SPCK

Am I in the Place of God Genesis 49:29-50:26 A year or two ago, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Los Angeles, Cardinal Roger Mahoney, was attacked one night near the cathedral. According to reports that surfaced somewhat later, he was punched, knocked to the ground, and kicked. B…

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Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - GLOSSARY

by SPCK - John Goldingay

GLOSSARY aide A supernatural agent through whom God may appear and work in the world. Standard English translations refer to them as “angels,” but this designation is inclined to suggest ethereal figures with wings, wearing diaphanous white dresses. Aides are humanlike figures; h…

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Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - God was with Joseph

by SPCK - John Goldingay

God Was with Jesus Genesis 39:1-40:8 I previously referred to a man who used to come to talk with me when he had an affair and was inclined to blame the women for throwing themselves at him. But I have known women who were tempted to do that. Sometimes their men were totally preo…

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Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - Another Deceiver Deceived

by SPCK - John Goldingay

Another Deceiver Deceived Genesis 38:1-30 It can seem as if every month some new sexual scandal is reported involving a prominent politician or pastor. It is common for the men (it’s nearly always men, but the more equal the playing field becomes, the more it may become women) in…

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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…

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Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - Excluded but Not Forgotten

by SPCK - John Goldingay

Excluded but Not Forgotten Genesis 36:1- 37:4 Some years ago I decided to try to discover what I could about the Goldingays of the past. It’s probably easier for most British people to investigate their ancestors than for most people in the United States, whose families came from…

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Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - Do People Change?

by SPCK - John Goldingay

Do People Change? Genesis 35:1-29 We used to meet each week for dinner with a group of friends, including a pastor or two, a therapist or two, and a missiologist or two, and one of the topics we used to come back to was transformation. Mission is concerned with it; ministry is co…

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Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - Should Our Sister Be Treated Like a Whore?

by SPCK - John Goldingay

Should Our Sister Be Treated Like a Whore? Genesis 33:18-34:31 There were a couple in the seminary who got into a tangle in their relationship. The man had lost his wife in an accident. He seemed to be doing all the right things in the way he coped: grieving but keeping her memor…

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Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - God Struggles

by SPCK - John Goldingay

God Struggles Genesis 32:24b-33:17 Every Sunday on the way to church we drive past a particular bus shelter with a huge advertising placard, and for some while this placard proclaimed, “You can never have enough money.” I can’t remember what it was advertising (which shows that a…

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Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - Fear

by SPCK - John Goldingay

Fear Genesis 31:55- 32:24a There is something to be said for fear. On one seminary study tour to Israel and Palestine, we were on our way back from Beersheba to Jerusalem. The Israeli authorities were advising groups to follow a route that stayed in Israeli territory rather than …

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Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - The Pain of a Family Divided by Miles

by SPCK - John Goldingay

The Pain of a Family Divided by Miles Genesis 31:30-54 When my wife and I started dating and then wanted to get engaged, her parents were totally against it. They had some plausible reasons. I was a long-haired lout (it was the 1960s), and they weren’t sure I was the kind of man …

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Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - The Divisiveness of Stuff

by SPCK - John Goldingay

The Divisiveness of Stuff Genesis 31:1-29 Money divides people from one another. A news item this week related how a twenty-five-year feud had been simmering in a particular family. When the father died, with the mother’s collusion his son concealed his father’s ownership of a nu…

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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…

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Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - The Problem of Insight

by SPCK - John Goldingay

The Problem of Insight Genesis 30:4-21 A number of my students are training to be family therapists, and they are often intrigued by these stories in Genesis. They are excited to find how dysfunctional these families are because in their own way they match our dysfunctional famil…

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Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - I Want to Know What Love Is

by SPCK - John Goldingay

I Want to Know What Love Is Genesis 29:32-30:3 I have just read a review of a TV program about polygamy in the United States. It incidentally notes how one motivation for polygamy is that it can be a route to more children and more money, which fits with the assumptions about pol…

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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…

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Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - How to Live in a Contractual Relationship with God

by SPCK - John Goldingay

How to Live in a Contractual Relationship with God Genesis 28:16-29: 14a I was trying to explain to a group of Christians the difference between a covenant and a contract in order to suggest that God’s relationship with us is more like the former than the latter. I have a contrac…

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Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - The Stairway to Heaven

by SPCK - John Goldingay

The Stairway to Heaven Genesis 28:6-15 When I would occasionally remember a dream and report it, my wife would say that she didn’t dream. Really she knew she did, because everyone does; it’s one reason why we sleep. But we don’t usually remember our dreams, maybe partly because t…

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