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1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - Meanwhile in Judah
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - Meanwhile in Judah
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Meanwhile in Judah 1 Kings 14:21-15:24 A couple of weeks ago a student asked me with some anxiety whether there was any evidence that any of the events in the Old Testament actually happened. Were there any records from surrounding peoples that people such as Abraham or Moses or …
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - Negotiations and Love Songs
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - Negotiations and Love Songs
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Negotiations and Love Songs NUMBERS 30:1- 16 About a year after he got married, one of my students set off from Los Angeles for Chicago, driving the opposite way to the one recommended in the song “Route 66,” in order to begin graduate school. Only subsequently in an e-mail did h…
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - Nationalization
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - Nationalization
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Nationalization Genesis 47:1-26 In the recession of 2008 and its aftermath, a new n-word was uttered in hushed tones in the United States. To many people, “nationalization” was as frightening a notion as government-organized health insurance. But the question had to be asked: Was…
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - On Mutual Support
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - On Mutual Support
by SPCK - John Goldingay
On Mutual Support Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone NUMBERS 32:1- 42 1Now the Reubenites and the Gadites had much livestock, very extensive, and they looked at the country of Jazer and Gilead: this was a place for cattle. 2So the Gadites and Reubenites came and said to Moses, …
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - On Killing Enemies
Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone - On Killing Enemies
by SPCK - John Goldingay
On Killing Enemies Deuteronomy 7: 1-6 In the modern age, the way the Old Testament talks about the Israelites’ destroying people troubles many Jews and Christians in the United States. It did not do so before the modern period, and it is not felt as so much of a problem in other …
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - On Letting Your Son Die
Genesis for Everyone Part 2 - On Letting Your Son Die
by SPCK - John Goldingay
On Letting Your Son Die Genesis 22: 3- 10 What on earth does it do to you to have your father go to the edge of killing you? What does it do to your relationship to your father, and what does it do to your view of God? A seminary colleague of mine in England, who (like me) was al…
Psalms for Everyone - Death Cathches You When You Don't Expect It To
Psalms for Everyone - Death Cathches You When You Don't Expect It To
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Death Catches You When You Don’t Expect It To Psalm 49 We recently buried the second-oldest member of our congregation, who until she faded away quickly at the end had regularly attended church. We drove quite a way to the cemetery, and I wondered why, until I discovered that her…
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 - The Low Murmuring Sound
1 and 2 Kings for Everyone - The Low Murmuring Sound
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Low Murmuring Sound 1 Kings 19:1-21 I am inclined to think that nothing I do in seeking to fulfill my vocation achieves anything. My vocation is to help people understand the Old Testament and let their thinking and their lives be shaped by it. I am passionately committed to …
Isaiah for everyone - The Man Who Kept His Mouth Shut
Isaiah for everyone - The Man Who Kept His Mouth Shut
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The Man Who Kept His Mouth Shut I just came across a comment someone made when my first wife died five years ago. “We are forever grateful that she paid the price of her discipleship.” She “stands tall” among people who have “worked for our comfort and edification . . . Her direc…
Isaiah for everyone - An Ambiguous "Because"
Isaiah for everyone - An Ambiguous "Because"
by SPCK - John Goldingay
An Ambiguous “Because” At Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, is a room dedicated to the million and a half children who were murdered in the Holocaust. It’s a hollowed out cavern with some candles whose light is reflected on the ceiling by hundreds of mirrors so tha…
Jeremiah for everyone - Spiritual Warfare and Shocking Sovereignty
Jeremiah for everyone - Spiritual Warfare and Shocking Sovereignty
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Spiritual Warfare and Shocking Sovereignty There’s one more aspect of the comments about warfare in Ephesians 6 that links with these chapters in Jeremiah. One big reason that Paul wants the church to take its fight seriously is that it’s not fighting mere flesh and blood…
Isaiah for everyone - Good News for People Who Are Broken and Flickering
Isaiah for everyone - Good News for People Who Are Broken and Flickering
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Good News for People Who Are Broken and Flickering In a movie we recently watched called Stuck between Stations, the protagonists, a man and a woman, tell each other stories that explicate something of who they are. The man is a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan who has watched one of …
Isaiah for everyone - The People Who Know What’s Best
Isaiah for everyone - The People Who Know What’s Best
by SPCK - John Goldingay
The People Who Know What’s Best I have been a student or a professor in four seminaries. One thing that students and faculty have in common is that they often think they know more about how to run the seminary than its head or the board of governors. For most of this time I was e…
Isaiah for everyone - God the Creator of Evil
Isaiah for everyone - God the Creator of Evil
by SPCK - John Goldingay
God the Creator of Evil My wife used to lead a women’s Bible Study where some women who came for a while would commonly give the existence of evil as their reason or excuse for not believing in God and not staying. Her comment is that the existence of evil surely makes it more im…
Jeremiah for everyone - An Ambassador in Chains
Jeremiah for everyone - An Ambassador in Chains
by SPCK - John Goldingay
An Ambassador in Chains When Paul was apparently in prison in Rome, he wrote letters to a number of churches. In church today I was struck by a passage in which he describes himself as an ambassador in chains and asks the Christians in Ephesus to pray for him so that he’d be bold…
Isaiah for everyone - Blown Over and Anointed
Isaiah for everyone - Blown Over and Anointed
by SPCK - John Goldingay
Blown Over and Anointed This week I’m meeting with a young man considering ordination in the Episcopal Church who wants to “seek my advice regarding my vocation.” There are aspects of the Episcopal Church about which he is uneasy—how will he cope with those? Should he ask his rec…
Jeremiah for everyone - How Do You Get People to Change?