year B
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Day of Pentecost Acts 2.1-21 Romans 8.22-27 John 15.26-27; 16.4b-15 The Holy Spirit has been in danger in recent years of becoming the soppy one of the Trinity. Think about it for a bit – the Holy Spirit doesn’t go off and do uncomfortable and challenging things like getting cruc…
Fools for the world, Christ makes us fools