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With My WholeHeart - Psalm 90:10, 12
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 90:10, 12
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 90:10, 12 This prayer also swims against the tide of our culture where youthfulness is coveted and ageing dreaded. Yet in spite of the worship of agelessness, where the vitamin pills are the sacraments of the day and the workout a religious ritual, we can never escape the i…
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 26:1-2
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 26:1-2
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 26:1-2 Enough of sin! Here is the portrait of a blameless believer, someone who in all honesty before God cannot point to any wilful act of disobedience. And yet. Even with a conscience clear before God this plaintiff appears to plead with the Judge of all to examine him fo…
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 27:9
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 27:9
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 27:9 In St Paul’s famous essay on love he writes about how one day we will see God face to face but for now we see ‘through a glass, darkly’ (1 Corinthians 13.12 kjv). It’s a poetic phrase conveying the original Greek which literally says that we see through a glass not dar…
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 24:1, 3-4
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 24:1, 3-4
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 24:1, 3, 4 God is the Lord of earth and heaven. The Lord’s Prayer is for the fusion of the two. Asking for God’s will to be done in earth as it is done in heaven is a prayer for the earthing of heaven. The rebellion in the Garden of Eden drove a wedge between the two realms…
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 69:21-22
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 69:21-22
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 69:21-22 Desolation is when you find yourself estranged from both friends and God. To sense that you are rebuked by God breaks the heart. If ever there were grounds for self-pity then these are they, when no one else will offer you pity or comfort...
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 57:8
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 57:8
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 57:8 Whatever we fix on to in the end absorbs us, so much so that we become dependent on it. That dependency becomes a way of life, integrated into our being. It’s as if we were made to be dependent. ‘No man is an island’, and even those loners who seem so independent of ot…
Scripture and the Authority of God - Scripture and Jesus
Scripture and the Authority of God - Scripture and Jesus
by SPCK - N T Wright
Scripture and Jesus Jesus Accomplishes That to Which Scripture had Pointed ‘When the time had fully come, God sent forth his son . . .’ (Galatians 4.4). Understanding Jesus within his historical context means understanding him where, according to scripture itself, he belongs. A h…
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 112:7-8
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 112:7-8
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 112:7-8 A sign of the heart established in God is that it does not shrink. Nor is it ‘afraid of any evil tidings’. The reason for this is that ‘unto the godly there ariseth up light in the darkness’ (v. 4). That light is none other than the mercy of God which rescues us fro…
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 28:8
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 28:8
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 28:8 Through all his trials and tribulations St Paul urged others to discover with him that God’s strength is made perfect in human weakness, and that his grace is always sufficient. These are discoveries we do not always wish to make! They involve us in situations where we…
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 31:27
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 31:27
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 31:27 Jesus, of all people, knew the human heart. He knew how fickle the heart could be. He could see what flowed from it and knew what it was capable of, both good and bad. I don’t think any human being would dissent from that assessment. The heart is like a rudderless bo…
The Lion's World - 2 - Narnia and its crtitics
The Lion's World - 2 - Narnia and its crtitics
by SPCK - Rowan Williams
Narnia and its critics I mentioned earlier the way in which Philip Pullman had conceived his own trilogy as a sort of riposte to the Narnia books. The parallels are clear enough – an alternative universe including talking animals, even (though Pullman might dispute this) an activ…
Lectionary Reflections Year A - Proper 22 Year A
Lectionary Reflections Year A - Proper 22 Year A
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Lectionary reflections - Year A Ordinary Time Proper 22 Isaiah 5.1–7 Philippians 3.4b-14 Matthew 21.33–46 The people listening to the story of the vineyard would have responded to it on a number of different levels. Some of them would have recognized this vineyard from Isaiah 5 a…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - The Third Sunday of Easter Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - The Third Sunday of Easter Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Third Sunday of Easter Acts 3.12-19 1 John 3.1-7 Luke 24.36-48 The ancient world knew all about ghosts, visions, apparitions, and spooks. Ancient literature has plenty of people being found alive after being supposed dead, plenty of spirits of the dead returning to haunt, spy…
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - Christ the King Year B
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - Christ the King Year B
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Christ the King Daniel 7.9-10, 13, 14 Revelation 1.4b-8 John 18.33-37 Philip Pullman’s brilliant His Dark Materials trilogy ends with the words ‘and then we’ll build . . . The republic of heaven.’ This is the vision that Lyra holds out to us after all she has learned and suffered…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - The Second Sunday Before Advent Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - The Second Sunday Before Advent Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Second Sunday Before Advent Daniel 12.1-3 Hebrews 10.11-14 [15-18] 19-25 Mark 13.1-8 The lady in the icon shop may not have understood my English, let alone my Greek. Did she have an icon of Jesus’ resurrection? Yes, she said, pointing at the wall behind her head. There it wa…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 3 Year B