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Matthew for Everyone Part 2 - The Beginnings of the Birth Pangs
Matthew for Everyone Part 2 - The Beginnings of the Birth Pangs
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Beginnings of the Birth Pangs Matthew 24.1-14 We went together to see the doctor, one rainy day in the autumn. We were excited but also very apprehensive. We had a sense of going down a road we’d often heard about but had never quite believed we would travel ourselves. He tal…
Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - The Coming Day, the Coming Fire
Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - The Coming Day, the Coming Fire
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Coming Day, the Coming Fire 1 Corinthians 3.12-17 I love sightseeing around ancient ruins. Like many historians who have had the good fortune to travel round the ancient world, I have stood in the Temple of Apollo in Corinth, in the synagogue at Capernaum, in the Forum at Rom…
Matthew for Everyone Part 2 - The Coming of the Son of Man
Matthew for Everyone Part 2 - The Coming of the Son of Man
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Coming of the Son of Man Matthew 24.29-35 A friend of mine is a composer. (It’s something I would like to have been myself, had things worked out differently, so I take a particular interest in what he does.) I watched one day as he worked on a particular piece he was writing…
Luke for Everyone - The Coming of The Kingdom
Luke for Everyone - The Coming of The Kingdom
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Coming of the Kingdom Luke 17.20-37 What does the word ‘apocalypse’ conjure up to you? Hollywood fantasies? Stars falling from the sky, volcanoes and earthquakes? People in terror, panicking and rushing this way and that? The Bible has plenty of apocalypses, and sometimes the…
Revelation for Everyone - The Day is Coming!
Revelation for Everyone - The Day is Coming!
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Day Is Coming! Revelation 6.9-17 There are three ways of ending a game of chess. The first is that one player or the other simply wins the game. There is no question: this is checkmate, and that’s the end of it. The second is that both players realize the game is unwinnable, …
Luke for Everyone - The Death and Burial of Jesus
Luke for Everyone - The Death and Burial of Jesus
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Death and Burial of Jesus Luke 23.44-56 It really happened. It wasn’t a mistake. We didn’t get it wrong. It’s true. You can rely on it. This is the main emphasis of Luke’s account of Jesus’ death and burial. He began his book by telling ‘Theophilus’ that he could rely on thes…
John for Everyone Part 1 - The Evidence of John
John for Everyone Part 1 - The Evidence of John
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Evidence of John John 1.19-28 ‘I want to make it quite clear that I’m not a candidate.’ You hear that said over and over as politicians jostle for position before a major election. No, they aren’t going to stand. No, they have no intention of running for office. No, they are …
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - The Living Stone
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - The Living Stone
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Living Stone 1 Peter 2.4-10 I have never been a great gardener. Among many other reasons – lack of patience, moving house too often – I would name the problem I met the very first time I tried to take control of the small garden outside our first house. It was overgrown and n…
Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians - The Persecuted Church
Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians - The Persecuted Church
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Persecuted Church Thessalonians 2.13-16 The day started clear and bright, with not a cloud in the sky. My son and I set off to climb in the mountains with every hope that the weather would hold. But as we reached the top of our first peak, a shock awaited us. We were climbing…
2 Corinthians - The Smell of Life, The Smell of Death
2 Corinthians - The Smell of Life, The Smell of Death
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Smell of Life, the Smell of Death 2 CORINTHIANS 2.12-17 ‘What does that remind you of?’ The smell came strongly to me, a dark, heavy but essentially friendly aroma. I thought for a while. Pictures flashed to and fro in my memory. I sniffed again. Then, as though from far away…
Matthew for Everyone Part 2 - The Temple and the Fig-Tree
Matthew for Everyone Part 2 - The Temple and the Fig-Tree
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Temple and the Fig-Tree Matthew 21.12-22 Once upon a time there was a king who wanted to give his country a new lease of life. He decided to capture a city that none of his people had lived in before, and make it his capital, so that no one would feel either proud that their …
Hebrews for Everyone - Tho Old Tebernacle Points Forward to the New
Hebrews for Everyone - Tho Old Tebernacle Points Forward to the New
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Old Tabernacle Points Forward to the New Hebrews 9.1-10 The taxi driver was resigned to things being this way for a long time. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘we’ve just got to put up with it. Boston will be a great city if they ever get it finished.’ We were stuck in what seemed like an im…
John for Everyone part 2 - Washing the Disciples' Feet
John for Everyone part 2 - Washing the Disciples' Feet
by SPCK - N T Wright
Washing the Disciples’ Feet John 13.1-11 I had never washed anyone else’s feet (bathing my own children doesn’t really count) until I went to work in a church where they acted out this scene every Holy Week. On the Thursday, the day before Good Friday, many churches arrange a ser…
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Warnings to the Rich
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Warnings to the Rich
by SPCK - N T Wright
Warnings to the Rich James 5.1-6 Suddenly we find ourselves in two quite different worlds – and we realize that James has been thinking this way all along. Reading through the book casually to this point, we might suppose it was a ragbag collection of different moral commands: a …
Exodus and Leviticus - How to build a Church II
Exodus and Leviticus - How to build a Church II
by SPCK - John Goldingay
How to Build a Church 2 EXODUS 26: 31- 27: 21 When I was a toddler in the latter part of the Second World War, family lore says that I used to watch the “fireworks” and the “bonfires” from my second-floor bedroom. These were actually bombs falling on the RAF airstrip that is now …
Isaiah for Everyone - How to frighten People into Repentance
Isaiah for Everyone - How to frighten People into Repentance
by SPCK - John Goldingay
How to frighten People into Repentance A little while ago I went to preach at a new church that is part of the “emerging church” movement, which started in Australasia and the UK and spread to the United States. Its background is an awareness that the traditional churches are in …
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - Is Anything Stable?
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - Is Anything Stable?
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Is Anything Stable? Psalm 89: 1-37 My wife once lived in a house on the side of a canyon in California that seemed capable of tumbling into the ocean if there was an earthquake, and after one worrying quake not far away she took to checking the weekly earthquake reports. Apparent…
Lectionary Reflection Year C - The Fourth Sunday of Epiphany Year C