SPCK

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Acts for Everyone Part 2 - All at Sea

by SPCK - N T Wright

All at SeaActs 27.1-12 In John Fowles’ novel, The French Lieutenant’s Woman, the reader getting near the end receives a shock. There are two endings. You can choose. Would you like the story to finish like this, or like that? What are you saying about yourself, or about the boo…

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Acts for Everyone Part 2 - Paul. You're Mad

by SPCK - N T Wright

“Paul, You’re Mad”Acts 26.24-32 I was once lecturing to a group of students in Oxford. We were just getting to the point at the centre of the lecture – I think it was dealing with Romans 8.3 – where I wanted to explain as clearly as I could the full Pauline meaning of the death…

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Acts for Everyone Part 2 - Paul's Conversion (One More Time)

by SPCK - N T Wright

Paul’s Conversion (One More Time) Acts 26.12-23 ‘Listen to the tune,’ says the music teacher. The children sit round her, spellbound. They love this bit. ‘Now sing it back to me – Johnny!’ Johnny does his best. Then Sophie. Then Philip. ‘Well,’ says the teacher, ‘you’re not doing…

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Acts for Everyone Part 2 - Paul Before Agrippa

by SPCK - N T Wright

Paul Before AgrippaActs 26.1-11 One of the great, though controversial, bishops of Durham in the first half of the twentieth century was Hensley Henson. He was a brilliant speaker and writer, a much loved (though sharp-tongued) pastor, and a great campaigner on all kinds of soc…

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Acts for Everyone Part 2 - Agrippa and Bernice

by SPCK - N T Wright

Agrippa and Bernice Acts 25.13-27 ‘To see ourselves as others see us.’ That telling line from Burns (actually, he wrote ‘oursels’; but someone would think it was a misprint if I had put that) sums up a good deal of the task of human communication. I am in correspondence, as I spe…

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Acts for Everyone Part 2 - To Caesar You Shall Go

by SPCK - N T Wright

To Caesar You Shall Go Acts 25.1-12 There is a kind of wistfulness about the royal Psalms. We imagine them being sung in the first Temple in Jerusalem, some of the Western world’s oldest and still finest poetry. ‘Give the king your judgments, O God, and your justice to the king’s…

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Acts for Everyone Part 2 - Felix Calms (and Slows) Things Down

by SPCK - N T Wright

Felix Calms (and Slows) Things DownActs 24.22-27 A friend of mine preached a sermon, as my guest, on radiators and drains. Some people, he said, are radiators, and other people are drains. Some people, that is, naturally give energy and warmth to others. People like having them…

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Acts for Everyone Part 2 - A Defence of Hope

by SPCK - N T Wright

A Defence of the Hope Acts 24.10-21 I am still fascinated by kaleidoscopes. I love watching the shapes as they move around and form themselves into different patterns. They were quite basic when I was a boy, and now that I’m grown up and not supposed to like toys any more I often…

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Acts for Everyone Part 2 - Bring on the Barristers

by SPCK - N T Wright

Bring on the Barristers Acts 24.1-9 Jokes about lawyers are unkind, ungrateful, uncharitable – and often uncannily accurate. I remember listening in horror as a clever and unscrupulous young lawyer, in a meeting of a college governing body, constructed a rhetorically powerful arg…

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Acts for Everyone Part 2 - We Have Ways of Keeping You Safe

by SPCK - N T Wright

We Have Ways of Keeping You Safe Acts 23.23-35 Richard Adams’ celebrated novel Watership Down draws the reader into the dramatic and complicated world of a group of rabbits. We follow with increasing sympathy and fascination as Hazel and his companions go on their journey. (Adams…

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Acts for Everyone Part 2 - The Oath and the Plot

by SPCK - N T Wright

The Oath and the Plot Acts 23. 12-22 Today in the newspapers there was a story about a woman who had a ridiculously narrow escape. She had stepped out of her office for just a moment of fresh air, when a car, whose driver had suddenly fallen ill, came crashing through the window …

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Acts for Everyone Part 2 - Paul Before the Sanhedrin

by SPCK - N T Wright

Paul Before the Sanhedrin Acts 23.1-11 Ever since the French Revolution, politics has been seen in terms of a left–right spectrum. The further Left you go (it is assumed), the more you will favour freedom from constricting and aristocratic authority, loose structures, plenty of v…

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Acts for Everyone Part 2 - Roman Citizenship Comes in Useful

by SPCK - N T Wright

Roman Citizenship Comes in Useful Acts 22.23-30 CAN YOU PROVE IT? The sign in the shop selling alcohol challenges all and sundry. I was once buying a drink in one of the small bars in O’Hare Airport in Chicago and was astonished, as a bald and bearded middle-aged man, to be asked…

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Acts for Everyone Part 2 - Out of his Own Mouth

by SPCK - N T Wright

Out of His Own Mouth Acts 22.12-22 In British football, the ‘manager’, or head coach, is often the most important character in the whole unit. Players come and players go, but if the manager is good he can make things happen, win tournaments, put on excellent performances no matt…

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Acts for Everyone Part 2 - Why not Hear My Story?

by SPCK - N T Wright

Why Not Hear My Story? Acts 21.23-22.11 A story is told of Bishop Kallistos Ware, the Greek Orthodox bishop who for many years taught theology at Oxford. Bishop Ware was born and bred in England (his original name was Timothy), and he converted to Greek Orthodoxy as he was growin…

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Acts for Everyone Part 2 - Riot in the Temple

by SPCK - N T Wright

Riot in the Temple Acts 21.27-36 On the news every day, as I write this, there is footage of American and British soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. Like many others, I was of the opinion that we were wrong to start what we did in that part of the world, and I haven’t changed that…

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Acts for Everyone Part 2 - Warding off the Inevitable

by SPCK - N T Wright

Warding off the Inevitable Acts 21.15-26 One of the oldest and best-known legends in English history is the story of King Canute. (He was probably called Knut or something like that, but we’ll leave him in his usual popular form for now.) According to the legend, he had his thron…

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Acts for Everyone Part 2 - Disturbing Prophecies

by SPCK - N T Wright

Disturbing Prophecies Acts 21.1-14 I was in Canada in 1983 when, on a flight over the Pacific, a Korean airliner was intercepted and shot down by Soviet jets. All on board, needless to say, were killed. There was a long argument subsequently over why the plane was where it was an…

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