Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs for Everyone - The Song of Songs, which is Solomon's
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs for Everyone - The Song of Songs, which is Solomon's
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Song of Songs, which is Solomon's A couple of years ago, when we were planning to get married in the month of December, I initially assumed we would honeymoon somewhere tropical like Bali…
Isaiah for everyone - The Servant's Servant
Isaiah for everyone - The Servant's Servant
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Servant’s Servant A few weeks ago I had to preach at the ordination of a friend. She asked me to choose a passage as a Scripture reading from which I would preach. She laughed when I told her it would be the first of these two paragraphs, because (she commented) everyone knew…
Isaiah for everyone - The Unexpected Fall of the Superpower
Isaiah for everyone - The Unexpected Fall of the Superpower
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Unexpected Fall of the Superpower I was born when the British Empire was about to fold. The tide was turning in the Second World War as Britain and its allies were about to defeat Nazi Germany and its allies. Yet in another sense Nazi Germany won, because war left Britain and…
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs for Everyone - The Way of a Man Can Be Strange
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs for Everyone - The Way of a Man Can Be Strange
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Way of a Man Can Be Strange A newly married couple came to talk to us about a tension within their marriage (as if we were experts, being married for only a year ourselves). The husband is a lively, young man whom his wife regards as handsome…
Jeremiah for everyone - The Wicked Play on Words in a King's Name
Jeremiah for everyone - The Wicked Play on Words in a King's Name
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Wicked Play on Words in a King's Name Names often matter. When we married eighteen months ago, I encouraged my wife to keep her name as it was so that in seminary and church circles it signalled that she continued to be a person in her own right and not simply my wife…
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs for Everyone - Things Complicated and Back to Front
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs for Everyone - Things Complicated and Back to Front
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Things Complicated and Back to Front The time of our move to the United States in 1997 happened to be the moment when my disabled first wife, Ann, became totally wheelchair-bound. When I had been offered a job here a few months previously, she could still get about a little with …
Jeremiah for everyone - Things Can't Get Worse (Can They?) (1)
Jeremiah for everyone - Things Can't Get Worse (Can They?) (1)
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Things Can't Get Worse (Can They?) (1) News reports as I write (and over the past year or two) manifest a strange kind of naiveté about changes of government. A series of Middle Eastern countries have seen civil conflict and the overthrow of totalitarian regimes…
Jeremiah for everyone - Things Can't Get Worse (Can They?) (2)
Jeremiah for everyone - Things Can't Get Worse (Can They?) (2)
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Things Can't Get Worse (Can They?) (2) There’s a story about a man who falls over the edge of a cliff but manages to grab the branch of a small tree and thus stop himself from falling hundreds of feet to his death. The tree saves him, but only temporarily, because he can’t get ba…
Jeremiah for everyone - Things can only get worse
Jeremiah for everyone - Things can only get worse
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Things Can Only Get Worse As a newly ordained minister I was required to take part in “post-ordination training,” irreverently known as “potty training.” It’s no criticism of it that decades later I remember little about it, but I do have one vivid memory…
Isaiah for everyone - There Is to Be No Forgetting
Isaiah for everyone - There Is to Be No Forgetting
by SPCK - John Goldingay
There Is to Be No Forgetting Yesterday we dropped by a bakery and coffee shop because we were early for a meeting. I was confused by there being two counters and lines, one for coffee and one for pastries, and asked one of the servers what the system was…
Isaiah for everyone - Three Ways a Prophet Speaks
Isaiah for everyone - Three Ways a Prophet Speaks
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Three Ways a Prophet Speaks It’s Pentecost Sunday. I came home from church with some mixed feelings. There were fewer people in church than usual (it happens also to be a holiday weekend), but the day had a sense of celebration, including red balloons flying from the pews. People…
Isaiah for everyone - Things That Shouldn’t Happen, Yet Do
Isaiah for everyone - Things That Shouldn’t Happen, Yet Do
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Things That Shouldn’t Happen, Yet Do As we woke this morning, the man in the apartment above had already set his washing machine going, and it was making a clunkier noise than usual. Indeed, at first I thought there was a helicopter hovering above the building…
Jeremiah for everyone - Truth to Power
Jeremiah for everyone - Truth to Power
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Truth to Power As I write, the Australian founder of Wikileaks is effectively a prisoner in the Ecuadorean embassy in London. If he leaves the embassy, Britain will arrest him and hand him over to authorities in Sweden that have sought his extradition…
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs for Everyone - Under the Sun, Where Randomness Rules
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs for Everyone - Under the Sun, Where Randomness Rules
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Under the Sun, Where Randomness Rules There will be no remembering on their part, among the people who will be after them. I noted in connection with Proverbs 11 that I am inclined to think that nothing I do has any effect…
Jeremiah for everyone - Uncircumcised Ears