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Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - The Attraction of Images
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - The Attraction of Images
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Attraction of Images Deuteronomy 4: 1-49 Two or three weeks ago I went for a few days holiday and drove from Los Angeles up the coastal highway to Monterey. I had always heard it was a beautiful drive, and it is. The second night I stopped at a motel and noticed as I checked …
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - The Audacity of Hope
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - The Audacity of Hope
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Audacity of Hope Genesis 5: 21-32 At a lunch the weekend after Tony Blair became British prime minister in 1997, I was talking with a woman at our table. The event had reminded me of the election of Harold Wilson’s government in Britain in 1964, and I had been thinking of the…
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - The Cloak and the Power of Elijah
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - The Cloak and the Power of Elijah
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Cloak and the Power of Elijah 2 Kings 2:1-3:3 I once had to change a flat tire by the Dead Sea. I jacked the car up and in the process of changing the tire or loosening or tightening the wheel nuts, I lay on the sandy but hard ground. It was summer and hot, and when I got up …
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - The Capital of Corruption
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - The Capital of Corruption
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Capital of Corruption 1 Kings 21:8-29 Sitting on the subway on the way home last night, I overheard a conversation between two young men about the candidates for our upcoming gubernatorial elections. (Isn’t that a great word, gubernatorial? We don’t have it in British English…
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - The Chance to be a Servant Leader
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - The Chance to be a Servant Leader
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Chance to Be a Servant leader 1 Kings 12:1-32 One of my faculty colleagues was asked to become director of the chapel in the seminary, and she loved to relate how she needed to go and talk to the provost of the seminary (vice principal in Brit-speak) about her role, and how h…
Joshua, Judges and Ruth for Everyone - The Choice
Joshua, Judges and Ruth for Everyone - The Choice
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Choice RUTH 1:10-19a When my wife’s multiple sclerosis was first diagnosed, I wrote to tell her pastor, who had also been a mentor of mine. I remember reading his reply. He told us how that morning he happened to have been studying the story of Jesus’ making the water into wi…
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - The Competition to Be the Shrewdest Sheep Farmer
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - The Competition to Be the Shrewdest Sheep Farmer
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Competition to Be the Shrewdest Sheep Farmer Genesis 30:22-43 After church this morning, one of our senior laypeople asked me about Hagar. Someone had implied in a comment to her that Hagar was a prostitute and/or a concubine. In effect I explained that Hagar’s status was mor…
Joshua, Judges and Ruth for Everyone - The Country That Remains to Be Possessed is Very Great
Joshua, Judges and Ruth for Everyone - The Country That Remains to Be Possessed is Very Great
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Country That Remains to Be Possessed Is Very Great JOSHUA 13:1- 14:15 At my wife’s memorial service in England this past summer, I saw one of my cousins whom I had not seen for over a decade, and this week I had a Christmas card from her. She wrote, “Various members of the fa…
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - The Deceiver Deceived
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - The Deceiver Deceived
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Deceiver Deceived Genesis 29:14b-31 The chapters in Genesis for Everyone regularly begin with a story making a link with our own world, but who needs a story to introduce the account of Jacob’s wedding? If I made a list of the moments in the Bible that I would most like to ha…
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - The Cry from Sodom
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - The Cry from Sodom
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Cry from Sodom Genesis 18: 16-20 Any day I write, there are cries arising from the world. To test that statement, I just went to get today’s newspaper. On the front page is a photo of a woman who lost a leg and whose husband and son died in a NATO bombing in Afghanistan. In t…
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - The Complications of Surrogacy
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - The Complications of Surrogacy
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Complications of Surrogacy Genesis 16: 4b-7 Establishing whether a couple’s problem in having children lies in the man or the woman involves stressful processes of medical investigation. When a woman who had gone through such procedures told me her husband had a zero sperm co…
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - The Creation Story as a Historical Parable
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - The Creation Story as a Historical Parable
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Creation Story as a Historical Parable Genesis 2: 4a Once when our sons were young we were driving through northern France, across a plain with a range of mountains in the background. In the back seat our younger son (who was about twelve) started giving a lecture on how thes…
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - The Dreamer
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - The Dreamer
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Dreamer Genesis 37:5-36 I have known one or two people who had dreams or visions or words from God (indeed, I have had one or two myself). Sometimes these have been rather general and uncheckable, though edifying and at worst harmless. Sometimes they have been vindicated by e…
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - The Expulsion and Its Consequences
Genesis for Everyone Part 1 - The Expulsion and Its Consequences
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Expulsion and Its Consequences Genesis 3: 23-24 I was once walking through the seminary campus when I spotted a former student, whom I had known quite well, sitting in a patio area with rather a disconsolate look. When I asked him if he was OK, he replied, “I’ve made a train …
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - The Faithful Master
Psalms for Everyone Part 2 - The Faithful Master
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Faithful Master Psalm 119:121-144 One of my former colleagues used to delight to talk about her first appointment with her boss. His opening words to her were “How can I serve you?” “What can I do for you?” “How can I help you do your job?” In a way the questions seem smarmy …
Isaiah for Everyone - The Destiny of All That Is Humanly Impressive
Isaiah for Everyone - The Destiny of All That Is Humanly Impressive
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Destiny of All That is Humanly Impressive Isaiah 2: 6-22 It’s Holy Week, and for more than twenty years a magnificent church not far from where we live put on a glorious Easter pageant in the weeks leading up to Easter, “the largest and most spectacular passion play” in the w…
Exodus and Leviticus - The Expiation Day
Exodus and Leviticus - The Expiation Day
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Expiation Day LEVITICUS : 16: 1-34 I climbed Mount Sinai in September 1973, near the beginning of the seventh month in the Jewish year as Leviticus computes it (counting from Passover), and thus just after the New Year on the modern Jewish calendar. It was five days before Yo…
Isaiah for Everyone - The Downfall of the Superpower