SPCK

Inheriting God’s Kingdom 1 Corinthians 6.9-11 We stood in line for the ride at the funfair. But as we got closer I saw a sign. This ride was for little people only – for children. Beside the sign was a small wooden archway, and you had to walk through, without stooping, to get to…

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Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - Lawsuits in the Church?

by SPCK - N T Wright

Lawsuits in the Church? 1 Corinthians 6.1-8 The business was just getting going when one of the customers noticed a strange thing. He had begun bringing his car to this particular garage a few months ago, and had believed that it was doing a good job. People in the community seem…

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Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - Get Rid of the "Leaven"!

by SPCK - N T Wright

Get Rid of the “Leaven”! 1 Corinthians 5.6-13 If you’ve ever been in a Jewish home at Passover-time, you’ll know what Paul is talking about in verses 7 and 8. It’s a tradition that’s been kept for more than three thousand years, ever since the Jewish people came out of Egypt at t…

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Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - Scandal and Judgment

by SPCK - N T Wright

Scandal and Judgment 1 Corinthians 5.1-5 When I was a boy, studying Greek and Latin classics, the texts we were given to study often had bits cut out. There were lines missing from poems, and sometimes entire sections; in one case (in the Roman writer Juvenal, I recall) a whole p…

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Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - Puffed Up or Powerful

by SPCK - N T Wright

Puffed Up or Powerful 1 Corinthians 4.14-21 We all know the difference between talk and power. Imagine you are driving along a road, without worrying too much about how fast you’re going. All of a sudden a large car with flashing lights overtakes you and motions you to pull over.…

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Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - Apostles on Display

by SPCK - N T Wright

Apostles on Display 1 Corinthians 4.6-13 We walked down the hill in the bright sunshine. This, our guide explained, is where the Roman generals would come when they returned to the city after winning a great victory. They built massive ‘triumphal arches’, some of which are still …

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Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - Judgment Then Rather Than Now

by SPCK - N T Wright

Judgment Then Rather Than Now 1 Corinthians 4.1-5 I stood in the workshop, barely able to see over the workbench as my father patiently whittled away at a piece of wood. I was fascinated and (as befits an eight-year-old) puzzled. What on earth could he be doing? The work seemed t…

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Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - Everything Belongs to You

by SPCK - N T Wright

Everything Belongs to You 1 Corinthians 3.18-23 I remember a wise address given at a graduation ceremony by a respected senior professor. (I was present in order to say the opening prayer.) In his address, the great man said many things, and gave a lot of good advice, but the one…

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Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - The Coming Day, the Coming Fire

by SPCK - N T Wright

The Coming Day, the Coming Fire 1 Corinthians 3.12-17 I love sightseeing around ancient ruins. Like many historians who have had the good fortune to travel round the ancient world, I have stood in the Temple of Apollo in Corinth, in the synagogue at Capernaum, in the Forum at Rom…

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Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - God's Farm, God's Building

by SPCK - N T Wright

God’s Farm, God’s Building 1 Corinthians 3.5-11 Was Paul ‘the founder of Christianity’? I found myself embroiled in a debate on that subject a few years ago. From time to time people try to establish a familiar viewpoint: Jesus didn’t really begin Christianity, since he was just …

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Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - Spiritual or Merely Human?

by SPCK - N T Wright

Spiritual or Merely Human? 1 Corinthians 2.14-3.4 Once, during the ‘hippy’ era in the late 1960s, I sang and played my guitar in a folk club on the west side of Vancouver. I was there a week, and got to know some of the other regular performers quite well. One was a young man wit…

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Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - God's Strange Wisdom

by SPCK - N T Wright

God’s Strange Wisdom 1 Corinthians 2.6-13 When my sister celebrated her 21st birthday, she and I were at university, a long way from home. So a cousin of my father’s, who lived nearby, invited the two of us to dinner to celebrate. He and his wife had no children of their own, and…

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Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - The Powerful Message of the Cross

by SPCK - N T Wright

The Powerful Message of the Cross 1 Corinthians 2.1-5 Life is full of mystery. The deepest, richest and most complex theories that science can ever come up with only serve to highlight the fact that there is still a depth of mystery which goes way beyond it all. You can study bio…

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Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - God's Folly

by SPCK - N T Wright

God’s Folly 1 Corinthians 1.18-25 On 15 March 44 BC, Julius Caesar was assassinated in Rome, a mile or so away from where I am writing these words. His killers were a group of conservative Republicans who thought, with good reason, that Caesar was planning to make himself king of…

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Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - Beware of Divisions

by SPCK - N T Wright

Beware of Divisions! 1 Corinthians 1.10-17 I was woken up early this morning by beautiful birdsong. Right outside my window some little fellow was chirruping, squeaking and whistling like a virtuoso musician showing off before an admiring crowd. Then others joined in. The trees a…

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Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - Thankful for God's Grace

by SPCK - N T Wright

Thankful for God’s Grace 1 Corinthians 1.1-9 It wasn’t long into the phone call before I noticed something different. It was the first time I’d spoken to this friend for some weeks, and whichever way the conversation turned, one name kept coming back. She and James had been talki…

Hymn
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Hymn: O Song of Songs, delight in love and beauty

by Andrew Pratt

O Song of Songs delights in love and beauty, tells of God’s love and we for love were made: no sweeter joy, more depth than human passion, the love of God that will not wane or fade. Verses 2-3 follow Tune: O PERFECT LOVE Metre: 11.10.11.10 Andrew Pratt (born 1948) Words © 6/8/…

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Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians - Introduction

by SPCK - N T Wright

INTRODUCTION Paul for Everyone 1 Corinthians On the very first occasion when someone stood up in public to tell people about Jesus, he made it very clear: this message is for everyone. It was a great day – sometimes called the birthday of the church. The great wind of God’s spiri…

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