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Lectionary Reflections - Year B - The Fourth Sunday of Lent Year B
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - The Fourth Sunday of Lent Year B
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The Fourth Sunday of Lent Numbers 21.4-9 Ephesians 2.1–10 John 3.14–21 The imagination nourished by the Bible immediately springs into action at the mention of snakes. In Numbers, they may be real rather than metaphorical, but that does not prevent them from carrying heavy symbol…
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - The Fifth Sunday of Lent Year B
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - The Fifth Sunday of Lent Year B
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The Fifth Sunday of Lent Jeremiah 31.31–34 Hebrews 5.5–10 John 12.20–33 At last a nice easy covenant. At last, Jeremiah seems to be suggesting, God will give up trying to teach us things and just zap us, changing us so that it becomes natural to us to know God. We won’t need to b…
Revelation for Everyone - Babylon the Great
Revelation for Everyone - Babylon the Great
by SPCK - N T Wright
Babylon the Great Revelation 17.1-8 They are brought in vans, they are brought in cars with blackened windows, they are brought across the sea, either captured by force or lured with the promise of a better life. They arrive in countries of the West, knowing no one except their c…
Paul for Everyone Romans part 1 - Abraham's Faith - and Ours
Paul for Everyone Romans part 1 - Abraham's Faith - and Ours
by SPCK - N T Wright
Abraham’s Faith – and Ours ROMANS 4.18-25 When my family and I emigrated to Canada in the early 1980s, we frequently thought about the early pioneers, arriving in a new and unknown country with no idea what they would find, what the weather would be like, what crops might grow, o…
Revelation for Everyone - In the Throne Room
Revelation for Everyone - In the Throne Room
by SPCK - N T Wright
In the Throne Room Revelation 4.1-6a We were walking into the cathedral as part of a great procession. My companion, a senior clergyman, was looking at the service paper we had been given. ‘Ah!’ he said. ‘I see we have Revelation chapter 4 as the second reading.’ He smiled. ‘One …
Luke for Everyone - Jesus Cleanses the Temple
Luke for Everyone - Jesus Cleanses the Temple
by SPCK - N T Wright
Jesus Cleanses the Temple At last it is Jesus’ turn to cry. Earlier in the gospel we find other people in tears: the widow at Nain, Jairus’s family, and others in distress coming to him for healing and new life. The women of Jerusalem will shortly be weeping for Jesus himself (23…
Paul for Everyone Romans part 1 - The Call to Holy Living
Paul for Everyone Romans part 1 - The Call to Holy Living
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Call to Holy Living ROMANS 6.12-14 We ended the last section with a picture of someone moving house, changing from one landlord to another. Let’s extend that a bit, and imagine that I am a smallholder living out in the countryside, about a thousand years ago. My little farm s…
Revelation for Everyone - The Great Rescue
Revelation for Everyone - The Great Rescue
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Great Rescue Revelation 7.9-17 I stopped sleepwalking some time in my mid-twenties, but I can still remember the mixture of fear and excitement I used to feel when, eventually, I would wake up. In my dream, I had been in a room, in a house, in a corridor, somewhere which was …
Luke for Everyone - The Parable of the Prodigal (part 2)
Luke for Everyone - The Parable of the Prodigal (part 2)
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Parable of the Prodigal: The Father and the Older Son Luke 15.25-32 A vivid phrase from a schoolboy poem, written by a classmate of mine over thirty years ago, remains with me to this day. He described a park-keeper whose job was to pick up litter on a spiked pole. Surrounded…
THE WOMEN'S BIBLE COMMENTARY - Disarming the Power of Persecution
THE WOMEN'S BIBLE COMMENTARY - Disarming the Power of Persecution
by SPCK - Newsom, Ringe and Lapsley
Disarming the Power of Persecution: Imitators of the Churches in Judea (1 Thessalonians 2: 13- 3: 13) The Thessalonians are not simply imitators of Paul; they are also imitators of the churches of God in Christ that are in Judea. The Thessalonians’ suffering at the hands of their…
LWPT Meditations - Fifth Sunday in Lent - Year B
LWPT Meditations - Fifth Sunday in Lent - Year B
by Susan Thorne
Meditation - 5th Sunday in Lent Year B Jeremiah 31: 31-34 Psalm 51: 1-12 Hebrews 5: 5-10 John 12: 20-33 The lectionary readings for Passion Sunday are always a surprise and a challenge. We expect to hear an account of the Passion – the suffering of Christ on the cross – but inste…
A day of returning, a day to remember
A day of returning, a day to remember
by Andrew Pratt
A day of returning, a day to remember: the years of their exile were over and gone, a day of thanksgiving for such preservation, a day for rejoicing, a day to move on. And now they would settle to re-build a kingdom, to value tradition, to start a new life. For now they were feas…
Compassion moved a foreigner
Compassion moved a foreigner
by Andrew Pratt
Compassion moved a foreigner to dress a stranger's hurt, to cross the road to ridicule, to challenge and subvert the ones who limit loving acts, who bind the world with rules, who label those who break down walls as simpletons or fools. Verses 2-3 follow Tune: KINGSFOLD Metre: DC…
Hymn: How could God love against the grain
Hymn: How could God love against the grain
by Andrew Pratt
How could God love against the grain, to offer love we don't deserve; to meet us when we lose our way, to hold us when we twist, or swerve? This gracious, fulsome, steadfast love is more than we can comprehend, it offers hope when all seems lost, resists, survives beyond life's e…
Hymn: What a conundrum, they need a replacement
Hymn: What a conundrum, they need a replacement
by Andrew Pratt
What a conundrum, they need a replacement, someone to witness now Judas is dead; one who walked with them right from the beginning someone to stand here in Judas's stead. Verses 2-3 follow Tune: STEWARDSHIP 11.10.11.10 Andrew Pratt (born 1948) Words © 2/5/2012 Stainer & Bell Lt…
In this common congregation
In this common congregation
by Andrew Pratt
In this common congregation where we've often been before, here among familiar people, meeting God and feeling awe; we are ranked where God has chosen, set with those we might not choose, given tasks that bring us credit, and those where we stand to lose. God has called us to thi…
Let earth and heaven combine - A Christmas/New Year Meditation