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Acts for Everyone Part 2 - The Messianic Challenge
Acts for Everyone Part 2 - The Messianic Challenge
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Messianic Challenge Acts 13.26-43 At the time I am writing this there is a massive global debate taking place. Led by senior figures in science and government, people everywhere are asking whether the world and its atmosphere are really warming up at the alarming rate that th…
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Herod's vanity and Death
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Herod's vanity and Death
by SPCK - N T Wright
Herod’s Vanity and Death Acts 12.20-25 Whether or not Luke was aware of the comic value of the previous interlude, he was certainly aware of the powerful impact of the story with which he now closes the first half of his book. The official king of the Jews plays at being a pagan …
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Herod Kills James
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Herod Kills James
by SPCK - N T Wright
Herod Kills James Acts 12.1-5 What makes a monarch act violently towards his subjects? That question presses upon us at this point in Acts, because up to now we have heard nothing of Herod in this book. Parallels from other places, and other periods of history, may or may not be …
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Peter's Vision
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Peter's Vision
by SPCK - N T Wright
Peter’s Vision Acts 10.1-16 When I went off to university it was much more of an awesome experience than it is for many today. I had scraped into Oxford by the skin of my teeth, having spent too much of my teenage years doing everything else, particularly sport and music, rather …
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Peter's Rescue and Rhoda's Mistake
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Peter's Rescue and Rhoda's Mistake
by SPCK - N T Wright
Peter’s Rescue and Rhoda’s Mistake Acts 12.6-19 One of the sure touches of a master writer is knowing how to create a seriously funny scene in the middle of an extremely serious one. Think of Shakespeare’s subplots, with the gravedigger scene in Hamlet providing dark humour when …
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Problems of Family Living
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Problems of Family Living
by SPCK - N T Wright
Problems of Family Living Acts 6.1-7 Late one night there was a knock at the door. It was a good friend of ours. His hat was on crooked and he had wild excitement in his face. ‘It’s twins!’ he shouted as we ushered him in. ‘We had no idea! Two girls! The doctors hadn’t spotted it…
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Stephen Becomes a Target
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Stephen Becomes a Target
by SPCK - N T Wright
Stephen Becomes a Target Acts 6.8-15 Without in any way wishing to complain, I do have a fellow feeling with Stephen in this passage. He has only just been appointed a ‘deacon’, with particular responsibility for helping organize the daily distribution of food to the community …
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Stephen and Moses
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Stephen and Moses
by SPCK - N T Wright
Stephen and Moses Acts 7.17-34 Where do you get your sense of national identity? In America, people often look back to three great moments. First, there was the arrival in America of the first settlers from Europe, particularly from Britain. Second, there was the glorious revolut…
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Taking Root- and a Name!- in Antioch
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Taking Root- and a Name!- in Antioch
by SPCK - N T Wright
Taking Root - and a Name! - in Antioch Acts 1.19-30 The other day I had to go to Cambridge once more, just for a few hours. Looking for a particular shop, I walked up King’s Parade, and was reminded of someone once saying that if there’s anybody in the world you want to meet, you…
Acts for Everyone part 1 - The Conversion of Saul
Acts for Everyone part 1 - The Conversion of Saul
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Conversion of Saul Acts 9.1-9 When I was young, nobody much in the culture I knew practised yoga. It was regarded as peculiar, a bit too exotic, and probably likely to lead to dislocation of your joints. There was a suspicion, as well, that you might find yourself getting int…
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Controversy and Vindication
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Controversy and Vindication
by SPCK - N T Wright
Controversy and Vindication Acts 1.1-18 By common consent (even among those who disagreed with him), John Henry Newman was one of the finest minds of the nineteenth century. Having spent his young adult years as an Anglican priest, he famously converted to Roman Catholicism, and …
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Disaster
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Disaster
by SPCK - N T Wright
Disaster Acts 5.1-11 Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the great Victorian Baptist preacher, recounted the story of how, on one occasion, he was preaching as usual when he found himself denouncing some- one in the congregation whom he didn’t know. Words came into his mouth describing how …
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Handmade Shrines
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Handmade Shrines
by SPCK - N T Wright
Handmade Shrines Acts 7.35-53 When you go into a store in my country, and you see a sign saying ‘Made by Hand’, you know what it means. ‘This is good quality; it wasn’t just turned out by some faceless machine or computer; someone has taken personal trouble over it; you will appr…
Acts for Everyone Part 2 - Mission and Magic
Acts for Everyone Part 2 - Mission and Magic
by SPCK - N T Wright
Mission and Magic Acts 13.1-12 Jim was full of enthusiasm when he left college. From his earliest memories he had been passionate about justice, about fairness, about people respecting one another and being able to live together in harmony. He had always admired the police (in En…
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Philip and the Ethiopian
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Philip and the Ethiopian
by SPCK - N T Wright
Philip and the Ethiopian Acts 8.26-40 I was once visiting Cambridge (the English Cambridge, not the American one) to do some lectures. One afternoon I was working on the themes for the lectures still to come, when I found to my surprise an urgent thought in my head: Go to Evenson…
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Christmas Day/Christmas Eve Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Christmas Day/Christmas Eve Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Christmas Day/Christmas Eve Isaiah 52.7–10 Hebrews 1.1–4 John 1.1–14 What difference would it make if the Christmas story were not true? If God had not come to be born, live and die as a human being? Today’s readings shout out that the Christmas story is the key to what the world…
Lectionary Reflection Year C - The First Sunday of Christmas Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - The First Sunday of Christmas Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The First Sunday of Christmas 1 Samuel 2.18–20, 26 Colossians 3.12–17 Luke 2.41–52 To get the full picture of what is going on in the reading from 1 Samuel, we really need the verses that the lectionary chooses to leave out. The story is actually about different kinds of sonship.…
Lectionary Reflection Year C - The First Sunday of Advent Year C