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Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - Grown-Up Christianity
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - Grown-Up Christianity
by SPCK - N T Wright
Grown-Up Christianity Ephesians 4.11-16 ‘Don’t be a baby.’ The words were meant to hurt, and they did. But they had the desired effect. The schoolboy had been whimpering about somebody being mean to him. He was hoping that the teacher would come to his rescue. But he suddenly rea…
John for Everyone part 2 - Mary Magdalene and the Risen Jesus
John for Everyone part 2 - Mary Magdalene and the Risen Jesus
by SPCK - N T Wright
Mary Magdalene and the Risen Jesus John 20.11-18 The first time I went to stay with a family in Germany, I learnt enough German before the trip to know the basic rules of politeness. When people say ‘you’ in German, there are two forms, like the old English ‘ye’ (for more than on…
Acts for Everyone Part 2 - Roman Citizenship Comes in Useful
Acts for Everyone Part 2 - Roman Citizenship Comes in Useful
by SPCK - N T Wright
Roman Citizenship Comes in Useful Acts 22.23-30 CAN YOU PROVE IT? The sign in the shop selling alcohol challenges all and sundry. I was once buying a drink in one of the small bars in O’Hare Airport in Chicago and was astonished, as a bald and bearded middle-aged man, to be asked…
Revelation for Everyone - Sealing God's People
Revelation for Everyone - Sealing God's People
by SPCK - N T Wright
Sealing God’s People Revelation 7.1-8 Just when you think you are nearly at the top of the mountain, you crest a ridge and there . . . is another ridge half a mile ahead, steeper than the one you’ve just climbed. That is how it feels to get to this point in the sequence of the ‘s…
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - The Challenge of Faith
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - The Challenge of Faith
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Challenge of Faith James 1.1-8 I used to think the waves had come from far away. Standing by the sea and watching the grey-green monsters roll in, it was easy to imagine that this wave, and then this one, and then the one after that, had made the journey from a distant land. …
Hebrews for Everyone - The God of Peace Be With You
Hebrews for Everyone - The God of Peace Be With You
by SPCK - N T Wright
The God of Peace Be With You Hebrews 13.17-25 I was chatting with a friend who had recently become a bishop. He was and is a wonderful man, scholarly, wise, outgoing, full of ideas and devotion and love and goodness. You might have thought any church would be glad to have him as …
2 Corinthians - The God of All Comfort
2 Corinthians - The God of All Comfort
by SPCK - N T Wright
The God of All Comfort 2 CORINTHIANS 4.13-18 ‘To Carthage then I came,’ wrote T. S. Eliot in one of his famous poems. One can imagine someone picking up the poem in a bookshop and wondering what on earth he was talking about. Had he gone to the real Carthage, in North Africa? If …
John for Everyone Part 1 - The Man Born Blind
John for Everyone Part 1 - The Man Born Blind
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Man Born Blind John 9.1-12 I was just waking up, listening to the radio, when a news item caught my attention. Someone had been dismissed from their job for holding heretical views about the afterlife. I listened more intently. Who was it? What job had they been doing? Was it…
Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians - The Lord's Coming
Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians - The Lord's Coming
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Lord’s Coming Thessalonians 4.13-18 How do you describe the colour blue to a blind person? If someone has never been able to see, how can you even convey the idea of colour, let alone the difference between colours? That difficulty faces Christians whenever we talk about the …
Matthew for Everyone Part 1 - The Parable of Clean and Unclean
Matthew for Everyone Part 1 - The Parable of Clean and Unclean
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Parable of Clean and Unclean Matthew 15.10-20 One of the best-loved characters in children’s stories is Winnie-the- Pooh. In one escapade of this down-to-earth, loveable toy bear (the creation of the writer A. A. Milne), Pooh attempts to trap an Elephant – or, as he mispronou…
Matthew for Everyone Part 2 - The Priests and the Guards
Matthew for Everyone Part 2 - The Priests and the Guards
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Priests and the Guards Matthew 28.11-15 In the world of science, there is a particular form of behaviour that occurs when a long-held belief is under attack. The most famous instance of it was when Copernicus (1473–1543) argued that Earth and the other planets go round the su…
Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians - The Sending of Timothy
Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians - The Sending of Timothy
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Sending of Timothy Thessalonians 3.1-5 The young adult daughter of some friends of ours went on a trip round the world, and was so enjoying life that, at one stage, she didn’t phone home for several weeks. Her parents had no way of getting in touch, and were beside themselves…
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - The Snares of the World and the Gift of God
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - The Snares of the World and the Gift of God
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Snares of the World and the Gift of God James 1.9-18 ‘Listen for the echo,’ said my friend. We were standing at the back of a great cathedral, and the choir was about to sing a powerful, beautiful anthem. Sure enough: the conductor knew what he was doing. As each part of the …
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Third Sunday Before Advent Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - The Third Sunday Before Advent Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Third Sunday Before Advent Job 19.23–27a 2 Thessalonians 2.1–5, 13–17 Luke 20.27–38 The overall theme (‘resurrection’) is obvious, but the detail is daunting. It seems a shame, as the translators’ footnotes say, that the Hebrew of Job 19.26 is ‘incomprehensible’. The old vers…
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - To Live or to Die?
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - To Live or to Die?
by SPCK - N T Wright
To Live or to Die? Philippians 1.18b-26 One of the great questions that people have asked throughout human history, and still address particularly to religious leaders, is this: where do we go when we die? Until recently, most people in what used to be the Christian Western world…
Paul for Everyone Romans part 2 - To God Be the Glory
Paul for Everyone Romans part 2 - To God Be the Glory
by SPCK - N T Wright
To God Be the Glory ROMANS 11.33-36 I was taken yesterday to see the site of a new bridge across a river. We parked the car in a grassy wood and set off to walk. The trees were quite thick to begin with, and I couldn’t see the river, though I could hear it. I assumed the bridge w…
2 Corinthians - Unbearably Crushed
2 Corinthians - Unbearably Crushed
by SPCK - N T Wright
Unbearably Crushed 2 CORINTHIANS 1.8-14 You watch from a distance as a friend walks down the street. You see him turn and go into a house. He strides in cheerfully and purposefully. You wait for a few minutes. Then you see him come out again – only now you see, to your horror, th…
Poem: Always missing, never grasping