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How God Became King - 3 The Inadequate Answers
How God Became King - 3 The Inadequate Answers
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Inadequate Answers So what have the churches normally done with the ‘middle bits’, with the ‘body’ inside the ‘cloak’? I have on occasion challenged groups of clergy and laity to tell me what they or their congregations might say if asked what ‘all that stuff in the middle’ w…
How God Became King - 5c Looking for the Right Thing
How God Became King - 5c Looking for the Right Thing
by SPCK - N T Wright
Looking for the Right Thing At this point we have to be careful and once more get some critical distance from the main streams of our own recent traditions. It all depends on looking for the right thing. It has been popular for well over a hundred years to see the explicitly high…
How God Became King - 5d Matthew and Luke: Seeing Jesus, Thinking God
How God Became King - 5d Matthew and Luke: Seeing Jesus, Thinking God
by SPCK - N T Wright
Matthew and Luke: Seeing Jesus, Thinking God Once we learn, from Mark, how we might read the story of Jesus as the story of Israel’s God returning at last, we may find it easier to recognize the ways in which Matthew and Luke are doing something very similar…
How God Became King - 7b God and Caesar in the Gospels
How God Became King - 7b God and Caesar in the Gospels
by SPCK - N T Wright
God and Caesar in the Gospels But, you say, surely Caesar is only mentioned once in the gospels, and there Jesus says that there’s a clear division between God and Caesar, a split of church and state, so that never the twain shall meet…
Matthew for Everyone Part 2 - Condemnation of Scribes and Pharisees (2)
Matthew for Everyone Part 2 - Condemnation of Scribes and Pharisees (2)
by SPCK - N T Wright
Condemnation of Scribes and Pharisees (1) Matthew 23.13-22 I once preached a sermon in a church in America. I spoke particularly of the way in which the ancient pagan gods and goddesses were starting to infiltrate our culture once more, and how as Christians we should learn to re…
Fresh Thoughts For Sunday - Fresh Thoughts For Sunday Issue 235
Fresh Thoughts For Sunday - Fresh Thoughts For Sunday Issue 235
by Twelvebaskets Ltd
A selection of commentary, reflection and prayer ideas from various Christian authors and the full bible texts from the NRSV for this week's lectionary. NOW INCLUDING SERIALISED BOOKS FROM SPCK AND CONTRIBUTIONS FROM BRF. Check below for details. Subscribe to Fresh Thoughts For S…
Simply Good News - Rethinking Heaven
Simply Good News - Rethinking Heaven
by SPCK - N T Wright
Rethinking Heaven If Jesus’s first followers spoke about the good news of what had just happened, what did they think would happen in the future as a result? Here we face a major problem. For many generations in the modern church, followers of Jesus in many parts of the world hav…
Simply Good News - The Competing Gospel of the Modern World
Simply Good News - The Competing Gospel of the Modern World
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Competing Gospel of the Modern World The first problem, we recall, is that the church has colluded with the legacy of the Middle Ages, proposing going to heaven as the ultimate goal and an angry God as the problem to get around. The second is that modern culture has operated …
Simply Good News - Resurrection as the Beginning of a New World
Simply Good News - Resurrection as the Beginning of a New World
by SPCK - N T Wright
Saving the World How do we know all this? How can we know all this? How is all this not simply a pious dream, a fantasy, a utopia that we all enjoy but know is a mirage? The answer is simple. Jesus was raised from the dead. This is, of course, the second half of the classic summa…
Simply Good News - Wrong Future, Wrong Present
Simply Good News - Wrong Future, Wrong Present
by SPCK - N T Wright
Wrong Future, Wrong Present Like the good news about what has happened in the past, the good news about what will happen in the future has proved hard to grasp. There is a powerful reason for this, which I shall come to in a moment. For now, let’s just note some of the other less…
Simply Good News - What the Resurrection Reveals
Simply Good News - What the Resurrection Reveals
by SPCK - N T Wright
What the Resurrection Reveals If that had been the end, however, it wouldn’t have been good news at all. It would only have meant one more failed messiah. The only reason the death of Jesus was ever thought of as good news was because of what happened next…
Simply Good News - Have We Really Met the True God?
Simply Good News - Have We Really Met the True God?
by SPCK - N T Wright
Have We Really Met the True God? How can we put all this together? As we look back across the centuries, we notice a recurring theme when people stop for a moment and ask themselves the big questions. Who are we? Where are we? What are we here for – other than to feed, fight, and…
Simply Good News - The Competing Gospels of Rationalism and Romanticism
Simply Good News - The Competing Gospels of Rationalism and Romanticism
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Competing Gospels of Rationalism and Romanticism The second problem has infected both the church and the world for the last two or three hundred years at least. Again, this is not the place to explain how all the complicated ideas in modern European and American thought came …
Simply Good News - Surprised by God
Simply Good News - Surprised by God
by SPCK - N T Wright
Surprised by God The word God is a heavy, clunky little syllable. It drops like a lead weight into otherwise cheerful conversations. It sticks in the throat like a lump of undercooked dumpling. It comes up over the horizon like a sudden cloud, blotting out the sun. The very sound…
Simply Good News - Getting the Balance Right
Simply Good News - Getting the Balance Right
by SPCK - N T Wright
Getting the Balance Right The good news, then, is good news about the present as well as the past and the future. Despite the secular claim that all real advances in the world are the result of secular modernism, and despite the barrage of hostility launched against the church by…
Simply Good News - The Return of the One God