SPCK
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - Temples and Palaces
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - Temples and Palaces
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Temples and Palaces 1 Kings 7:1-8:9 Intriguingly interwoven with the story of the temple building is the brief account of Solomon’s spending thirteen years building his house; he spent seven years building God’s house. Is that a sign that God’s house had priority, that he focused…
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - Temples and Churches
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - Temples and Churches
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Temples and Churches 1 Kings 6: 1-38 The little church building where I worship each Sunday holds only fifty or sixty people, but it divides into three parts. The congregation sits in the main body of the church; there is a little step up to the choir stalls; and finally there is…
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - Everyone Under Their Vines and Their Fig Trees
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - Everyone Under Their Vines and Their Fig Trees
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Everyone under Their Vines and Their Fig Trees 1 Kings 4:20-5:18 A few weeks ago my son and his family were visiting, and we spent some great times sitting out in the shade eating bread and cheese and drinking wine while the children played in the pool. The eruption of a volcano …
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - What do You Most Want?
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - What do You Most Want?
by SPCK - John Goldingay
What do You Most Want? 1 Kings 3:1-15 I used to ask a friend of mine from time to time, “What would you like to do?” The question would usually relate to concerts; I would outline possibilities to her, but she would usually ask me to decide. Just last week she protested that this…
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - Coping With the Aftermath
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - Coping With the Aftermath
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Coping with the Aftermath 1 Kings 2:1-46 As an undergraduate, I often walked past the Martyrs Memorial, standing where Hugh Latimer, Nicholas Ridley, and Thomas Cranmer were burned at the stake in Oxford in 1555 and 1556, caught in the conflict between different Christian groups.…
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - How To Manipulate the Old Man in Order to Get Things Done
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - How To Manipulate the Old Man in Order to Get Things Done
by SPCK - John Goldingay
How to Manipulate the Old Man in Order to Get Things Done 1 Kings 1:1-53 I have friends in Kyrgyzstan, where a few weeks ago there were protests against the president and the government on the part of the opposition party and its supporters, citing widespread government corruptio…
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - Introduction
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - Introduction
by SPCK - John Goldingay
INTRODUCTION As far as Jesus and the New Testament writers were concerned, the Jewish Scriptures that Christians call the “Old Testament” were the Scriptures. In saying that, I cut corners a bit, as the New Testament never gives us a list of these Scriptures, but the body of writ…
Acts for Everyone part 1 - It's All coming True at Last!
Acts for Everyone part 1 - It's All coming True at Last!
by SPCK - N T Wright
It’s All Coming True at Last! Acts 2. 14-21 We don’t always plan our holidays very carefully, but on this occasion we had. We had read the brochures. We had worked through the alternative places to stay. We had looked at the special things we could do when we got there. And, in p…
There are no limits to God's love
There are no limits to God's love
by Andrew Pratt
There are no limits to God's love, aside from those we put in place because of fear, or hate or greed, then justified by race or creed. The walls that we would seek to build, around our nations or our thoughts , the borders we patrol and police, are breached by God's own grace an…
GOD's rich Pattern - The final walk
GOD's rich Pattern - The final walk
by SPCK - Dr Lin Berwick
The final walk In my last meditation I spoke of the unity within my family: Ralph, myself and Harvey, our dog, who meant so much to Ralph. Ralph had had a very difficult year, with lots of bouts of infection and trips to hospital, becoming more and more fatigued and weakened by t…
GOD's rich Pattern - My best friend
GOD's rich Pattern - My best friend
by SPCK - Dr Lin Berwick
My best friend It was Princess Diana who famously once said, ‘There were three of us in this marriage.’ In our case there certainly were – namely, Ralph, myself and Harvey, our chocolate English Cocker Spaniel. He came into our life when he was eleven weeks old. Ralph and I had a…
GOD's rich Pattern - The peace of acceptance
GOD's rich Pattern - The peace of acceptance
by SPCK - Dr Lin Berwick
The peace of acceptance Four years on life had taken on a more peaceful turn. Ralph was not kicking quite so hard. There was more a sense of resignation and acceptance of his situation. Life had more or less returned to normal, whatever that might mean. I was picking up the piece…
GOD's rich Pattern - A painful parting
GOD's rich Pattern - A painful parting
by SPCK - Dr Lin Berwick
A painful parting Ralph’s deterioration, both mentally and physically, took a huge downturn. He was constantly falling, finding himself in a totally agitated state, unable to stand. After two falls in the middle of the night, which my carer and I had to cope with, it was time to …
Scripture and the Authority of God - Word of God and Scripture in the Apostolic Church
Scripture and the Authority of God - Word of God and Scripture in the Apostolic Church
by SPCK - N T Wright
“Word of God” and Scripture in the Apostolic Church Apostolic Preaching of ‘the Word’: the Jesus-Story Fulfils the (OT) Scripture-Story The earliest apostolic preaching was neither a standard Jewish message with Jesus added on at the end, nor a free-standing announcement of a new…
Scripture and the Authority of God - Authority of Scripture as Part of a Larger Whole
Scripture and the Authority of God - Authority of Scripture as Part of a Larger Whole
by SPCK - N T Wright
“Authority of Scripture” as Part of a Larger Whole ‘Authority of Scripture’ is a Shorthand for God’s Authority Exercised through Scripture We now arrive at the central claim of this book: that the phrase ‘authority of scripture’ can only make Christian sense if it is a shorthand …
GOD's rich Pattern - Where was God?
GOD's rich Pattern - Where was God?
by SPCK - Dr Lin Berwick
Where was God? I couldn’t pray, I could only cry out in anguish. Why Lord? Why did you allow this to happen? I had, I felt, experienced my own personal Calvary a number of times in my life, and now I was having more problems heaped upon me. So many of us feel that we are not stro…
GOD's rich Pattern - Where to now?
GOD's rich Pattern - Where to now?
by SPCK - Dr Lin Berwick
Where to now? The work of a public relations officer took me into many different areas. I became so well known at the BBC that the car park attendants and security staff used to greet me by my name as I came in with my trusty tape recorder. I produced many good interviews that we…
GOD's rich Pattern - Personal cost