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Occasions for Alleluia - Knowing God
Occasions for Alleluia - Knowing God
by SPCK - David Adam
Knowing God The true vision and true knowledge of what we seek consists precisely in not seeing, in an awareness that our God transcends all knowledge and is everywhere cut off from us by the darkness of incomprehensibility. (Gregory of Nyssa, 330 – 95)...
Occasions for Alleluia - Introduction
Occasions for Alleluia - Introduction
by SPCK - David Adam
Introduction One Easter on Holy Island, a few things suddenly came together. During Lent I had been reading A. N. Wilson’s novel, A Bottle in the Smoke, and I came across this passage describing the main character, Julian Ramsey, falling in love for the first time:..
The Power of the Parable - Example Parables
The Power of the Parable - Example Parables
by SPCK - John Dominic Crossan
chapter 2 Example Parables Go and Do – or Don’t Do- Likewise Once upon a time, long, long ago, theologians used to debate whether God was all- present, all- knowing, and all- powerful. That, of course, is not God, but Google. If you look up “parable” in that ethereal omniscience,…
Scripture and the Authority of God - Scripture within Contemporary Culture
Scripture and the Authority of God - Scripture within Contemporary Culture
by SPCK - N T Wright
Scripture within Contemporary Culture Scripture in Today’s World: Five Areas The Bible doesn’t just live within the church, because the church (if it is true to its own nature and vocation) is always open to God’s world. Our contemporary culture impinges on the questions that are…
The Power of the Parable - Challenge Parables: Part 2
The Power of the Parable - Challenge Parables: Part 2
by SPCK - John Dominic Crossan
chapter 4 Challenge Parables: Part 2 The Word Against The Word When I was in high school, from 1945 to 1950, the standard English curriculum established by Ireland’s Board of Education involved a different Shakespearean play for each year. My memory recalls The Merchant of Venice…
The Power of the Parable - Challenge Parables: Part 3
The Power of the Parable - Challenge Parables: Part 3
by SPCK - John Dominic Crossan
chapter 5 Challenge Parables: Part 3 Let Anyone With Ears To Hear Listen! In 1973 I was an associate professor at DePaul University in Chicago and had just published In Parables: The Challenge of the Historical Jesus, the first in a series of books that would culminate with The H…
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 36:1, 10
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 36:1, 10
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 36:1, 10 In the chapel at Bishop’s Lodge where we live and work there’s a sculpture over the Lord’s Table of Jesus bent over the city weeping, ‘If only you knew the things that make for peace’ (see Luke 19.41– 42). For centuries the Church has built up the experience of com…
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 37: 4, 7, 32
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 37: 4, 7, 32
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 37. 4, 7, 32 The promise of God to give us our heart’s desires is conditional. When our heart is in tune with God’s heart and hence our will with his will then, as Jesus said, ‘Ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you’ (John 15.7 nrsv). The secret is to stay c…
The Power of the Parable - Rhetorical Violence
The Power of the Parable - Rhetorical Violence
by SPCK - John Dominic Crossan
chapter 8 Rhetorical Violence The Parable Gospel According To Matthew In 1959, I was sent, as you will recall from the Prologue, to the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome for two years of postdoctoral specialization. The Biblicum— as it is known for short— is located just off …
The Power of the Parable - Challenge Parables; Part 1
The Power of the Parable - Challenge Parables; Part 1
by SPCK - John Dominic Crossan
chapter 3 Challenge Parables: Part 1 Down from Jerusalem to Jericho The French intellectual André Gide lived from 1869 to 1951. His search for honesty and integrity— a search at once sexual and social, political and religious— led him first to revere and then speedily to revile R…
Journeying with Luke - Lent
Journeying with Luke - Lent
by SPCK - Woodward, Gooder and Pryce
4 Lent Exploring the text One of the major themes of Lent is, of course, temptation – or, more accurately, resistance to temptation. This theme arises from Jesus’ temptations but also challenges us to reflect upon our need to resist temptation in all its forms. One of the intrigu…
The Lion's World - 3 - Not a tame lion
The Lion's World - 3 - Not a tame lion
by SPCK - Rowan Williams
Not a tame lion The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe carefully prepares the way for Aslan’s appearance. When in Chapter 7 Mr Beaver confides ‘in a low whisper’ that ‘They say Aslan is on the move’ (p. 141), we are given a glimpse of what is instantly evoked by the name for the ch…
The Lion's World - 6 - Bigger inside than outside
The Lion's World - 6 - Bigger inside than outside
by SPCK - Rowan Williams
Bigger inside than outside It’s – it’s a magic wardrobe. There’s a wood inside it, and it’s snowing, and there’s a Faun and a Witch and it’s called Narnia; come and see. ( The Lion Ch. 3 , p. 120) Lucy’s summary of the mystery introduces us to the image that will recur at the end…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Proper 21 Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Proper 21 Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
Twelve Months of Sundays – Year A Ordinary Time Proper 21 Exodus 17.1–7 Philippians 2.1–13 Matthew 21.23–32 It sounded like a trick, but for those with ears to hear it answered the authorities’ challenge head on. Jesus’ Temple action was an affront to the power of the chief pries…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Proper 23 Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Proper 23 Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
Ordinary Time - Proper 23 Exodus 32.1–14 Philippians 4.1–9 Matthew 22.1–14 The party was ready, the guests were on the way, but somehow they got distracted. Today’s gospel fits Exodus 32 like a glove, forming a combined warning. Readers of Exodus perceive the golden calf incident…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - The First Sunday of Epiphany Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - The First Sunday of Epiphany Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
The First Sunday of Epiphany Genesis 1.1–5 Acts 19.1–7 Mark 1.4–11 Wind and water. Light and dark. Heaven and earth. The beginning. There is a quiet joy about the opening of Genesis. Quiet, not because it’s only slightly exciting, but because we know at once that these are the …
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - The Fourth Before Advent Year A