Search Results
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - The Second Sunday of Advent Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - The Second Sunday of Advent Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Second Sunday of Advent Isaiah 40.1–11 2 Peter 3.8–15a Mark 1.1–8 If John the Baptist was going to raise up the valleys and flatten out the mountains, he started in the right place. Jericho lies a long way below the road-sign that says ‘sea level’; Jerusalem, a long way abo…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - The First Sunday of Christmas Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - The First Sunday of Christmas Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
The First Sunday of Christmas Isaiah 61.10—62.3 Galatians 4.4–7 Luke 2.15–21 God sent the Son...and God sent the Spirit of the Son. St Paul brings together Christmas and Pentecost – as unlikely a pair, to our culture-conditioned minds, as plum pudding and a May Bank Holiday. So…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 1 Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 1 Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 1 Isaiah 40.21–31 1 Corinthians 9.16–23 Mark 1.29–39 Nobody in Corinth had seen it before. Nobody had thought of it. It wasn’t on their mental map, anymore than it is in our world. So when Paul wanted to tell them that as Christians, working out how to live in a pagan en…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Easter Day Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Easter Day Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Easter Day Isaiah 25.6-9 1 Corinthians 15.1-11 John 20.1-18 This Gospel reading is not, as one writer has suggested, ‘a sanitized story about a trip to a garden and a lovely surprise’. If Easter is in any sense the happy ending after a sad story, that is the least important thing…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 2 Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 2 Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 2 2 Kings 5.1–14 1 Corinthians 9.24–27 Mark 1.40–45 Naaman’s wife’s maid knew more about Elisha’s healing powers than the king of Israel. All the king could do was tear his clothes and rage against his Syrian counterpart, suspecting that a request for healing was a disgu…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 4 Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 4 Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 4 1 Samuel 3.1-10 2 Corinthians 4.5-12 Mark 2.23-3.6 Like a cathedral chorister, Samuel has been brought to live and work in the atmosphere of prayer, worship and pilgrimage. Considering the lively human interest, it’s surprising this story didn’t entice the great classi…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - The Second Sunday of Easter Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - The Second Sunday of Easter Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Second Sunday of Easter Acts 4.32-35 1 John 1.1-2.2 John 20.19-31 ‘Peace be with you’, said Jesus. And again, two verses later, ‘Peace be with you.’ Like a great bell, a single note with multiple overtones, the promise of peace tolls out across the world. Not just an inner pe…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - The Second Sunday Before Lent Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - The Second Sunday Before Lent Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Second Sunday Before Lent Proverbs 8.1, 22–31 Colossians 1.15–20 John 1.1–14 Eyebrows will be raised at the reappearance of John’s prologue so soon after Christmas. But our surprise at the lectionary’s turns and twists is nothing to that launched upon the world by John’s fa…
Acts for Everyone part 1 - An Explanation is called for
Acts for Everyone part 1 - An Explanation is called for
by SPCK - N T Wright
An Explanation is Called for Acts 3.11-16 ‘How did you do that?’ I stood beside the car as it spluttered into life. I had fiddled and jiggled with everything I could, and hadn’t been able to make it start. (This, I should say, was a long time ago, in the days when you could poke …
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Ascension!
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Ascension!
by SPCK - N T Wright
Ascension! Acts 1.9-14 We were having supper with some friends who had recently moved to western Canada. ‘So,’ my wife began, ‘does Vancouver feel like home?’ ‘It’s not home,’ replied the wife energetically. ‘It’s heaven!’ ‘Well, my dear,’ commented her husband, a theologian, rep…
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Restoration and Refreshment
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Restoration and Refreshment
by SPCK - N T Wright
Restoration and Refreshment Acts 3.17-26 I remember a hot, hot walk in the Scottish highlands. (It’s true: there are times, even at altitudes of 4,000 feet, when you can be just as hot in Scotland as anywhere in Europe.) We climbed Braeriach and Cairn Toul, the third and fourth h…
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Look Upon Their Threats
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Look Upon Their Threats
by SPCK - N T Wright
Look upon Their Threats Acts 4. 23-31 In the early summer of 1989, I went to Jerusalem to teach, and to work on a couple of books, one of which was about Jesus himself. One day, sitting in my borrowed room at St George’s Cathedral, I was struggling with a few pages I was trying t…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Proper 18 Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Proper 18 Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
Twelve Months of Sundays – Year A Ordinary Time Proper 18 Exodus 12.1–14 Romans 13.8–14 Matthew 18.15–20 Jesus’ followers are to struggle to live by the law of reconciliation. It’s always a struggle, but it’s always a law. Some say, of course, that Jesus couldn’t have spoken, as …
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Proper 7 Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Proper 7 Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
Twelve Months of Sundays – Year A Ordinary Time Proper 7 Genesis 21.8–21 Romans 6.1b–11 Matthew 10.24–39 The prince of peace comes with a sword. To that theological oxymoron we must add the sad, and still tragic, story of Abraham, Hagar and Ishmael. Go down into the Genesis story…
New Testament Wisdom for Everyone - Watch Out For Dangers
New Testament Wisdom for Everyone - Watch Out For Dangers
by SPCK - N T Wright
4 THE PATH OF THE DISCIPLE WATCH OUT FOR DANGERS! Hebrews 12: 12-17 ‘It was a moment of madness.’ The politician stood shamefully before the press. He had been caught out soliciting for sexual favours in a notorious part of town. His character was in ruins, his reputation in tatt…
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Restoring the Twelve
Acts for Everyone part 1 - Restoring the Twelve
by SPCK - N T Wright
Restoring the twelve Acts 1.15-26 The older I get, the more I dislike trying to follow the complicated instructions that come with new technology. I’m not what they call technophobic. On the desk where I am working there is a computer. It is linked to a cell phone which includes …
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Christ the King Year B