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Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The Third Sunday Before Advent Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The Third Sunday Before Advent Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Third Sunday Before Advent Wisdom of Solomon 6.12–16 1 Thessalonians 4.13–18 Matthew 25.1–13 You should only treat yourself to Wisdom of Solomon ch. 6 if you are prepared to live with the rest. The righteous and wise are persecuted and killed by the wicked and foolish; but Go…
2 Corinthians - Light Out of Darkness
2 Corinthians - Light Out of Darkness
by SPCK - N T Wright
Light out of Darkness 2 CORINTHIANS 4.1-6 I walked into the smart office, slightly early for my appointment. The porter at the front door handed me on to an assistant, who walked with me up two grand flights of stairs and through an imposing door. It was a long time since I had m…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 1 Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 1 Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 1 Isaiah 6.1–13 1 Corinthians 15.1–11 Luke 5.1–11 ‘The holy seed is its stump.’ Isaiah’s vision in the Temple leaves him with a dreadful commission, to inform God’s people of inevitable exile. The nation will be like a tree felled and burnt. But when the worst has occurred…
Mark for Everyone - Questions about Fasting
Mark for Everyone - Questions about Fasting
by SPCK - N T Wright
Mark For Everyone MARK 2.18–22 Questions about Fasting... ...When I was a boy there was a craze for ginger-beer plants. An uncle gave us the starter kit, including the bacteria that, by a process I never understood, produced the secret ingredient that gave the homemade brew its f…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The First Sunday of Advent Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The First Sunday of Advent Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
The First Sunday of Advent Jeremiah 33.14–16 1 Thessalonians 3.9–13 Luke 21.25–36 It is January, ad 69. You are a Greek-speaking Christian in a Roman town in Turkey. You are deeply anxious about the fierce war in Judaea: the Romans have laid siege to Jerusalem; the city faces sta…
Matthew for Everyone Part 2 - The Great Commandments, and David's Master
Matthew for Everyone Part 2 - The Great Commandments, and David's Master
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Great Commandment, and David’s Master Matthew 22.34-46 I watched on television a tennis match between two of the game’s finest players. Both had been playing well, but towards the end one of them seemed to rise to new heights. The match ended with two stunning games, when the…
Matthew for Everyone Part 1 - The Healing of the Paralytic
Matthew for Everyone Part 1 - The Healing of the Paralytic
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Healing of the Paralytic Matthew 9.1-8 ‘Authority’ has had a bad press, in much of the world, for a hundred years and more now. It goes together, in the popular mind, with nasty ideas like ‘repression’, ‘human rights abuses’, and such like. Think of ‘the authorities’, and wha…
2 Corinthians - The Letter and the Spirit
2 Corinthians - The Letter and the Spirit
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Letter and the Spirit 2 CORINTHIANS 3.1-6 ‘I had to write a letter of recommendation last week. One of my former students is job-hunting, and the people who run the college he has applied to don’t know him, or not very well; so it is up to me to write to them, in a formal way…
Luke for Everyone - The Parable of the Sower
Luke for Everyone - The Parable of the Sower
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Parable of the Sower Luke 8.1-15 If Jesus was telling this story today, he might well include other categories as well. What about the seeds that were planted in good soil but were ruined by acid rain? What about the plants that were coming up nicely but were bulldozed by occ…
Mark for Everyone - The Raising of Jairus’s Daughter
Mark for Everyone - The Raising of Jairus’s Daughter
by SPCK - N T Wright
Mark For Everyone MARK 5.35–43The Raising of Jairus’s Daughter... ...Right on cue, as the suspense heightens, messengers come to tell Jairus that his daughter has now died. He shouldn’t bother Jesus any longer. Telling Jairus not to be afraid, and just to believe, in that setting…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Second Sunday of Easter Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Second Sunday of Easter Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Second Sunday of Easter Acts 5.27–32 Revelation 1.4–8 John 20.19–end The report of Jesus’ resurrection strikes the chief priests as a threat of God’s judgement. Yes and no, reply the apostles: your guilt is swallowed up in the message of forgiveness, of new Spirit-given life.…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Sunday Next Before Lent Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Sunday Next Before Lent Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Sunday Next Before Lent Exodus 34.29–end 2 Corinthians 3.12—4.2 Luke 9.28–43 The intriguing thing about Moses coming down the mountain with his face shining was that he didn’t know. He had simply been talking with God; it was only when Aaron and the others met him that he rea…
THE WOMEN'S BIBLE COMMENTARY - Apocalyptic Expectations
THE WOMEN'S BIBLE COMMENTARY - Apocalyptic Expectations
by SPCK - Newsom, Ringe and Lapsley
Apocalyptic Expectations: The Afterlife, Labor Pain and New Birth (1 Thessalonians 4: 13- 5: 28) The recent death of believers in the community prompts Paul to expound on the afterlife. Again he employs the issue of suffering as a marker to distinguish between the Thessalonian co…
THE WOMEN'S BIBLE COMMENTARY - Status Negotiations
THE WOMEN'S BIBLE COMMENTARY - Status Negotiations
by SPCK - Newsom, Ringe and Lapsley
Status Negotiations (2 Corinthian 1-7) These chapters are exceedingly difficult, with abrupt changes in tone and interrupted trains of thought. Even in sections where the subject matter remains fairly constant, sentences are repetitive, convoluted, at times almost incoherent. Whe…
LWPT Meditations - Second Sunday of Christmas - Year A
LWPT Meditations - Second Sunday of Christmas - Year A
by Susan Thorne
Meditation – Second Sunday of Christmas Yr A John 1 v 1-18 Ephesians 1 v 3-14 New Year is a time of looking back at what we have achieved and endured in the past year, and of looking forward, with some trepidation, to the year ahead. We shall certainly be facing some challenges, …
Beyond our context, out of time
Beyond our context, out of time
by Andrew Pratt
Beyond our context, out of time, can we believe the things we read? Are these imagined, false or fact, or signs that we should test and heed? A woman dies then finds new life, a metaphor or something real? The narrative has truth to tell in what we see and what we feel. Verses 3-…
Hymn: A legal agreement gave God and the people
Hymn: A legal agreement gave God and the people
by Andrew Pratt
A legal agreement gave God and the people a new sense of confidence, comfort and peace. The covenant forged led to new understanding, God's spirit within them had brought them release; Verses 2-3 follow Tune: WAS LEBET, WAS SCHWEBET Metre: 12.11.12.11 Andrew Pratt (born 1948)…
THE WOMEN'S BIBLE COMMENTARY - The Return