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John for Everyone Part 1 - Jesus and His Brothers
John for Everyone Part 1 - Jesus and His Brothers
by SPCK - N T Wright
Jesus and His Brothers John 7.1-9 Many Jewish communities around the world keep the festival of Tabernacles, or ‘Booths’, to this day. The ‘tabernacles’ in question are usually makeshift shelters, made out of whatever comes to hand, set up in the open air in a back yard or porch.…
Mark for Everyone - Jesus Before Pilate
Mark for Everyone - Jesus Before Pilate
by SPCK - N T Wright
Mark For Everyone MARK 15.1–15 Jesus Before Pilate... ...Today they sell crosses in fashionable jewellery shops. If you ask the shop assistants, you will find that many of them don’t know where the symbol comes from, or what it means; and neither do many of their customers. It ha…
Luke for Everyone - Jesus Calms the Storm
Luke for Everyone - Jesus Calms the Storm
by SPCK - N T Wright
Jesus Calms the Storm Luke 8.16-25 The chairman of the board looked around the room. This was a big decision and everyone knew it. ‘Can we agree on this plan, then?’ he asked. ‘We need to decide.’ Twenty serious faces looked back at him, each with their own portfolio to consider,…
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…
Matthew for Everyone Part 2 - Judgment on Jerusalem and It's Leaders
Matthew for Everyone Part 2 - Judgment on Jerusalem and It's Leaders
by SPCK - N T Wright
Judgment on Jerusalem and Its Leaders Matthew 23.34-39 For many city-dwellers, myself included, life on a farm can appear idyllic. Memories of brief visits to farming relatives when I was a child combine with the view of peaceful rural life seen from a car or a train. Living in c…
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - Love, Peace and Thanksgiving
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - Love, Peace and Thanksgiving
by SPCK - N T Wright
Love, Peace and Thanksgiving Colossians 3.12-17 Here’s the acid test for whether Paul is talking sense or not. Read again through the list of sexual and speech-related misbehaviour in verses 5–9. Then read through verses 12–17. Ask yourself this: supposing there was a town in whi…
The Pastoral Letters - Opponents of the Truth
The Pastoral Letters - Opponents of the Truth
by SPCK - N T Wright
Opponents of the Truth 2Timothy 3.1-9 It was a scrappy end to the game, but perhaps it was inevitable. We were winning by what should have been a safe margin; and with a few minutes to go the opposition seemed to realize that their cause was hopeless. Perhaps for that reason, tho…
2 Corinthians - Our Boasting Proved True
2 Corinthians - Our Boasting Proved True
by SPCK - N T Wright
Our Boasting Proved True! 2 CORINTHIANS 7.11-16 The first time I stayed with my friends in Germany I explained to them just how beautiful the north of England was. They had never seen it, and they had only heard a little about the hills and woods, the mountains, the ancient castl…
Matthew for Everyone Part 1 - Opposition in Nazareth
Matthew for Everyone Part 1 - Opposition in Nazareth
by SPCK - N T Wright
Opposition in Nazareth Matthew 13.54-58 She came home from school with all the wide-eyed excitement of an eager eight-year-old, clutching the clarinet case to her like a favourite teddy bear. She had had her first music lesson on the new instrument that morning. She couldn’t wait…
Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians - Paul's Conversion and Call
Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians - Paul's Conversion and Call
by SPCK - N T Wright
Paul’s Conversion and Call Galatians 1.10-17 John Henry Newman was one of the great figures of nineteenth-century England. A brilliant thinker and writer, a spellbinding preacher and a deeply sensitive soul, he left the Anglican Church and became a Roman Catholic in 1845. After a…
Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians - Paul's Distress Over the Galatians
Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians - Paul's Distress Over the Galatians
by SPCK - N T Wright
Paul’s Distress Over the Galatians Galatians 1.1-9 Imagine you’re in South Africa in the 1970s. Apartheid is at its height. You are embarked on a risky project: to build a community centre where everybody will be equally welcome, no matter what their colour or race. You’ve design…
2 Corinthians - Paul's Plans and God's "Yes"
2 Corinthians - Paul's Plans and God's "Yes"
by SPCK - N T Wright
Paul’s Plan and God’s “Yes” 2 CORINTHIANS 1.15-22 One of my students once arrived very late for a tutorial. I was working on an extremely tight schedule, and I wasn’t amused at having the day disrupted. I thought the student needed to know how far out of line his behaviour was. I…
Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians - Paul's Fatherly Concern
Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians - Paul's Fatherly Concern
by SPCK - N T Wright
Paul’s Fatherly Concern Thessalonians 2.9-12 Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Paul’s missionary work is that when he arrived in a new town the people there had quite literally never seen anything of the sort before. They had seen other travelling teachers, but none like th…
Acts for Everyone Part 2 - Publicy Vindicated
Acts for Everyone Part 2 - Publicy Vindicated
by SPCK - N T Wright
Publicly Vindicated Acts 16.35-40 One of the most famous cases in ancient Roman law was the one brought by the young upstart barrister Cicero against the rich, aristocratic proconsul Gaius Verres. Verres, like many Roman aristocrats of his generation, had discovered how to play t…
John for Everyone Part 1 - Rivers of Living Water
John for Everyone Part 1 - Rivers of Living Water
by SPCK - N T Wright
Rivers of Living Water John 7.31-39 ‘A pint of water every hour, and don’t forget!’ I was setting off into the desert, and my host was understandably anxious. Coming as I did from a cool and damp climate, I might easily forget how important it was to keep drinking plenty of water…
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Signs of the New Covenant
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Signs of the New Covenant
by SPCK - N T Wright
Signs of the New Covenant Acts 4. 32-37 Some politicians’ phrases pass into folk legend. I am old enough ( just) to remember Harold Macmillan saying, ‘You’ve never had it so good.’ Some Americans can remember Roosevelt talking about the ‘New Deal’. And generations to come will st…
Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - The Apostle's Freedom - to be Enslaved to Everyone
Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - The Apostle's Freedom - to be Enslaved to Everyone
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Apostle’s Freedom – to be Enslaved to Everyone 1 Corinthians 9.19-23 One of the greatest thinkers and statesmen of the Roman world a century before Paul was Cicero. He was a sophisticated philosopher, a brilliant lawyer, a politician, and above all a passionate believer in th…
Mark for Everyone - The Authority of Jesus Is Questioned