Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 2576 to 2600 of 3099 results

Romans 2:17-29

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... ” (2:1), which Jews practice but condemn in the Gentiles. Paul asserts that the Jews fail to teach themselves what they teach others. Just as the Gentiles will be condemned because of their idolatry and immorality (1:18–32), so Israel as a nation is subject to the same condemnation because of the three transgressions of stealing, adultery, and robbery of pagan temples. These charges are based on the Decalogue (Exod. 20: 4–5, 14, 15; Deut. 5: 8–9, 18, 19). The charge of temple robbery could refer to ...

2577. Righteousness Through Faith

Romans 3:21-31

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... of salvation is not the law but trust in Jesus the messianic Savior—faith in Jesus Christ (3:22). The Greek phrase, literally “faith of Jesus Christ,” has a rich meaning. Some interpret the phrase in terms of the “faith” that Jesus himself had (subjective genitive); in other words, Jesus was faithful to accomplish the work that God had given him. Others interpret it in terms of Jesus Christ as the source of faith (the Greek genitive of source); that is, Paul writes about the faith given by Jesus ...

2578. Peace and Joy

Romans 5:1-11

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... Christ: peace with God. The godless and disobedient sinners of 1:18–3:30 have been granted peace with God, as they have come to faith in God and in his work of salvation in Jesus Christ. In verse 2 Paul clarifies that this peace is not a subjective feeling of peacefulness in the soul but the objective fact that God’s wrath has been removed through Jesus’s death and that sinners have now been granted access to God’s grace, that is, to the realm in which God’s redeeming love for sinners reigns (cf ...

2579. Future Glory

Romans 8:18-27

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... . The present state of creation is distressful, but there is hope because God promised the restoration of a perfect world (8:20). One day, when believers in Jesus Christ will be glorified as God’s children in the consummation, creation will be liberated from being subject to the control of decay and corruption (8:21). At the moment, creation is suffering pain, waiting for the birth of God’s new world (8:22). As human beings are part of creation, they participate in the distress and the pains of creation ...

2580. Submission to the Authorities

Romans 13:1-7

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... step after the directions for behavior toward fellow believers (12:9–13) and the directions for behavior toward unbelievers (12:14–21), including those who persecute Christians. Paul gives three commands (13:1, 5, 7). (1) Believers must be “subject” to official government authorities; in other words, believers obey the edicts, rules, and regulations issued by government officials. (2) Believers are faced with the “necessity” to submit to state authorities. (3) Believers must pay taxes; this is a ...

2581. Wisdom from the Spirit

1 Corinthians 2:6-16

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... carefully restricts Christian wisdom to the spiritual person, for the person without the Spirit cannot understand its importance or accept its validity, because it is spiritually discerned (2:14–15). However, the evaluation of the spiritual person’s grasp of Christian wisdom is “not subject to any man’s judgment” (2:15), for since no one has fully known the mind of the Lord, judgment can belong only to the Lord himself (2:16a; cf. 4:3–4). Nonetheless, as recipients of God’s Spirit, we have the ...

2582. Sexual Immorality

1 Corinthians 6:12-20

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... coming destruction and transformation of our bodies, and therefore is not a freedom one should cling to or defend at all costs. A final rationalization, unrepeated by Paul, probably underlies the words that follow these and returns us again to the subject of sexual morality. For some of the Corinthians, it followed from their freedom to eat that they were also free to indulge their sexual appetites in prostitution. For Paul, however, this action and the logical analogy that lies behind it are fundamentally ...

2583. Questions about Marriage, Divorce, and Celibacy

1 Corinthians 7:1-40

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... , slave or free, have been bought “at a price” and thus have been brought into the body of Christ, where distinctions of status have no place (7:23; 12:13; Gal. 3:28; Eph. 2:14–18; Col. 3:11). Therefore, Paul urges them not to become subject again to human standards that would make their status a basis for comparison, but to transcend those standards and find unity and equality in the body of Christ. Paul closes the section with a final repetition of the principle (7:24). Chapter 7 began with words ...

2584. Paul’s Reflection on His Ministry

2 Corinthians 2:12--3:6

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... for ecclesiastical leadership that had been going on at Corinth (1 Cor. 1:12; 2 Cor. 10:1–13:13), needed careful clarification on two counts. First, there was the possibility that they might be read by some as a purely subjective self-commendation, and second, there was the likelihood that they might prompt an immediate comparison between Paul and others who carried formal letters of recommendation. Paul takes up the latter point by first claiming the Corinthians themselves as the recommendation for ...

2585. The Cost of Paul’s Ministry

2 Corinthians 4:1-18

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... of the proclamation but a result of the work of the enemy, the god of this age (cf. John 12:31), who has blinded the minds of those who persist in unbelief to the light of the gospel. Neither can the proclamation promote its bearer but only its subject, Jesus Christ, the Lord who is the very image of God (and therefore the true and second Adam, the beginning of a new creation [see 2 Cor. 5:17]). Only through Christ can the full light of God’s glory become known. A change of metaphor signals the beginning ...

2586. An Appeal for Full Response to the Collection

2 Corinthians 8:1-15

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... of thanks to God” (9:12). There seems no doubt that this is the same gift for Jerusalem that was first mentioned in 1 Corinthians 16:3 (see also Rom. 15:26–27). Obviously, in the period between the writing of our two canonical letters, the subject had been put aside because of the strained rela-tionship between Paul and the church. But now it recurs, for the receipt of the collection is a project in which Paul is presently engaged among the “Macedonian churches” (8:1). Indeed, it is the “rich ...

2587. The Mystery of God’s Will and God’s Threefold Blessing

Ephesians 1:1-14

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... blessing (1:3). The word “bless” carries here two different senses, depending on whether God or a human being is the one who blesses. “In the heavenly realms” implies that God’s blessings are secured in the very character of God and are not subject to the uncertainties of earthly life. This is repeatedly confirmed in this section by emphasis on God’s decision, will, and purpose. God made his choice before the creation of the world: we, the human race, were created to be holy and blameless before ...

2588. Prayer for Enlightenment

Ephesians 1:15-23

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... of us in our fallen natures) are permitted to compete with Christ and with each other is characteristic of this present age. The future age has already been initiated, however, in the life, death, resurrection, and exaltation of Jesus Christ, for all things have been subjected to him (1:22, a quotation from Ps. 8:6), whether they know it or not. Christ has already been made head over all things, uniting in himself the restored universe, for the sake of the church, his body, the new, all-encompassing family ...

2589. Adoption: Removing the Barriers

Ephesians 2:11-22

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... children, ground cleared in Christ by divine fiat. It is brought to concrete reality in the lives of real, everyday people by the power of God’s Spirit working in them. This working of the Spirit’s power, the third spiritual blessing, is the subject, after a digression, of the next stage in Paul’s argument. Before moving on to the digression, however, it is important to observe the implication of this passage for contemporary churches. Paul spoke to a group of Gentile Christians who had been made to ...

2590. Final Greetings

Colossians 4:7-18

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... (cf. Col. 1:7). We find intriguing overlap in the names here and in Philemon. Both letters include greetings from Epaphras, Aristarchus, Mark, Demas, Luke, and Archippus. Both letters include Onesimus, in Colossians as Paul’s messenger, and in Philemon as the main subject of the letter. Paul concludes with a signature statement explaining that he writes the final remarks in his own hand (1 Cor. 16:21; 2 Thess. 3:17). One has the sense that he is impeded from elaborating the final blessing, for normally ...

2591. Living to Please God

1 Thessalonians 4:1-12

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... The second verb means “exhort” and is also found in moral contexts, at times with the first verb, “ask” (1 Thess. 5:12, 14). The way Paul structures this initial exhortation echoes official documents of the era that authorities sent to those who were subject to them. The apostles’ authority in these matters is derived from the Lord (“in the Lord Jesus”). The exhortation proper is that the Thessalonians “do this more and more” (see 1 Thess. 3:12 and 4:10), that is, excel and be outstanding ...

2592. Prayer and Worship

1 Timothy 2:1-15

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... other communities: in view of creation and the fall, he specifies certain conditions under which women should demur. Though the NIV begins verse 15, “But women,” the Greek is actually, “But she,” and probably refers to Eve, who was the subject of the previous two verses. Counterpart to Adam in Romans, Eve here serves as a representative woman who “became a sinner” (the phrase is “came to be in transgression”). In Ephesus, some women have followed her example and have “already turned ...

2593. A Lifestyle Appropriate to Sound Doctrine

Titus 3:1-11

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... while it is altogether true that Christ is called Savior here (because he is the embodiment of God’s “kindness and love” and because it is through him that the Holy Spirit is outpoured), nonetheless it is the (implied) Father who is the subject of the main verb of the whole sentence: “he saved” (3:5). Moreover, it is the (implied) Father who pours out the Holy Spirit. Finally, these verses sweep Paul’s use of Hellenistic aspirations (to sobriety, justice, and piety) and Hebrew narrative (exodus ...

2594. Warning against Unbelief

Hebrews 3:7-19

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... that it will turn away from God; and it is still as vitally necessary to stand fast in faith all of one’s life (“as long as it is called ‘Today,’ ” 3:13) and to help one another stand (10:23–25). As throughout the letter, the subject is not unbelief per se but apostasy, the rejection of Christ and the faith by one who professed to believe and was considered to belong to the church of God (cf. “brothers and sisters,” 3:12). The warning in no way contradicts the massive biblical witness to ...

2595. Jesus Like Melchizedek

Hebrews 7:11-28

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... the development of his argument in 8:6–13. It is noteworthy that in this first reference to the new covenant, Jesus is said to be its guarantor. In keeping with the author’s already well-established perspective, the new covenant, the fulfillment of subjective redemption or salvation, is not something the faithful of the former epoch awaited in hope but that Christians today enjoy as a present possession. One does not require a guarantor for what one already has (6:17–20). The new covenant, the rest of ...

2596. Suffering for Doing Good

1 Peter 3:8-22

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... .” It also highlights the use of the tongue, just as the end of the last section did (2:9; see also 2:1): the way we speak will reveal the shape of our whole life. 3:13–22 · In this section Peter focuses more precisely on the subject of suffering. The last section laid down the basic principle of submission to the structures of this world. Peter now shows how suffering fits into that submission. Once again, this section begins and ends on the same note: doing good (a favorite theme of Peter’s) and ...

2597. The Antichrist Has Come! The Secessionists Deny Jesus’s Messiahship

1 John 2:18-27

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... several facts. (1) The Greek word antichristos does not appear in Revelation, but only in 1 and 2 John. While “the beast,” “666,” and other biblical villains might seem likely prospects for speculating about contemporary threats, each of these subjects must be investigated on its own. The antichrist passages may have had nothing to do with “the beast” in Revelation. (2) Rather than pointing to a single person as “the antichrist,” the three antichristic passages in the Johannine Epistles are ...

2598. Love One Another

1 John 3:11-24

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... share in the Lord’s crucifixion are worthy of participating with him in his resurrection (Rom. 6:5; Phil. 3:10–11; Mark 8:34–38). The association with martyrdom here seems to point to persecution under Domitian, who required emperor worship of his subjects and punished severely (sometimes capitally) any who did not reverence the idols of Rome. Construction for Domitian’s temple to himself in Ephesus began in AD 82 and was finished about seven years later. At the entrance of the temple stood a large ...

2599. Denunciation of the Intruding Teachers

Judges 1:1-36

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... of the premonarchical period? How do we understand the biblical sources as history and yet theologically interpreted history? These questions lead us directly into the hornet’s nest of issues surrounding the exodus and conquest and settlement. On this subject scholarship has been and remains divided into two basic camps: those who accept the essential historicity of the biblical accounts (though surely recognizing the difficulties in interpreting specific passages) and those who do not, with moderates to ...

2600. You Are a Child of God…Uh-Oh

Matthew 3:13-17

Sermon

King Duncan

... 3:2) Interesting. According to Matthew 4:17, Jesus’ first sermon was “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” The same theme. This is important. There are those who would portray John as hard on sin and Jesus as soft on the same subject. Everyone associates John with the need for repentance; few of us associate Jesus with the same word. Check the Gospels. Jesus’ teachings were as uncompromising as John’s. Jesus was compassionate with sinners, but not with sin. Jesus, having the heart of the ...

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