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Showing 2551 to 2575 of 4972 results

2551. Solomon's Adversaries

1 Kings 11:14-25

Understanding Series

Iain W. Provan

... (Hb. šlḥ, vv. 21–22). The plea is well-remembered from Israel’s past (cf. Exod. 5:1; 7:16; 8:1 etc.), but on this occasion Pharaoh fails to harden his heart, and Hadad (the narrative implies, without being specific about the circumstances) is allowed to leave for Edom. Solomon’s first adversary is thus, ironically, set upon him by an old enemy of Israel whom he had unwisely treated as a friend (1 Kgs. 3:1). 11:23–25 Rezon son of Eliada had apparently either escaped from the battle described in 2 ...

2552. Israel Rebels Against Rehoboam

1 Kings 12:1-24

Understanding Series

Iain W. Provan

... for their tents. They do so, not this time in postassembly joy and gladness of heart, happy under a Davidic king (1 Kgs. 8:66), but in the grim determination of those who will appoint a king of their own choosing. They leave David’s house to fend for itself. This choice, too, is of course preordained (11:31, 35, 37–38), and Jeroboam, God’s choice, duly becomes king after Rehoboam fails to impose his will on the people through Adoram (NIV’s Adoniram, v. 18; see the additional notes). He becomes ...

2553. Golden Calves at Bethel and Dan

1 Kings 12:25-33

Understanding Series

Iain W. Provan

... Judah. Most of all, he does not trust God. In spite of the clear prophetic word of Ahijah in 11:31–39, he is not prepared to leave it to God to maintain his hold over the northern tribes. He fears that the presence of the temple of the LORD in Jerusalem (12:27) will ... on high places. This fails to reflect its clear connection with bêṯ yhwh, “house of the LORD” in verse 27, and leaves the hitherto unmentioned altar of verse 32 with no temple (and no context in which to make sense of it). Rehoboam has ...

2554. Jehu Anointed King of Israel

2 Kings 9:1-13

Understanding Series

Iain W. Provan

... chariot driving. Who knows how one madman will react to the words of another (v. 11)? Who knows, and perhaps this is the reason for the secrecy, how the other officers will react to the idea that Jehu should be king? It is better just to do the job and leave quickly. 9:7 I will avenge the blood of my servants the prophets: It is not explicitly stated in 1 Kgs. 21:21–24 that the LORD’s action against Ahab’s house is partly a matter of vengeance for the blood of the prophets. It is, however, implicit ...

2555. Jerusalem to Be Inhabited

Isaiah 44:24--45:25

Understanding Series

John Goldingay

... insight. Even the experts in Matthew 2 found their way only to the right general area. They needed the Hebrew Scriptures to tell them more precisely where the Messiah might be expected to be born. Philosophy may tell you some important things, but it will leave you helpless before the specific. If the experts try to be specific, God may put them in their place. In Babylon in the 540s B.C., current events are confounding the experts. There were no precedents or signs that had announced the rise of Cyrus ...

2556. The Glory Departs

Ezekiel 8:1-18, Ezekiel 9:1-11, Ezekiel 10:1-22, Ezekiel 11:1-15, Ezekiel 11:16-25

Understanding Series

Steven Tuell

... :1–22, Ezekiel watches as, in gradual stages, the Glory of the Lord moves from the most holy place to the eastern gate of the temple complex. After the oracle of judgment in 11:1–21, the description of the Glory’s departure resumes. Ezekiel sees the Glory leave Jerusalem altogether, heading east toward Babylon, and the exiles (11:22–23; see 11:14–16). 8:1 The second vision of the Glory dates to the sixth year, in the sixth month on the fifth day (v. 1), over a year after Ezekiel’s call. It comes ...

2557. Miscellaneous Oracles of Judgment

Ezekiel 21:1-32, Ezekiel 22:1-31

Understanding Series

Steven Tuell

... to the region south of Babylon, where the prophet finds himself. Rather, Ezekiel addresses this oracle to the southern kingdom: that is, Judah. The devastation of a forest fire, raging out of control, powerfully expresses the divine judgment coming upon Judah, which will leave no one untouched. Every face from south to north will be scorched by it (v. 47; compare 5:4 and 15:5, 7). But Ezekiel’s audience responds, “Isn’t he just telling parables?” (v. 49). This statement could mean that they think ...

2558. A Prophecy Against Gog

Ezekiel 38:1-39:29

Understanding Series

Steven Tuell

... no one to make them afraid”—in contrast to the rest of the Gog material, in which God acts to sanctify God’s name (see 38:23; 39:6–7). God will bring all Israel back from exile (vv. 27–28). “I will gather them to their own land, not leaving any behind” (v. 28). The conclusion of the Gog material recalls chapter 37. The complete restoration of all Israel in verses 27–28 recalls 37:26–28, while the promise of the spirit in verse 29, “I will no longer hide my face from them, for I will pour ...

2559. Prologue to the Law of the Temple: The Lord Comes Home

Ezekiel 40:1--43:12

Understanding Series

Steven Tuell

... precincts (compare Lev. 2:1–10; 7:7–10, and particularly Ezek. 44:28–31). For this purpose, there are rooms in which priests may eat their portion of the sacrificial offerings and where they can change from sacred vestments into street clothes before leaving the temple courts. These verses recall 40:44–46. Again, two chambers (actually, here in vv. 13–14, two sets of chambers), one oriented to the north and one to the south, are set aside for the priests. Further, we have another description of ...

2560. Jesus’ Authority to Perform Miracles

Matthew 8:18-22, Matthew 8:23-27, Matthew 8:28-34, Matthew 9:1-8

Teach the Text

Jeannine K. Brown

... are the Son of God” [4:3]). What the demonic realm seems to know already, Jesus’ disciples will come to recognize (14:33; 16:16). For the import of “Son of God” in Matthew, see comments on 4:3, 6. 8:34 they pleaded with him to leave the region. Matthew has already begun to narrate a range of responses to Jesus and his kingdom ministry, including great faith (8:10), little faith (8:26), amazement (7:28; 8:27), and hesitance (8:21). Here the people of this town respond to Jesus’ display of power ...

2561. Parables Discourse: Importance of Response to the Kingdom Message

Matthew 13:1-23

Teach the Text

Jeannine K. Brown

... Jesus went out of the house. According to 12:46, Jesus has been teaching inside a house. Now in 13:1–2 Matthew narrates that Jesus comes out of the house to teach the crowds. Later in the Parables Discourse Matthew will indicate that Jesus leaves the crowd and goes back into the house, where he will explain his parables to the disciples (13:36). These changes of location contribute to the motifs of hiddenness and revelation in the Parables Discourse. Revelation comes to Jesus’ true family, who do the ...

2562. Parables Discourse: The “Already and Not Yet” of the Kingdom

Matthew 13:24-30, Matthew 13:31-35, Matthew 13:36-43, Matthew 13:44-46, Matthew 13:47-52

Teach the Text

Jeannine K. Brown

... seed, and yeast. People’s responses to the kingdom are not always clear to human judgment in the present, hence the call to leave the weeds and wheat growing together in the present time (13:30). Yet Matthew makes it clear in the parables of the weeds ... and wheat and of the net that a day will come when all will be clear. The implication is that Christians should leave judgment of people to God, since God will judge rightly at the end of the age (cf. 7:1). This is an important message for ...

2563. Jesus Warns of Presuming Reward and Status

Matthew 20:1-16

Teach the Text

Jeannine K. Brown

... him, Jesus also warns against presumption of reward and status by telling a parable about the equalization of status that will occur in God’s kingdom. Understanding the Text Peter’s initial question in this passage about the rewards that he and the rest of the Twelve will have for leaving everything to follow Jesus (19:27) connects directly with the previous passage, in which a rich man chooses his wealth over the chance to follow Jesus (19:21–22). Although Jesus answers that there will be reward for ...

2564. Caring for the Needy and Commissioning Apostles

Mark 3:7-12, Mark 3:13-19

Teach the Text

Grant R. Osborne

... get him far enough away to protect himself). Withdrawal to the sea is common in Mark after Jesus confronts evil, and, as in 2:13, some think it symbolic of that confrontation (the sea might symbolize testing and storms [cf. 4:35–41]).2Rather, he simply leaves Capernaum (possibly due to the size of the crowds pressing on him) and goes to the lake for ministry purposes. The “large crowd” continues the theme of the multitudes flocking after Jesus (1:28, 33, 45; 2:2, 13). The people follow (not indicating ...

2565. Mission and Rejection in Galilee

Mark 6:14-29, Mark 6:7-13

Teach the Text

Grant R. Osborne

... that town. The goal of mission is not to find the nicest living arrangements but rather to bring people into the kingdom. They are to depend on the hospitality of each village they visit, and they must be content with whatever living conditions they experience. To leave one home for another would insult their hosts and bring disrepute on the gospel. 6:11 if any place will not welcome or listen to you . . . shake the dust off your feet. Those who reject the gospel are to be treated as unclean (cf. Matt. 7 ...

2566. God’s Miraculous Provision: Caring for the Needy

Mark 6:30-44

Teach the Text

Grant R. Osborne

... such a great crowd that Jesus and the disciples are unable even to eat. As in 1:45, this leads the apostolic band to leave the town for a “quiet/deserted place” (in the wilderness, where they can get away from the great multitudes). Luke 9:10 tells us it ... generation, the nation under Moses, Joshua, the judges, the kings—all were told to depend on Yahweh, the covenant God who would never leave nor forsake them (Gen. 28:15; Deut. 4:31; Josh. 1:5). God only asks trust and obedience, and as a result we ...

2567. Possessions and Choice in the New Kingdom Community

Mark 10:17-31

Teach the Text

Grant R. Osborne

... (Phil. 3:10; Col. 1:24; Rev. 6:11). Yet the suffering of God’s Messiah and his messianic people has redemptive effects. 10:31 first will be last, and the last first. This provides a concluding summary, as in 9:35. When Jesus’s followers truly “leave everything” (v. 28), they can be assured of the glorious results (v. 30). Yet there may be an aspect of warning as well. They must make certain that they truly are making themselves last and have come to be servants, because only then will God make ...

2568. The Messianic Anointing of Jesus

Mark 14:1-11

Teach the Text

Grant R. Osborne

... ), Martha, and Lazarus. We know nothing more about Simon, but the occasion is an evening meal, and he was likely a supporter, perhaps healed of leprosy by Jesus (cf. 1:40–45). a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume. Mark leaves her unnamed in order to center on her faithful, loving act; she is another of the “little people” highlighted throughout Mark. This was no ordinary perfume and may in fact have been an heirloom. Alabaster flasks were expensive, made of a soft marble-like ...

2569. The Passover as Eucharist: Jesus’s Body and Blood Given for Us

Mark 14:27-31

Teach the Text

Grant R. Osborne

... to Bethany because for Passover they needed to stay in the environs of Jerusalem, and the mount “fell within the boundaries of greater Jerusalem.”8 14:27 You will all fall away. The discussion in verses 27–31 probably occurred as they were walking, for they leave the upper room in verse 26 and arrive at Gethsemane in verse 32. This is the second of three predictions of failure, with Judas in verses 18, 20 (fulfilled in 14:43–45), the disciples as a whole here in verses 27–28 (fulfilled in 14 ...

2570. The Good Life

Luke 6:17-26

Teach the Text

R.T. France

... and his family ended up in the Philippines. What interrupted their successful work, including his forays into rugged mountains of the Philippines, was the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, after which the Japanese invaded Manila and surrounding areas. Unable to leave the country, the Rounds family continued with their work and then took refuge in the mountains. The people kept them hidden among them, and Erle, a strong and athletic man, continued his outreach, this time to American guerrillas resisting the ...

2571. “Who Is This?”

Luke 9:10-17, Luke 9:1-9

Teach the Text

R.T. France

... : Pastor and author Warren Wiersbe (b. 1929) writes, Our Lord was not the kind of person who could teach the Word and then say to hungry people, “Depart in peace, be ye warm and filled” (James 2:16). The disciples were only too eager to see the crowd leave. . . . They had not yet caught the compassion of Christ and the burden He had for the multitudes, but one day they would. . . . This miracle was more than an act of mercy for hungry people, though that was important. It was also a sign of our Lord’s ...

2572. The Failure of Israel’s Leadership

Luke 11:37-54

Teach the Text

R.T. France

... in doing. 11:42 you give God a tenth. The principle of giving a tenth of all produce to God (to provide for the upkeep of the priesthood) was clear in the Torah (Lev. 27:30), and Jesus does not object to its observance (“without leaving the former undone”). In itself, such tithing does no harm. But what Jesus objects to is the distorted sense of priorities that puts all the emphasis on tithing even the most insignificant garden herbs but gives no attention to the fundamental principles of the Torah ...

2573. Interpreting the Times

Luke 12:54-59, Luke 12:49-53, Luke 12:35-48

Teach the Text

R.T. France

... to undergo. The two images of baptism and fire have already been linked together in 3:16–17 in John the Baptist’s prophecy of Jesus’s mission. The fire indicates a mission that will purify and destroy and, like a wildfire spreading across the earth, leave no one unaffected. The baptism (being “plunged” into something) is not now about what Jesus will bring to others, but here (as in Mark 10:38) probably is an image for the personal suffering that will be an essential part of his own mission. Until ...

2574. Lost and Found

Luke 15:1-7, Luke 15:8-10, Luke 15:11-32

Teach the Text

R.T. France

... Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep. This would be quite a large flock, indicating a relatively prosperous owner. A hundred sheep would probably be too many for one man to look after, so the owner may have had an employee or a family member with whom he could leave the rest of the flock while he went in search of the lost one. But the owner cared enough to go himself rather than sending his assistant to search. In light of the way the scene was set in 15:1–2, it is probably right to see the shepherd ...

2575. Affluence and the Afterlife

Luke 16:19-31

Teach the Text

R.T. France

... when we discover which side we really have chosen, whether we realized it or not. Now, today, this moment is our chance to choose the right side. God is holding back to give us that chance. It will not last forever. We must take it or leave it.3 Literature: The Inferno, by Dante Alighieri. The Inferno (Hell) is the first part of the trilogy The Divine Comedy (1308–21), by the Italian poet and philosopher Dante Alighieri (1265–1321). It is about the specific judgments awaiting those who violate God ...

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