Synonyms: replica, copy, representation, mock-up, dummy, imitation, double, duplicate, lookalike, reproduction, prototype, stereotype, archetype, type, version, style, ideal, paragon, perfect example, specimen, perfect specimen, fashion model, supermodel, mannequin, sitter, poser, subject, artist's model, photographic model, design, mark, configuration, variety, kind, sort, original, original design, exclusive, toy, miniature, facsimile, prototypical, prototypal, archetypal, illustrative, perfect, exemplary, classic, flawless, faultless, consummate, impeccable
Antonyms: deficient, imperfect
Showing 3026 to 3050 of 5000 results
Sermon
Maxie Dunnam
... as undesirable. To possess wealth gives a man a false sense of security. Jesus spoke of the “deceitfulness of riches” (Matt. 13:22). When a man possesses riches, he’s deceived about his position in life…. “The rich man in the parable is an illustration of this. When his ground began to bring forth plentifully, he took an inventory of his possessions and found them enormous, almost embarrassing, and he began to say to himself, “At last I can be at ease.” When he surveyed his balance sheets, and ...
3027. Take Your Job and Love It
2 Thessalonians 3:6-13
Sermon
King Duncan
... ” not because we have to earn God’s favor, but because He has honored us so highly by giving us a part in His kingdom. We hear then Paul’s words with joy, “Never tire of doing what is good.” 1. From CPA Client Bulletin, September 1989. Cited in Biblical Illustrator.
3028. Unnoticed at Your Own Party
Isaiah 35:1-10, Matthew 11:2-11, James 5:7-10
Sermon
King Duncan
... of God. To everyone who opens that gift--who receives that gift and makes that gift his or her own--there is given an attitude and an ability to persevere that the world simply cannot know. 1. W.E. Sangster, The Craft of Sermon Illustration (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House). 2. From a sermon by John Piper, http://www.soundofgrace.com/piper87/jp870034.htm. 3. http://www.marvinumc.com/main.php?sort=&return_id=400&return_name=Sermons%20?%20Michael%20Dent&resource=1013. 4. Bruce Larson, Ed., The Power to Make ...
Sermon
Maxie Dunnam
... him. And Red Skelton said, “Yes, you can. Do you have ‘Romantic Thoughts at Midnight?’” And the saleswoman just looked at him and said, “Listen sonny, I have to drink coffee just to stay up for the 10 o’clock news!” It’s a funny story that illustrates the point—we sometimes feel that we don’t have anything to share. I want to make it clear that feeling comfortable about our relationship to Christ does not mean that we feel that we have a lot of answers. It doesn’t mean that there are ...
Sermon
King Duncan
... -the_start_of_the_trail. 2. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995). Cited in Chuck Colson, The Good Life (Wharton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2005), p. 248. 3. Harry Heintz, http://www.brunswickchurch.org/life_resources/sermondetail.php?Sermon_ID=360. 4. Jon Johnston, Walls Or Bridges (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1988). 5. Jack Gulledge, Ideas and Illustrations for Inspirational Talks (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1986), pp. 10‑11.
Sermon
King Duncan
... so blind that we cannot see God’s love is for all His children whether they be black or white, Christian or Moslem, first world or third world? Stan Mooneyham, former president of World Vision, in his book Traveling Hopefully gives one of the best illustrations I know of how a person can use religion as a means to keep from caring about people. A pious clergyman once wrote Mooneyham a letter in which he posed the following question. He said that it is an established fact among Bible-believing Christians ...
Sermon
Robert Leslie Holmes
... for them or truth. Machiavelli recognized cunning deceit and cruelty as character strengths and sometimes-necessary stepping-stones to personal advancement. That is why his name has gone down in infamy as a synonym for devious trickery. I even used a Machiavellian tactic illustratively in the title of this sermon. Had I titled this message, "Jesus or Machiavelli," you would have guessed right away what I had in mind. However, when I used his first name, Niccolo, you probably had no idea what I had in mind ...
3033. Getting Under Someone's Skin
Matthew 5:7
Illustration
Bill Bouknight
... the word "merciful" means literally "to get under someone's skin." It means to wear his skin, as it were; to see life from his perspective, to stand in his shoes. It means more than sympathy; it means active empathy or merciful understanding. Let me illustrate. A prominent minister was holding a weekend seminar at Lake Junaluska, North Carolina, several years ago. He kept noticing a man in the front row nodding sleepily. This aggravated the speaker. Preachers don't like for folks to go to sleep on them. We ...
3034. Falling Into Faith
Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18
Sermon
Charley Reeb
... people are more open to the power and purposes of God when pride and selfishness are weakened. “I am in deep,” I cried out to God “I am deeper,” God replied “How deep?” I asked “Let go and see,” God sighed [4] Henri Nouwen beautifully illustrates faith as letting go when he recounts his experience of seeing a German trapeze troupe perform. After the breath-taking performance, Nouwen sat down with Rodleigh, the leader of the troupe, and asked him how he was able to perform with such grace and ...
Sermon
Charley Reeb
... ? (Old Tappan, New Jersey: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1972), p. 42. 4. Barbara K. Lundblad, Transforming the Stone: Preaching Through Resistance to Change (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2001), p. 125. 5. Hamilton, pp. 38-39. 6. Brent Mitchell, Fresh Illustrations for Preaching and Teaching from Leadership Journal, ed. by Edward K. Rowell (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House and Christianity Today, Inc., 1997), p. 43. 7. Natalie Sleeth, “Hymn of Promise” copyright 1986 Hope Publishing Co., Carol Stream ...
Sermon
Charley Reeb
... . Bergland (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1993), p. 371. 4. Based on a quote by Dag Hammarskjold quoted in John A. Stroman, God’s Downward Mobility (Lima, Ohio: CSS Publishing Company, 1996), p. 13. 5. I am grateful to Dr. Fred B. Craddock for this insight. 6. Quoted in Benjamin P. Browne, Illustrations for Preaching (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1977), pp. 78-79. Used by permission. 7. Browne, pp. 22-23. Used by permission. 8. Wallace D. Chappell, All for Jesus (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1975), pp. 66-67.
Sermon
Charley Reeb
... mess. Pride is what started it all in the garden of Eden. Adam and Eve thought, “We don’t need God; we can be gods ourselves.” And we all know the pain and misery that followed. Too much pride can get us into a lot of trouble. I saw this illustrated right before my eyes a few years ago. I was coming out of the church office, and I watched as a toddler got away from her mother and began to run toward a busy street. The mother was pregnant and had an infant in her arms. I immediately drop the ...
Sermon
Charley Reeb
... , I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24). What did Jesus mean by that? What did Jesus mean by all this death business? One of the best illustrations of this for me is seen through an experience of one of my closest friends. His name is Allen Johnson and he is a United Methodist minister. He is also married to a minister. However, there was a time when Allen had other plans for his life. He thought ...
Understanding Series
Robert H. Mounce
... much that John is Elijah as it is that with John the crucial turning point in history has arrived (p. 263). Those with insight will understand. He who has ears that can hear should listen carefully. 11:16–19 Jesus searches for a way to illustrate Israel’s lack of acceptance of the kingdom. To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces who refuse to take part in either the wedding game (flute … dance) or the funeral game (dirge … mourn). In Luke’s account ...
Understanding Series
Robert H. Mounce
... of Jesus’ disciples (v. 1) parallels the hunger of David’s men and points up a comparison between David and the “Son of David.” What was permissible for the lesser is even more appropriate for the greater. Jesus draws his second illustration from the practice of the temple priests, who break the law every Sabbath and yet are not guilty. The priests “profane” the Sabbath by changing the consecrated bread “regularly, Sabbath after Sabbath” (Lev. 24:8), and “on the Sabbath day” making a ...
Understanding Series
Robert H. Mounce
... them to be of infinite value. Since Jesus had taken his place with them, it follows that to receive one of them in his name was to receive Jesus himself. 18:6–9 At this point Matthew moves from using the little child as an illustration of lack of concern about status to little ones as representing “average” members of the local congregation. The rest of chapter 18 deals with situations that arise in the church (causing others to sin, vv. 6ff.; bringing back those who have strayed, vv. 10ff.; reproving ...
Understanding Series
Robert H. Mounce
... between the two texts” (p. 301) but explains them as evidence of the freedom with which oral tradition interpreted the parables of Jesus. It is better to take the two accounts as separate but related narratives told on different occasions in order to illustrate or strengthen basic truths. It would be highly unlikely for Jesus to have told each of his parables on one occasion only. The so-called strange and unnatural additions appear as such only to those who would rewrite Scripture to match twentieth ...
Understanding Series
Robert H. Mounce
... . 25:1–5 Many writers find a number of allegorical features in this parable and judge, therefore, that if it had its origin with Jesus it has under gone considerable modification. But if one’s concept of parable allows it to illustrate more than one truth, the problem of allegorization is no longer so threatening. The very nature of proverb and parable indicates that they allow (perhaps encourage) multiple application. A parable whose immediate application could have been a judgment against the scribes ...
Understanding Series
Larry W. Hurtado
... the opening of the book and that it was accidentally omitted in some copies. It is very significant that Jesus is called the Son of God only by God (1:11; 9:7), by demons (3:11; 5:7), and by one man, the centurion at the cross (15:39), illustrating Mark’s emphasis upon the blindness of people to Jesus in his own ministry. (See “Son of God,” NIDNTT, vol. 3, pp. 634–48.) 1:2 It is written in Isaiah the prophet is literally “as it is written in Isaiah the prophet.” This is the wording in the ...
Understanding Series
Larry W. Hurtado
... less than Christian faith and true illumination about Jesus’ significance. This account of Jesus’ teaching includes the striking story of the man with an evil spirit (see note on v. 23), and Mark obviously intends this part of the episode as an illustration that Jesus was much more than simply another teacher, and that the authority claimed in his teaching represented a real authority, not simply an empty claim. We are to understand, then, that the news about Jesus spread so quickly (v. 28) particularly ...
Understanding Series
Larry W. Hurtado
... that this is merely talk and that it is easy to pretend to have such authority? Allow me to give a tangible demonstration of the authority involved” (2:8–11). The healing of the paralytic is, however, not just a display of authority but also an illustration of the forgiveness with which it is linked. The man imprisoned by his paralysis, confined to his bed, is a fitting picture of the bondage of sins; and his release from the paralysis is a vivid picture of release from sins and guilt. Now, it should ...
Understanding Series
Larry W. Hurtado
... , the “sinners,” along with the rest, as in the preceding passage (2:13–17). The imagery of 2:21–22 seems intended to show how inappropriate the beliefs and practices of the past are now when the kingdom of God is already approaching. The illustrations are relatively easy to understand. New (unshrunk) cloth when washed will shrink much more than previously washed cloth, and so it is not wise to try to patch the latter with the former. New wine is wine not fully fermented, and so putting it into ...
Understanding Series
Larry W. Hurtado
... what Jesus is really up to (cf. 4:40–41; 6:51–52; 7:17–19; 8:14–21, 31–33; 9:30–32). It is interesting that no similar statement appears in the Matthew 13:16–23 and Luke 8:11–15 parallels (see note). This illustrates that Mark seems to describe the disciples in a more critical fashion than the other Gospels. Still, it is a mistake to conclude (as even some scholars have) that Mark simply attacks the Twelve. Everything written about them to this point in Mark has been favorable and ...
Understanding Series
Larry W. Hurtado
... of the kingdom of God in him as still something of a “secret” (4:11), “hidden” and “concealed” (4:22). In this story something of the true significance of Jesus flashes forth momentarily, revealing briefly the full light to come. This incident also illustrates that the disciples, though given “the secret of the kingdom of God,” have their own problems in perceiving Jesus clearly. Their astonished questioning (4:41), Who is this? seems to echo the crowd’s bewilderment in 1:27 and is to be ...
Understanding Series
Larry W. Hurtado
... is elaborate discussion of this sort of condition and possible treatment in the Jewish Talmud, the collection of ancient rabbinic teaching. 5:26 Suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors: Records of the treatments prescribed for such conditions illustrate that this is a fair statement. The treatments prescribed often involved drinking vile-tasting mixtures and doing other such things, many of them even more strange and none of them likely to do any good, judged by modern medical knowledge. (See ...
Showing results