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Lent for Everyone Year A - Saturday: Week 1 in Lent Year A
Lent for Everyone Year A - Saturday: Week 1 in Lent Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
EK 1: SATURDAY Matthew 17.1– 9 Imagine yourself as a fifth member of the party, going up the mountain with Jesus leading the way, Peter beside him, and James and John following too. The last days and weeks have been utterly bewildering. Nothing like this has happened to you befor…
Lent for Everyone Year A - Friday: Week 1 in Lent Year A
Lent for Everyone Year A - Friday: Week 1 in Lent Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
WEEK 1: FRIDAY Matthew 9; focused on 9.9 –17 Those of us who now use computers take it for granted that they will have a large internal memory. This is stored on what is called a ‘hard disk’, as opposed to what we used to have, back in the 1980s, which was a ‘floppy disk’, which …
Lent for Everyone Year A - Monday: Week 2 of Lent Year A
Lent for Everyone Year A - Monday: Week 2 of Lent Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
WEEK 2: MONDAY Matthew 10.1–15 Every so often, usually just after a change of government, there is a spate of political autobiographies, as former leaders do their best to cash in on the public’s hunger to find out ‘the inside story’. One of the most fascinating elements of such …
Paul for Everyone Romans part 2 - Mercy Upon All
Paul for Everyone Romans part 2 - Mercy Upon All
by SPCK - N T Wright
Mercy Upon All ROMANS 11.25-32 I have only once knowingly met a man who had committed murder. He grew up in the deep South of the United States, and learnt from an early age to hate all black people and to believe that they were part of a great conspiracy to take over the world a…
Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - Meat Offered to Idols
Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - Meat Offered to Idols
by SPCK - N T Wright
Meat Offered to Idols 1 Corinthians 8.1-6 There is a restaurant in Rome which is built around the ruins of an old temple. Two of the pillars are still visible. The restaurant makes a feature of them, and is proud of the ancient origins of the building where they now serve excelle…
Matthew for Everyone Part 1 - On Judging Others
Matthew for Everyone Part 1 - On Judging Others
by SPCK - N T Wright
On Judging Others Matthew 7.1-6 William Shakespeare based a whole play on the second verse of Matthew 7. Measure for Measure is classified as a ‘comedy’, and indeed everything works out very well in the end. But much of the play is dark and disturbing. Angelo, a noble but stern l…
Acts for Everyone Part 2 - Paul the Pastor Looks Back - and Looks on
Acts for Everyone Part 2 - Paul the Pastor Looks Back - and Looks on
by SPCK - N T Wright
Paul the Pastor Looks Back – and Looks On Acts 20.13-27 ‘To know George’, said the speaker at his funeral, ‘you had to hear him preach.’ And immediately I felt a strong stab of regret. George Caird had been my teacher throughout my graduate years. I had attended his lectures and …
Paul for Everyone Romans part 1 - Paul Longs to see the Roman Christians
Paul for Everyone Romans part 1 - Paul Longs to see the Roman Christians
by SPCK - N T Wright
Paul Longs to see the Roman Christians ROMANS 1.8-13 The first time I went to Rome there was a great deal to see. I knew about many of the classical sites, the spectacular buildings, the ancient palaces, the Forum, and so on. But there were many surprises as well. One in particul…
John for Everyone Part 1 - Philip and Nathanael
John for Everyone Part 1 - Philip and Nathanael
by SPCK - N T Wright
Philip and Nathanael John 1.43-51 Jacob was a schemer and twister. All his early life he had one eye on the main chance, especially if it meant getting one up on his older twin, Esau. In fact, even the story of how they were born included the telling detail: he’d been holding on …
John for Everyone part 2 - Pilate and the Judaeans
John for Everyone part 2 - Pilate and the Judaeans
by SPCK - N T Wright
Pilate and the Judaeans John 18.28-32 I watched today as the television interviewer fired questions at a man whose main aim seemed to be to answer them all at great length without saying anything at all. On and on the interviewer went, trying angle after angle; but the man stood …
Revelation for Everyone - Praise to the Creator
Revelation for Everyone - Praise to the Creator
by SPCK - N T Wright
Praise to the Creator Revelation 4.6b-11 Scientists and anthropologists have often asked themselves, ‘What is it that humans can do that computers can’t do?’ Computers, after all, can play chess better than most of us. They can work out answers to all kinds of questions that woul…
Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians - Practical Support in the Church
Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians - Practical Support in the Church
by SPCK - N T Wright
Practical Support in the Church Galatians 6.6-10 For some years I helped to organize a fund-raising campaign for a church. It was a good cause, lots of people wanted to help, there was great enthusiasm and initiative, and eventually the money was raised. But I found it one of the…
Paul for Everyone Romans part 1 - Prayer, Sonship and the Sovereignty of God
Paul for Everyone Romans part 1 - Prayer, Sonship and the Sovereignty of God
by SPCK - N T Wright
Prayer, Sonship and the Sovereignty of God ROMANS 8.26-30 How many names can you think of for God? It may sound an odd question. God’s proper name in the Old Testament is of course YHWH; but he is referred to in a great many other ways as well, such as ‘the Almighty’, the Holy On…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 14 Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 14 Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 14 Isaiah 1.1, 10–20 Hebrews 11.1–3, 8–16 Luke 12.32–40 Stories about a master going away and returning would have been interpreted in Jesus’ world as stories about Israel’s God, YHWH. He had ‘gone away’ at the exile, as Ezekiel describes graphically. At no point in the ‘p…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Proper 3 Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Proper 3 Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 3 - Year A Leviticus 19.1–2, 9–18 1 Corinthians 3.10–11, 16–23 Matthew 5.38–48 There are two basic mistakes people make about the command to love your neighbour as yourself. The first is to forget the last two words. We aren’t told to love our neighbour with all our heart,…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 22 Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 22 Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 22 Lamentations 1.1–6 2 Timothy 1.1–14 Luke 17.5–10 Paul, in prison, writes about power. Dangerous stuff, we say – tends to corrupt, and all that. Paul’s setting, and the work that got him there, guards him from misunderstanding. Tyrants speak of God’s power to validate th…
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 5 Year C
Twelve Months of Sunday year c - Proper 5 Year C
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 5 1 Kings 17.8–24 Galatians 1.11–24 Luke 7.11–17 Luke has, fairly obviously, told the story of the widow’s son at Nain in such a way as to evoke the similar story of Elijah and the widow’s son at Zarephath – who, interestingly, was already referred to in Jesus’ ‘Nazareth m…
Paul for Everyone The Prison Letters - Reconciled and Firm in Faith