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 2526 to 2550 of 2815 results

2526. Judgment

Isaiah 5:1-7, Isaiah 5:8-30

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... Instead of justice and righteousness, the people have responded with bloodshed, which has elicited a cry of distress from the downtrodden. Six woes (5:8–24) explaining the nature of oppression, bloodshed, and the cry for justice (5:7) are directly related to the parable of the vineyard. In these six woes Isaiah has painted for us a portrait of God’s people near the end of the eighth century. The portrait is that of social elites who have perverted justice, morality, religious values, and the wisdom that ...

2527. Much Bad News, Some Good

Jeremiah 16:1--17:18

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... , where the temple stood. High places were hilltop areas set apart for the worship of Canaanite gods. By default, the people will lose their belongings, their land, and their freedom. The cause is twofold: Judah’s sin and God’s anger. In the parable of 17:5–8 the issue is in what or whom one “trusts” (literally “throws oneself forward,” 17:5). Jeremiah’s announcements, if taken seriously, would trigger military preparations. But on a national scale confidence was not to be placed in human ...

2528. Two Eagles and a Vine

Ezekiel 17:1-24

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

The Lord then instructs Ezekiel to tell the people an allegory and a parable. It is narrated in verses 1–10; verses 11–21 are the interpretation; and verses 22–24 are a prophecy of restoration. In the story a great eagle comes to Lebanon, removes the top part of a cedar, and carries it away. He then plants the seed in fertile soil, ...

2529. Problems of Unfaithfulness in the Family

Hosea 1:1-2:1

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... Hosea to marry the promiscuous Israelite woman Gomer (1:2–9). Although people today may view this command as somewhat inappropriate or a detriment to the prophet’s ministry, one should not try to rescue Hosea’s reputation by interpreting this story as a parable or a dream. There is no doubt (see 1:2) that God wants the marriage of Hosea and the adulterous Gomer to represent God’s covenant marriage with adulterous Israel. Hosea does not express any opposition to this instruction; he accepts God’s ...

2530. Proof of Deceitful Ways

Hosea 11:12--12:14

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... ; Lev. 23:33–44; Deut. 16:13–17), but they will soon not enjoy them when God removes their riches and sends them back to the wilderness, where they have nothing (12:9). God has repeatedly warned the Israelites through the prophets, who deliver messages in visions and parables. Israel has been repeatedly told to trust God and not be unjust to the poor, so there is no excuse for this kind of behavior by the people of God. They know what God wants, and they know that he does not accept what they are doing ...

2531. The Narrow and Wide Gates

Matthew 7:13-14, Matthew 7:15-23, Matthew 7:24-29

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... , encouraging his disciples to take the narrow path leading to life (7:13–14). Jesus also warns of false prophets, who are recognizable by their evil fruits. A disciple is characterized by doing God’s will (7:15–23). The two ways are illustrated by a closing parable in which a wise person and a foolish person build houses, one on rock, the other on sand (7:24–27). The wise person hears Jesus’s words and enacts them; the foolish one hears but does not obey. The sermon’s conclusion calls Jesus’s ...

2532. Jesus and John the Baptist

Matthew 11:1-19

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... a range of responses to Jesus’s emerging identity, from rejection by Jewish leaders and Jesus’s hometown to the disciples’ right confession of Jesus as Messiah–Son of God (cf. 14:33; 16:16; cf. chap. 13 for varied responses expressed in parable). Yet Matthew also narrates the struggle of Jesus’s disciples to fully understand and embrace the truths about God’s kingdom that Jesus both announces and embodies. The hidden nature of the kingdom means that divine revelation coupled with human faith is ...

2533. Rest for the Weary

Matthew 11:25-30

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... has been described already as “Son of Man” and “Son of God”) is the means of that revelation (11:27). This notion that God through Jesus reveals the nature of God’s reign to some while it is hidden to others emerges more fully in the Parables Discourse of Matthew 13, as well as at Peter’s climactic messianic declaration in 16:16–17. Matthew communicates Jesus as God’s Wisdom in the comforting words of 11:28–30, which evoke earlier Jewish writings about wisdom or torah, such as Sirach 6:18 ...

2534. Jesus and Beelzebub

Matthew 12:22-37

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... of demons is an indication that his power comes from God’s Spirit, a sign that “the kingdom of God has come upon you” (12:28; for the connection of God’s Spirit and final restoration, see Joel 2:28–29). Jesus then claims through a parable that his power over demons proves that he has already bound Satan (12:29), so that it is one’s response to Jesus that is all-important (12:30). The following saying (12:31–32) is difficult to decipher but likely indicates that, although God’s forgiveness ...

2535. A Prophet without Honor

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

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... his identity as the Messiah (13:54–58; 16:1–4). 13:54–14:12 · Matthew’s narration of the unbelief of Jesus’s hometown (13:54–58) not only provides a vivid example of seed sown on unproductive soil (13:4, 19), but also frames the Parables Discourse by providing a point of contrast to Jesus’s declaration that his true family are those who do God’s will (12:46–50; cf. familial-language overlap at 12:49–50 and 13:55–56). Jesus’s hometown is portrayed with the negative characterization ...

2536. A Brother Who Sins Against You

Matthew 18:15-20

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

The theme of restoration initiated in the parable finds further emphasis and clarity in 18:15–20, where the restoration of a sinning community member is paramount. The goal of the process described in 18:15–20 is to win over one’s brother or sister (18:15). The restorative process involves (1) bringing the purported sin to ...

2537. The Rich Young Man

Matthew 19:16-30

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... language used to indicate abundance of blessing; 19:29). Second, Jesus also warns against presuming on one’s kingdom status or reward (19:30). With language that clearly connotes status (first/last), Jesus qualifies his promise of reward and status. This same warning is repeated at 20:16, after the parable of the workers, which addresses status presumption.

2538. Paying Taxes to Caesar

Matthew 22:15-22

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

After Jesus’s parables prophesying judgment on Jewish leadership, various groups of leaders go on the offensive by bringing difficult questions to Jesus. The first group is a coalition of Pharisees and Herodians (with the Herodians likely representing the interests of Herod and other clients of Rome within his circle) who ask Jesus whether ...

2539. Jesus Questioned about Fasting

Mark 2:18-22

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... is “taken from them.” The root of Mark’s Greek verb here is used in the Greek version of Isaiah 53:8 to describe the vicarious death of the Suffering Servant. The significance of Jesus as the bridegroom is conveyed in two crisp metaphors or parables about a new patch that shrinks and tears an old garment (2:21), and new wine that bursts old wineskins (2:22). Jesus is like the new patch and new wine: he cannot be merely integrated or appended to existing structures, including Judaism, torah, and ...

2540. Jesus and Beelzebub

Mark 3:20-30, Mark 3:31-35

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... 23–26 appeal to logic: since the ministry of Jesus is diametrically opposed to Satan, if what the scribes say is true, then Satan is clearly working against himself and hastening his own downfall. Verse 27 refutes the accusation in a terse but trenchant parable: Jesus is the More Powerful One (1:7), who plunders the “strong man’s [Satan’s] house” and makes his possessions (those oppressed by Satan) his own. Finally, in 3:28–29 Jesus issues a solemn warning against blaspheming the work of God’s ...

2541. A Dead Girl and A Sick Woman

Mark 5:21-43

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... ), or (3) to discount the truth of something. All three meanings apply to Jesus’s response in verse 36. In direct address to Jairus, Jesus commands, “Don’t be afraid; just believe.” The present tense of “believe” means to keep believing, just as in the parable of the sower it meant to keep hearing (4:20). The word for “believe” in verse 36 is the same Greek root as the word for the woman’s faith in verse 34. Jesus thus bids Jairus to demonstrate the same trust that the hemorrhaging woman ...

2542. Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand

Mark 6:30-44

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... the bread and fish is similar to his prayer over the bread and wine at the institution of the Lord’s Supper (14:22). In utilizing the Twelve to dispense the bread, Jesus ministers to the crowd through the disciples. Like the harvest in the parable of the sower (4:9, 20), the feeding of the five thousand results in a miracle of abundance: “All ate and were satisfied” (6:42), with twelve basketfuls remaining (6:43). The feeding miracle takes place within sight of Gamala in Galilee, where the Zealot ...

2543. Clean and Unclean

Mark 7:1-23

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... obligation to God. Corban—and the many practices like it (7:13)—was a glaring distortion of the law, which actually prevented a person from fulfilling the law. Summoning the crowds, Jesus commands them to hear, for hearing, as Jesus taught in the parable discourses of chapter 4, leads to understanding (7:14). “Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them” (7:15). Uncleanness, in other words, is not essentially related to ...

2544. The Fig Tree and the Temple

Mark 11:12-19, Mark 11:20-25 (26)

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... is not the habitation of God’s Son. Mark completes the sandwich unit with the note that the next day the fig tree was “withered from the roots” (11:20–21). Something “withered from the roots” cannot be revived. That expression, which recalls the seed in the parable of the sower that had no depth of soil (4:6), signifies that the new covenant in Jesus’s blood (14:24) has replaced the blood of animal sacrifices and that by his resurrection from the dead Jesus will raise a new temple not made by ...

2545. Whose Son is the Christ?

Mark 12:35-40

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... (12:13–17), Sadducees (12:18–27), and scribes (12:28–34)—and prevailed over them. Now, at the end of the day, Jesus asks the question of the day. Why do the scribes say that “the Messiah is the son of David?” (12:35). As in the parable of the vineyard (12:1–12), Jesus chooses to raise the question of “the Son [of God]” at the heart of Israel and before the authorities of Israel. The issue of identity, which Jesus raised privately on the way to Caesarea Philippi, he now raises publicly in ...

2546. Jesus’s Second Controversy with the Pharisees

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

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... 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; 14:23; cf. 9:9). Jesus then tells two parables that illustrate the incompatibility between Judaism and the new community. One cannot combine the new garment of the gospel with the old garment that focuses on religious practices. Any attempt to patch up the old garment will result in the tearing of the new one ...

2547. Jesus’ Mother and Brothers

Luke 8:19-21

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

The next paragraph (8:19–21) fits nicely with the emphasis on obedience to the word of God that was stressed in the preceding parables. The arrival of Jesus’s mother and brothers becomes an object lesson for the crowd; the true mother and brothers of Jesus are those who listen to and obey the word of God. Luke does not imply any criticism of Jesus’s family members here. The brothers of Jesus are most likely the natural children of Mary and Joseph. Joseph’s absence is probably due to his death.

2548. Repent or Perish

Luke 13:1-9

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... . The accidental death of the eighteen was not due to any exceptional personal sin. (Jesus does not deny that the Galileans and those who died at Siloam were sinners; he denies that the manner of their death was due to any exceptional sin.) In the parable of the fig tree (13:6–9) the necessity of repentance before the crisis of the final judgment is underlined again. Executions and accidental deaths are not definitive signs of God’s judgment (13:1–5); but if an individual is not bearing fruit, then ...

2549. Sin, Faith, Duty

Luke 17:1-10

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... great things (17:6). (4) Last, obedient disciples cannot claim any reward or regard themselves as doing anything particularly notable (17:7–10). In the secular world a master expects the servant to serve the master before taking care of his or her own needs. The central point of the parable is not that God is ungrateful for the obedience of disciples because he expects such service anyway (17:9). Rather, the point is that disciples cannot boast before God about their service.

2550. The Little Children and Jesus

Luke 18:15-17

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

The disciples reprove those who bring children to Jesus, perhaps because they considered it to be a waste of time; however, Jesus compares the inhabitants of the kingdom to children (18:15–17), probably referring to the openness, spontaneity, and freshness of children. Indeed, all those who enter the kingdom need to become like children in exercising childlike humility. Like the prior parable, this paragraph emphasizes that it is the humble who will be exalted.

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