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Matthew for Everyone Part 2 - Judgment on Jerusalem and It's Leaders
Matthew for Everyone Part 2 - Judgment on Jerusalem and It's Leaders
by SPCK - N T Wright
Judgment on Jerusalem and Its Leaders Matthew 23.34-39 For many city-dwellers, myself included, life on a farm can appear idyllic. Memories of brief visits to farming relatives when I was a child combine with the view of peaceful rural life seen from a car or a train. Living in c…
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - Live Up to Your Calling
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - Live Up to Your Calling
by SPCK - N T Wright
Live Up to Your Calling Ephesians 4.1-10 If you buy a new car, what’s the first thing you do? Do you sit down for an hour and read through the manual, to make sure you know every little detail about it before you take to the road? Or do you at once get behind the wheel and go for…
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Living by Trust in God
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Living by Trust in God
by SPCK - N T Wright
Living by Trust in God James 4.11-17 One of the most memorable minor characters in C. S. Lewis’s famous ‘Narnia’ stories is the strange and increasingly sinister ‘Uncle Andrew’ in The Magician’s Nephew. Uncle Andrew is, in fact, the ‘magician’ of the title, and his nephew Digory …
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - Love, Peace and Thanksgiving
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - Love, Peace and Thanksgiving
by SPCK - N T Wright
Love, Peace and Thanksgiving Colossians 3.12-17 Here’s the acid test for whether Paul is talking sense or not. Read again through the list of sexual and speech-related misbehaviour in verses 5–9. Then read through verses 12–17. Ask yourself this: supposing there was a town in whi…
Matthew for Everyone Part 1 - Lord of the Sabbath
Matthew for Everyone Part 1 - Lord of the Sabbath
by SPCK - N T Wright
Lord of the Sabbath Matthew 12.1-14 Some years ago I read a book by a man who had worked most of his life with poor and homeless people in one of the toughest parts of London. It was a gritty tale of just how hard real life can be for some people – and of how the love of God can …
John for Everyone part 2 - My Kingdom Is Not From This World
John for Everyone part 2 - My Kingdom Is Not From This World
by SPCK - N T Wright
My Kingdom Is Not from This World John 18.33-40 The ancient world knew more about kings than we moderns do. Where kings and queens still exist today, they mostly live and work within a carefully constructed framework. They are not ‘absolute’ monarchs, but ‘constitutional’ ones. T…
The Pastoral Letters - Opponents of the Truth
The Pastoral Letters - Opponents of the Truth
by SPCK - N T Wright
Opponents of the Truth 2Timothy 3.1-9 It was a scrappy end to the game, but perhaps it was inevitable. We were winning by what should have been a safe margin; and with a few minutes to go the opposition seemed to realize that their cause was hopeless. Perhaps for that reason, tho…
2 Corinthians - Our Boasting Proved True
2 Corinthians - Our Boasting Proved True
by SPCK - N T Wright
Our Boasting Proved True! 2 CORINTHIANS 7.11-16 The first time I stayed with my friends in Germany I explained to them just how beautiful the north of England was. They had never seen it, and they had only heard a little about the hills and woods, the mountains, the ancient castl…
Matthew for Everyone Part 1 - Opposition in Nazareth
Matthew for Everyone Part 1 - Opposition in Nazareth
by SPCK - N T Wright
Opposition in Nazareth Matthew 13.54-58 She came home from school with all the wide-eyed excitement of an eager eight-year-old, clutching the clarinet case to her like a favourite teddy bear. She had had her first music lesson on the new instrument that morning. She couldn’t wait…
Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians - Paul's Conversion and Call
Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians - Paul's Conversion and Call
by SPCK - N T Wright
Paul’s Conversion and Call Galatians 1.10-17 John Henry Newman was one of the great figures of nineteenth-century England. A brilliant thinker and writer, a spellbinding preacher and a deeply sensitive soul, he left the Anglican Church and became a Roman Catholic in 1845. After a…
Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians - Paul's Distress Over the Galatians
Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians - Paul's Distress Over the Galatians
by SPCK - N T Wright
Paul’s Distress Over the Galatians Galatians 1.1-9 Imagine you’re in South Africa in the 1970s. Apartheid is at its height. You are embarked on a risky project: to build a community centre where everybody will be equally welcome, no matter what their colour or race. You’ve design…
2 Corinthians - Paul's Plans and God's "Yes"
2 Corinthians - Paul's Plans and God's "Yes"
by SPCK - N T Wright
Paul’s Plan and God’s “Yes” 2 CORINTHIANS 1.15-22 One of my students once arrived very late for a tutorial. I was working on an extremely tight schedule, and I wasn’t amused at having the day disrupted. I thought the student needed to know how far out of line his behaviour was. I…
Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians - Paul's Fatherly Concern
Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians - Paul's Fatherly Concern
by SPCK - N T Wright
Paul’s Fatherly Concern Thessalonians 2.9-12 Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Paul’s missionary work is that when he arrived in a new town the people there had quite literally never seen anything of the sort before. They had seen other travelling teachers, but none like th…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Proper 1 Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Proper 1 Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 1 - Year A Isaiah 58.1–12 1 Corinthians 2.1–16 Matthew 5.13–20 Isaiah’s stinging rebuke contains the seeds of the Sermon on the Mount. True piety must be part of the outward movement to share your blessing with the world. Fasting is useless if injustice goes unchecked. L…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 12 Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 12 Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 12 Hosea 1.2–10 Colossians 2.6–19 Luke 11.1–13 Part of the prophetic vocation seems to have been to carry the pain of the message in one’s own soul. Thus it was, at least, with Hosea. Married to a prostitute, he felt not only the pain of Israel but also the pain of God, …
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 20 Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 20 Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 20 Jeremiah 8.18—9.1 1 Timothy 2.1–7 Luke 16.1–13 The first thing to get clear about the ‘parable of the wicked mammon’ is that it is precisely a parable. It is not advice about financial management: Jesus is not telling people to cheat their bosses. It makes sense within …
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 21 Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 21 Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 21 Jeremiah 32.1–15 1 Timothy 6.6–19 Luke 16.19–end Among the many symbolic actions Jeremiah was commanded to perform, this one stands out as a sign, not of judgement, but of hope: hope for God’s restoration the other side of judgement. Resurrection hope, if you like. He i…
Early Christian Letters for Everyone - Ransomed by Grace