SPCK
Lectionary Reflection Year C - The Third Sunday Before Advent Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - The Third Sunday Before Advent Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The Third Sunday Before Advent Job 19.23–7a 2 Thessalonians 2.1–5, 13–17 Luke 20.27–38 The book of Job has always inspired strong feelings – hardly surprising, as its themes are suffering and justice. At the heart of the many paradoxes that belief in the God of the Bible presents…
Lectionary Reflection Year C - The Second Sunday Before Advent Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - The Second Sunday Before Advent Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
The Second Sunday Before Advent Malachi 4.1–2a 2 Thessalonians 3.6–13 Luke 21.5–19 The material in today’s reading from Luke can be found in a very similar form in Mark 13 and Matthew 24, and all are agreed that the temple is the trigger for these terrible sayings. Jesus seems to…
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Christ the King Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Christ the King Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Christ the King Jeremiah 23.1–6 Colossians 1.11–20 Luke 23.33–43 Today’s passages might, on a superficial reading, simply be making the fairly standard point that Christ’s kingship and authority are a challenge to most human understandings of power. That’s a good and important po…
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 12 Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 12 Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Proper 12 Genesis 18.20–32 Colossians 2.6–15 Luke 11.1–13 This story from Genesis is often told as though it is about Abraham bargaining with God. Abraham, the generous and merciful, pleads with God, the bloodthirsty and violent, and gradually manages to calm God down and get him…
Revelation for Everyone - Glossary
Revelation for Everyone - Glossary
by SPCK - N T Wright
Glossary accuser, the, see the satan age to come, see present age apostle, disciple, the Twelve ‘Apostle’ means ‘one who is sent’. It could be used of an ambassador or official delegate. In the New Testament it is sometimes used specifically of Jesus’ inner circle of twelve, but …
Revelation for Everyone - God and the Lamb Are There
Revelation for Everyone - God and the Lamb Are There
by SPCK - N T Wright
God and the Lamb Are There Revelation 21.22-22.7 Earlier today, I came upon some workmen who were putting scaffolding up around an old stone building. Scaffolding is normally extremely functional: it’s made to do a job, not to look pretty. But supposing a builder decided to const…
Revelation for Everyone - New Jerusalem
Revelation for Everyone - New Jerusalem
by SPCK - N T Wright
New Jerusalem Revelation 21.6-21 When people decide they are going to read the Bible, they often begin, naturally enough, with the book of Genesis. Encouraged by the fast-paced story with its drama, incident and passion, they often move on to the book of Exodus, expecting more of…
Revelation for Everyone - New Heaven. New Earth
Revelation for Everyone - New Heaven. New Earth
by SPCK - N T Wright
New Heaven, New Earth Revelation 21.1-5 When has there been a moment in your life when you have said to yourself, ‘This is new’? I don’t just mean a car with a few new gadgets, or a meal with a different combination of sauces and seasonings – though these, too, may point in the r…
Revelation for Everyone - Final Judgement
Revelation for Everyone - Final Judgement
by SPCK - N T Wright
Final Judgement Revelation 20.7-15 John was not the first to suppose that after God’s great act of rescue and restoration there might be a further challenge, a final fling of the powers of evil against the already-redeemed people of God. In one of his favourite books of scripture…
Revelation for Everyone - Reigning for a Thousand Years
Revelation for Everyone - Reigning for a Thousand Years
by SPCK - N T Wright
Reigning for a Thousand Years Revelation 20.1-6 After I published my book Surprised by Hope, I had a number of letters and emails from people telling me their experiences with thinking it through, leading study groups on it, and in some cases preaching in the new way I was recomm…
Revelation for Everyone - The Monster Defeated
Revelation for Everyone - The Monster Defeated
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Monster Defeated Revelation 19.11-21 People used to write books and articles about ‘the messianic expectation’ in the time of Jesus. Ancient Jewish sources were combed and sifted to yield every fragment of information about what Jesus’ contemporaries were waiting for when the…
Revelation for Everyone - God's Victory
Revelation for Everyone - God's Victory
by SPCK - N T Wright
God’s Victory Revelation 19.1-10 In the strange new world of postmodern Britain, weddings are still highly popular, but they are also highly expensive. So much so, in fact, that it is now the norm rather than the exception for couples to live together for some years, intending to…
Revelation for Everyone - Babylon's Judgement
Revelation for Everyone - Babylon's Judgement
by SPCK - N T Wright
Babylon’s Judgement Revelation 18.9-24 We smelt it before we saw it: a sour, bitter stench which seemed to cling to the nostrils. We looked at one another and ran outside. There, about a mile away, but with a gentle wind carrying it in our direction, was a cloud of thick, grey-bl…
Revelation for Everyone - Babylon's Plagues
Revelation for Everyone - Babylon's Plagues
by SPCK - N T Wright
Babylon’s Plagues Revelation 18.1-8 One of the constant problems in a small country like mine is the challenge of where everyone is going to live. Despite government regulations which, in theory, protect what is called ‘green belt’, one hears almost every day of this developer, t…
Revelation for Everyone - Babylon the Great
Revelation for Everyone - Babylon the Great
by SPCK - N T Wright
Babylon the Great Revelation 17.1-8 They are brought in vans, they are brought in cars with blackened windows, they are brought across the sea, either captured by force or lured with the promise of a better life. They arrive in countries of the West, knowing no one except their c…
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 5 Year C
Lectionary Reflection Year C - Proper 5 Year C
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Proper 5 1 Kings 17.17–24 Galatians 1.11–24 Luke 7.11–17 We do not always notice the simple compassion of Jesus. We are often so busy looking for the deeper meaning, or finding the application for ourselves that we barely notice the actual motivation in the context of the real si…
Revelation for Everyone - The Last Three Plagues