Sermon and Worship Resources

Synonyms: Levi, disciple, evangelist, tax collector, the 12, the twelve, apostle, sermon on the mount, jewish audience, beatitudes, lord's prayer, great commission, parables, olivet discourse, mount of olives, olivet, synoptic

Showing 2501 to 2525 of 4967 results

2501. Pilate and the Condemnation of Jesus

John 18:28-40, John 19:1-16

Understanding Series

J. Ramsey Michaels

... 137–44. To avoid ceremonial uncleanness … to be able to eat the Passover: The statement indicates that the Passover meal has not yet been eaten (cf. 19:14, “the day of Preparation of Passover Week”) and that therefore Jesus’ last meal with his disciples in chapter 13 is not to be understood as the Passover. It also underscores a terrible irony: These men who were so scrupulous about the slightest contact with a Gentile or the residence of a Gentile nevertheless had no hesitation about maneuvering ...

2502. Sermonon the Mount: The Beatitudes

Matthew 5:1-12, Matthew 5:13-16

Teach the Text

Jeannine K. Brown

... as reversal of fortune and restoration of right values and by calling his followers to live out their distinctive identity as God’s covenant people. Understanding the Text The narrative introduction to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (5:1–2) indicates that Jesus’ disciples are the more focused audience of the sermon, with the crowds as recipients who, in a sense, listen in (7:28–29). The first segment of the sermon (5:3–16) focuses on a description of Jesus’ followers as they begin experiencing the ...

2503. Jesus Eats with Sinners and Heals the Sick

Matthew 9:9-13, Matthew 9:14-17, Matthew 9:18-26, Matthew 9:27-34

Teach the Text

Jeannine K. Brown

... BDAG 564). 9:22 your faith has healed you. Faith in Jesus’ authority is exemplified by the woman and the girl’s father (with faith also highlighted at 8:2, 10; 9:2). These seekers show exemplary faith, in contrast to the disciples, who only show “little faith” (8:26). Through these examples and counterexamples, Matthew’s audience is encouraged to trust in Jesus’ compassion and authority to heal. 9:23 Jesus . . . saw the noisy crowd and the people playing pipes. Matthew here reflects Jewish ...

2504. Jesus as Isaianic Messiah and Wisdom Embodied

Matthew 11:1-19

Teach the Text

Jeannine K. Brown

... of befriending tax collectors and sinners is potent. Not only does Jesus associate with those on the (moral) margins of Jewish society; he is characterized by these friendships. The accusation of being a glutton and drunkard could arise from the portrayal of Jesus’ disciples (and him?) as those who do not practice the Jewish discipline of fasting (see 9:14). But wisdom is proved right by her deeds. The deeds of Wisdom correspond to “the deeds of the Messiah” (see comments on 11:2). Teaching the Text ...

2505. Herod and Hometown Misunderstand Jesus’ Identity

Matthew 13:53-58, Matthew 14:1-12

Teach the Text

Jeannine K. Brown

... his miraculous actions. 13:58 because of their lack of faith. Jesus’ hometown is one of two character groups (the other being the Jewish leaders [12:1–45]) that are portrayed as being “without faith” (apistia) in Jesus and his authority. Whereas the disciples are characterized by “little faith” (oligopistia, oligopistos [e.g., 14:31]), a number of seekers from the Jewish crowds are commended by Jesus for their faith (pistis [e.g., 9:2, 22, 29]). 14:1 Herod the tetrarch. This Herod is a son ...

2506. Jesus Demonstrates Messianic Authority over the Temple

Matthew 21:12-17, Matthew 21:18-22

Teach the Text

Jeannine K. Brown

... commerce. 21:21 if you have faith and do not doubt. Matthew has highlighted the importance of faith for Jesus’ followers already at 17:20 and through the portrayal of various supplicants who trust Jesus for their healing (e.g., 9:2, 22, 29). The disciples, on the other hand, have been characterized by “little faith,” which has been tied to doubt or wavering at 14:31. say to this mountain. That this story of the fig tree points back to Jesus’ judgment upon the temple is confirmed by this reference ...

2507. Jesus Calling and Accepting the Outcasts

Mark 2:13-17

Teach the Text

Grant R. Osborne

... losing God’s presence and blessing by a false religious stance that leads away from Jesus. 3. God sees not only the sin in us but also the potential for good in each of us. No one would have thought that Jesus would ever choose a disciple from among the tax collectors, since they were among the most notorious sinners imaginable. This has happened numerous times in the history of the church, as God’s great leaders often have been converted from lives of depravity (e.g., Augustine, Billy Sunday). We must ...

2508. More Parables of the Kingdom

Mark 4:30-34, Mark 4:26-29, Mark 4:21-25

Teach the Text

Grant R. Osborne

... those unreceptive to the kingdom. There is hyperbole in this because Jesus is seen in Mark teaching the crowds without parables (e.g., 1:15; 8:34–9:1); Mark emphasizes the deliberate “riddle-like nature of much of Jesus’s teaching.”2 The disciples still struggle to understand their meaning, but they are receptive, so Jesus explains their meaning (as in 4:13–20). They are the insiders and thus are privileged to receive the whole truth of Jesus’s kingdom principles. Teaching the Text 1. The true ...

2509. The Authority of Jesus over Sickness and Death

Mark 5:21-43

Teach the Text

Grant R. Osborne

... s tragedies. As David Garland says, Jairus must realize “that faith is something that trusts in the midst of hopelessness.”4 5:37 He did not let anyone follow him except Peter, James and John. Jesus keeps all his followers back except the inner circle of his disciples. There are four concentric circles of followers named: the 120 (Acts 1:15), the seventy (or seventy-two [Luke 10:1]), the Twelve (Mark 3:13–19), and these three, probably those closest to Jesus (cf. Mark 9:2; 13:3; 14:33). 5:39 The ...

2510. The Rejection of Jesus in His Own Hometown

Mark 6:1-6

Teach the Text

Grant R. Osborne

... judgment: they reject Jesus, so God rejects them. God will not work where he is not wanted. In fact, Jesus will give the disciples the same principle when he tells them to “shake the dust off [their] feet” when people refuse to respond to the gospel (see 6 ... and sisters around the world who face this reality daily. Would we be willing to pay this price in order to be disciples of Jesus? What would help us to remain faithful to Jesus in the face of such persecution? Rejection by close friends and family ...

2511. Lord of the Sabbath and Appointing the Twelve

Luke 6:12-16, Luke 6:1-11

Teach the Text

R.T. France

... as sitting on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel (22:30). Here Jesus is setting up the leadership structure for the true Israel of the kingdom of God. whom he also designated apostles. The Twelve are drawn from a wider circle of “disciples,” committed followers of Jesus (see 6:17); seventy-two of them will be mentioned in 10:1. The Twelve are singled out to be Jesus’s regular traveling companions, and in 9:1–2 they will be given a special mission as “apostles” (those sent out, envoys ...

2512. Jesus and John the Baptist

Luke 7:18-35

Teach the Text

R.T. France

... who is “coming” after him to execute wrath and judgment (3:7, 9, 16–17). Was John then disappointed that Jesus’s ministry of deliverance and good news to the poor fell short of that expectation? The contrast between Jesus’s and John’s disciples in 5:33 may also suggest that John found Jesus’s attitude toward religious observance too free and easy, perhaps especially his table fellowship with sinners. 7:21 At that very time Jesus cured many. This need not mean a deliberate display of healing ...

2513. God and Mammon

Luke 16:16-18, Luke 16:1-15

Teach the Text

R.T. France

... up in the call to store up treasure in heaven in 12:33–34) and, more indirectly, in chapter 14. The same theme will recur especially in 18:18–30. Between the two parables is a collection of sayings, with a change of audience (from the disciples to the listening Pharisees) in 16:14. Most of these sayings (16:8b–15) continue to relate to the theme of the responsible use of possessions, but the three sayings in 6:16–18, taking up issues of dispute between Jesus and the Pharisees, are on different ...

2514. Message to Smyrna

Revelation 2:8-11

Teach the Text

J. Scott Duvall

... who distorted the Jewish law. By confessing Jesus as the divine Messiah, they were committing blasphemy. This would have been especially offensive if they had borne witness to Jesus in the synagogue as Paul had done earlier. Jesus says that those Jews hostile to his disciples are not true Jews at all. They are, in reality, a “synagogue of Satan” rather than a congregation of God’s true people. 2:10–11 the devil will put some of you in prison to test you, and you will suffer persecution for ten ...

2515. The Power of Persistence

Luke 11:1-13, Luke 18:1-8

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... glean some significant truths from the parable. I. If goodness is produced by less than righteous, even evil powers, we can expect limitless goodness from God. Jesus said it very clearly in the passage recorded in Luke 11:11-13. He set the stage by asking the disciples a question: “Those of you who are fathers, if your son asked you for some fish to eat would you give him a scorpion?” Then Jesus made his telling point: “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much ...

2516. Jesus Calms the Storm

Matthew 8:23-27

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... s authority, but they also raise more deliberately the issue of Jesus’s identity (e.g., 8:27), as well as show a range of responses to his ministry that includes faith, little faith, awe, and rejection. When Jesus and his disciples are caught in a storm on the Galilean Sea, Jesus rebukes and calms the storm (8:23–26). Matthew emphasizes the disciples’ inadequate faith (Greek oligopistos, “little faith,” in 8:26; see also 6:30; 14:31; 16:8; and 17:20 for “little faith” used to characterize the ...

2517. The Lord of the Sabbath

Matthew 12:1-14, Matthew 12:15-21

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... own priority over the temple and its regulations and cites Hosea 6:6: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice” (cf. 9:13). While Jesus’s words at 12:6–8 could be construed as abolishing the law, his use of Old Testament precedent to prove his disciples “innocent” (12:7) indicates that it is one’s interpretation of the law that is again at issue rather than a superseding of it (cf. 5:17). Jesus views mercy as at the center of the law with the specific applicability of other regulations being governed ...

2518. Peter's Confession to Christ

Matthew 16:13-20

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... s name and the Greek petra [“rock”]) or on the messianic confession Peter has made (the typical Protestant interpretation), it is clear that Matthew shows the binding and loosing authority of 16:19 to extend from Peter to the rest of Jesus’s disciples and the church itself at 18:17–18. Given the use of binding and loosing terminology in Judaism of the time and Matthew’s use of related language elsewhere (5:19; 23:4), these concepts likely focus on determining the applicability of particular laws ...

2519. Jesus Predicts His Death

Matthew 16:21-28

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... 21; 17:22–23; 20:17–19). In the culminating moment, Matthew provides the purpose for Jesus’s sacrificial journey—to become “a ransom for many” (20:28). Woven between these predictions and this purpose statement are teachings and object lessons for Jesus’s disciples on the nature of discipleship. Jesus’s relationship with the Twelve is the central plot element in this section. Even in the few passages that begin with other characters (e.g., 17:14–20; 19:3–12), their conclusions show Jesus ...

2520. Gethsemane

Matthew 26:36-46, Matthew 26:47-56

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... ’s arrest (26:47–56) begins with a kiss from Judas (26:49), who has brought an armed crowd gathered by the chief priests and Jewish elders (cf. 26:3), which includes their servants, who attempt to arrest Jesus (26:50–51). When one of Jesus’s disciples strikes the high priest’s servant, Jesus rebukes his violent response. Jesus, according to Matthew, is not the leader of a human rebellion (Greek lēstēs; 26:55) against Rome. Though he could call on angels to rescue him (26:53; cf. 4:6, 11), he ...

2521. Jesus Predicts His Death

Mark 8:31--9:1

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... and smaller crowds around Jesus than in the first half. The image of the cross signifies a total claim on the disciple’s allegiance and a total relinquishment of his or her resources to Jesus. This truth is reinforced in 8:35–37, ... life would be a fatal bargain, for what could one give to regain one’s life? (8:36–37). Concluding his solemn address to the disciples in the prophetic imagery of an “adulterous and sinful generation” (Isa. 57:3–13; Ezek. 16:32–41; Hos. 2:2–6), Jesus warns that ...

2522. The Little Children and Jesus

Mark 10:17-31

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... following Jesus. This offer, however, the man cannot accept. Standing on his own merits, he is self-confident; but when he is called to give up his security and follow Jesus, his “face fell, and he went away sad” (10:22 NLT). Possessions pose a problem for the disciples as well as for the rich man, for Jesus “looked around” and twice warns, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God” (10:23–25). The famous statement in verse 25 about a camel going through the eye of a needle is ...

2523. Gethsemane

Mark 14:32-42

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

Following the Last Supper, Jesus goes to Gethsemane (Hebrew “olive press”), an olive grove in the valley between the Mount of Olives and the temple mount where he and the disciples often gathered (Luke 22:39; John 18:1–2). Commanding the disciples to remain, Jesus departs a few paces in order to pray (14:32–42). This is the third time in Mark that Jesus prays (cf. 1:35; 6:46); each prayer is set in a context of crisis and decision, this being the most traumatic. In all the Bible, no ...

2524. Jesus’s Second Controversy with the Pharisees

Luke 5:27-32, Luke 5:33-39

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... wedding guests to fast when the bridegroom is with them (5:34). Jesus clearly identifies himself as the bridegroom, insisting that his presence is a call for festivity. Fasting will commence when the bridegroom is absent, an allusion to Jesus’s separation from his disciples at his death (5:35). Jesus does not reject fasting altogether (cf. Matt. 6:16–18; also Luke 4:2; 22:16, 18); however, the early church did not regularly practice fasting but reserved it for special occasions (see Acts 13:1–4; 14 ...

2525. Jesus Calms the Storm

Luke 8:22-25

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... works of Jesus, and the reader sees that Jesus has power over nature, demons, disease, and death. Hills and gorges surround the Sea of Galilee, and sudden windstorms would sweep down onto the lake. Fearing imminent death by drowning, the disciples arouse Jesus and implore his aid. At Jesus’s command the storm ceases, and calm returns. Immediately Jesus communicates the lesson for the disciples: “Where is your faith?” (8:25). Their confidence should have been in Jesus and his saving power. Then the ...

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