SPCK
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 15 Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 15 Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 15 1 Kings 2.10-12; 3.3-14 Ephesians 5.15-20 John 6.51-58 A glance at the bits of 1 Kings 1—3 which are not read in this sequence will explain why Solomon so desperately needed wisdom. His father’s victories, though remarkable, could not be relied on for long-term security…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 14 Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 14 Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 14 2 Samuel 18.5-9, 31-33 Ephesians 4.25-5.2 John 6.35, 41-51 Come, believe, and eat. Simple yet profound, carrying us with characteristic Johannine effortlessness from bread by the lake to the bread of life. The bridge between them is Jesus himself, who will give his fles…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 13 Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 13 Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 13 2 Samuel 11.26-12.13a Ephesians 4.1-16 John 6.24-35 Hands up those who took one look at this week’s Old Testament lesson and gave it a wide berth. All right; now hands up those who seized upon it as a chance to preach on How Not To Commit Immorality. Full marks to the l…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 12 Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 12 Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 12 2 Samuel 11.1-15 Ephesians 3.14-21 John 6.1-21 Think of the Lord’s Prayer while reading Ephesians 3. Paul prays to the Father, from whom all fatherhood ‘in heaven and on earth’ is named, that he will give us . . . all things in Christ, because to him belong the power an…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 11 Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 11 Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 11 2 Samuel 7.1-14a Ephesians 2.11-22 Mark 6.30-34, 53-56 Read 2 Samuel 7 through the eyes of a second-Temple Jew, and watch New Testament theology come into focus. This passage, read messianically at Qumran and elsewhere, fuses together four things. God promises David a p…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 10 Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 10 Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 10 2 Samuel 6.1-5, 12b-19 Ephesians 1.3-14 Mark 6.14-29 Two kings, a thousand years apart, and both in trouble at home. David brings God’s ark into Jerusalem, and is so carried away with dancing and leaping before the Lord that his wife despises him, remembering no doubt t…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 9 Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 9 Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 9 2 Samuel 5.1-5, 9-10 2 Corinthians 12.2-10 Mark 6.1-13 The paradoxes of power. David bided his time, refused to lift up his hand against God’s anointed (though he knew himself to be anointed also), and then at last became king in a further anointing. The move to Jerusale…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 8 Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 8 Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 8 2 Samuel 1.1, 17-27 2 Corinthians 8.7-15 Mark 5.21-43 Mark folds one story inside another, like someone tucking a second letter inside a first. (A Markan sandwich, some say; but food is important within the story itself, so let’s not confuse the issue.) As in 2 Samuel, a…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 7 Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 7 Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 7 1 Samuel 17.[1a, 4-11, 19-23] 32-49 2 Corinthians 6.1-13 Mark 4.35-41 Right from the start in Mark, Jesus is up against it. Tempted by Satan in the wilderness; shrieked at by benighted souls in the synagogue; criticized by the self-appointed religious experts. Now the se…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 6 Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 6 Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 6 1 Samuel 15.34-16.13 2 Corinthians 5.6-10[11-13] 14-17 Mark 4.26-34 Once again the lectionary cuts Paul off just when he’s getting interesting. Next week’s passage starts at 6.1; what happened to 5.18–21, one of Paul’s greatest summaries of his life and thought? However,…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 5 Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 5 Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 5 1 Samuel 8.4-11 [12-15] 16-20 [11.14-15] 2 Corinthians 4.13-5.1 Mark 3.20-35 So: did God want Israel to have a king, or didn’t he? The question haunts not only this passage in 1 Samuel but much of the rest of the account of the monarchy, from the ill-fated Saul right dow…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 4 Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 4 Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 4 1 Samuel 3.1-10 2 Corinthians 4.5-12 Mark 2.23-3.6 Like a cathedral chorister, Samuel has been brought to live and work in the atmosphere of prayer, worship and pilgrimage. Considering the lively human interest, it’s surprising this story didn’t entice the great classi…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Easter Day Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Easter Day Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Easter Day Isaiah 25.6-9 1 Corinthians 15.1-11 John 20.1-18 This Gospel reading is not, as one writer has suggested, ‘a sanitized story about a trip to a garden and a lovely surprise’. If Easter is in any sense the happy ending after a sad story, that is the least important thing…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - The Seventh Sunday of Easter Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - The Seventh Sunday of Easter Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Seventh Sunday of Easter (Sunday after Ascension Day) Acts 1.15-17, 21-26 1 John 5.9-13 John 17.6-19 The interesting thing about the choice of Matthias has nothing to do with Matthias himself. Nor is it the striking method of his selection, which if applied today would simpli…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - The Sixth Sunday of Easter Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - The Sixth Sunday of Easter Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Sixth Sunday of Easter Acts 10.44-48 1 John 5.1-6 John 15.9-17 ‘His commandments are not burdensome.’ Hard to take, that, in a world where all commandments are burdensome, where anybody telling anyone else what to do – even God telling his creatures what to do – is felt as an…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - The Fifth Sunday of Easter Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - The Fifth Sunday of Easter Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Fifth Sunday of Easter Acts 8.26-40 1 John 4.7-21 John 15.1-8 If you like evangelism, you’ll love Philip’s story. A spirit-led meeting with a court official, who happens to be reading Isaiah 53 and asking the right questions. There is time to converse at leisure; there is wat…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - The Fourth Sunday of Easter Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - The Fourth Sunday of Easter Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Fourth Sunday of Easter Acts 4.5-12 1 John 3.16-24 John 10.11-18 The text about the rejected stone has itself become something of a stumbling stone. The point of the quotation from Psalm 118.22 is that, though Jesus appeared to the ‘builders’ of Judaism (the Chief Priests in …
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - The Third Sunday of Easter Year B