SPCK
A Bit Like Jesus - Learning from hypocrisy
A Bit Like Jesus - Learning from hypocrisy
by SPCK - Robin Gill
WEEK 2 Hypocrisy Learning from hypocrisy Gene Robinson, the elected Bishop of New Hampshire, was not invited to attend the 2008 Lambeth Conference of Bishops. It was considered that his committed but gay partnership would make his presence too offensive to others within the Angli…
A Bit Like Jesus - Practise what you preach
A Bit Like Jesus - Practise what you preach
by SPCK - Robin Gill
WEEK 2 Hypocrisy Practise what you preach Those who regularly deliver sermons in church should live in fear of this proverb. It might have been designed for us. Do we really live up to what we preach? A common factor in many of the uses of the word ‘hypocrite’ in the first thre…
A Bit Like Jesus - Hypocrisy and aids
A Bit Like Jesus - Hypocrisy and aids
by SPCK - Robin Gill
WEEK 2 Hypocrisy Hypocrisy and AIDS Within the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats both those who did and those who did not give priority to the vulnerable are mystified. ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And w…
A Bit Like Jesus - Hypocrisy and paedophile priests
A Bit Like Jesus - Hypocrisy and paedophile priests
by SPCK - Robin Gill
WEEK 2 Hypocrisy Hypocrisy and paedophile priests Forget about my petty scruples concerning Ash Wednesday. It is time to take a much stronger example of religious hypocrisy. For instance, the shameful way that for generations senior clergy in a number of churches covered up for t…
A Bit Like Jesus - Religious hypocrisy
A Bit Like Jesus - Religious hypocrisy
by SPCK - Robin Gill
WEEK 2 Hypocrisy Religious hypocrisy This accusation against religious people is especially strong in the first three Gospels. Within the New Testament the term ‘hypocrite’ is found only in these Gospels. It is always found on the lips of Jesus himself. And it is typically direct…
A Bit Like Jesus - Values from stories
A Bit Like Jesus - Values from stories
by SPCK - Robin Gill
WEEK 1 Stories We Value Values from stories Why did Jesus not give us a set of moral laws? I suspect that for many of us it would have been so much easier had he done so. Imagine for a moment that the Gospels were full of moral laws, dos and don’ts, like parts of Leviticus in the…
A Bit Like Jesus - Life Stories
A Bit Like Jesus - Life Stories
by SPCK - Robin Gill
WEEK 1 Stories We Value Life stories On my shelves I have an inherited collection of original Henty novels. Written for boys in Victorian England they remained popular in the early twentieth century and are still collectable today. G. A. Henty was a self-taught historian who wrot…
A Bit Like Jesus - Healing Stories rather than miracle stories
A Bit Like Jesus - Healing Stories rather than miracle stories
by SPCK - Robin Gill
WEEK 1 Stories We Value Healing stories rather than miracle stories The problem is that many will see the Gospel stories as miracle stories. So are they really healing stories? Here, for example, is the first such story in Mark 1.21–28: They went to Capernaum; and when the sabbat…
A Bit Like Jesus - Family Stories
A Bit Like Jesus - Family Stories
by SPCK - Robin Gill
WEEK 1 Stories We Value Family Stories Stories are particularly important for families. We tell and retell stories about where and when we were born, about holidays shared, about birthday and Christmas parties enjoyed long ago, about grandparents and great-grandparents no longer …
A Bit Like Jesus - Family Stories
A Bit Like Jesus - Family Stories
by SPCK - Robin Gill
WEEK 1 Stories We Value Family Stories Stories are particularly important for families. We tell and retell stories about where and when we were born, about holidays shared, about birthday and Christmas parties enjoyed long ago, about grandparents and great-grandparents no longer …
A Bit Like Jesus - Stories We Value
A Bit Like Jesus - Stories We Value
by SPCK - Robin Gill
WEEK 1 Stories We Value Understanding Stories Forty years ago our family spent a year in Papua New Guinea living in a remote area without roads. I was teaching in the theological college and Jenny was working in the local hospital. Our son was a toddler and our daughter just a ba…
A Bit Like Jesus - Preface
A Bit Like Jesus - Preface
by SPCK - Robin Gill
Preface The picture on the cover by the Indian artist Jyoti Sahi captures wonderfully well what this short Lent Book is struggling to achieve. I bought the original collage on a visit to his ashram near Bangalore. He depicts the Parable of the Sower. Yet it is an Indian Jesus who…
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - GLOSSARY
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - GLOSSARY
by SPCK - John Goldingay
GLOSSARY aide A supernatural agent through whom God appears and works in the world. Standard English translations call them “angels,” but this term suggests ethereal figures with wings, wearing diaphanous white dresses. Aides are humanlike figures; hence it is possible to give th…
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - Is It the End, or Is There Hope
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - Is It the End, or Is There Hope
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Is It the End, or Is There Hope? 2 Kings 24:17-25:30 On the morning of September 11, 2001, I was sitting on my patio when one of my neighbors passed and told me that a plane had flown into one of the Twin Towers in New York. I went indoors and watched transfixed for a while (I di…
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - How to Undo a Reform
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - How to Undo a Reform
by SPCK - John Goldingay
How to Undo a Reform 2 Kings 22:1-23:24 The first time I visited the United States, I came to give a week’s guest lectures in a seminary. People must have thought the lectures were OK, because they were then interested in offering me a job, but it wasn’t a moment when I could thi…
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - Last Chance to take the Torah and The Prophets Seriously
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - Last Chance to take the Torah and The Prophets Seriously
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Last Chance to Take the Torah and the Prophets Seriously 2 Kings 22:1-23:24 Being the principal of a seminary occupied the middle ten years of my time as a professor. I had felt no desire to be in that position, but once it became clear that it was the right thing for a time, I r…
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - How to Be the Bad Guy
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - How to Be the Bad Guy
by SPCK - John Goldingay
How to Be the Bad Guy 2 Kings 21:1-26 I sometimes wish I knew what was going to happen in the future, though when I think about it, I am not so sure it’s a good idea. When my wife was diagnosed with her multiple sclerosis, if I had known how it would progress over four decades, I…
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - How to Gain and Lose God's Sympathy