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 3101 to 3125 of 3314 results

3101. Watchfulness

Luke 12:35-48

Understanding Series

Craig A. Evans

... answers the question. In the Lucan context the question probably calls for a distinction between church leaders and Christians in general (Marshall, p. 540; Ellis, p. 181). Thus, the answer of the question is only implied. As church leaders, Peter and the apostles are especially to be alert and ready, teaching the other disciples to be prepared as well. The Parable of the Faithful Manager illustrates this. The wise manager will run the household well by properly delegating the work to the other servants ...

3102. Additional Teachings

Luke 16:16-18

Understanding Series

Craig A. Evans

... beginning of the new. His was a ministry of preparation for the coming of the Messiah (see 1:57–80; 3:1–20). Since John’s time, the good news of the kingdom of God is being preached, that is, it is being preached by Jesus and his apostles (on the last part of v. 16 see note below). As discussed in the Introduction (see pp. 8ff.), Luke 16:16 is an important verse for understanding the evangelist’s concept of God’s saving work in history. Luke seemingly understood history as consisting of three eras ...

3103. The Rich Ruler

Luke 18:18-30

Understanding Series

Craig A. Evans

... . 331) cites a rabbinic saying about the difficulty of “an elephant passing through a needle’s eye” (b. Berakoth 55b) a saying which Fitzmyer (p. 1204) suspects is based on the Gospels. 18:29 Luke has added or wife. Leaney (p. 237) wonders if the evangelist has in mind the Apostle Paul, who apparently had no wife (1 Cor. 7:8; 9:5).

3104. Signs of the End of the Age

Luke 21:5-38

Understanding Series

Craig A. Evans

... all this (i.e., the events attending the temple’s destruction), Jesus warns his followers, their opponents will lay hands on them and persecute them. Much of what Jesus describes appears in the Book of Acts (see 4:16–18; 8:1–3; 12:1–5). The Apostle Paul would later be brought before kings and governors before whom he would bear witness to the truth of the gospel (see Acts 22:30–23:9 where Paul speaks to the Sanhedrin; 24:10–23 where Paul is before Governor Felix; 25:1–12 where Paul speaks ...

3105. Peter Disowns Jesus

Luke 22:47-53

Understanding Series

Craig A. Evans

... from the way it was told in their source(s) (such as in Mark and whatever else they may have had). In the case of Luke, reference to Peter’s cursing and swearing (Matt. 26:74; Mark 14:71) was perhaps omitted (Luke 22:60) out of respect for the apostle and out of a desire to present him in a better light, especially in view of his coming role of prominence in Acts. Also, Luke’s shift from a “female servant” to a “man” in the second denial (cf. Luke 22:58 with Matt. 26:71 and Mark 14:69 ...

3106. The Ascension

Luke 24:50-53

Understanding Series

Craig A. Evans

... left off (see 19:47), but it anticipates Peter’s temple sermon in Acts 3. Here is an important Lucan idea. The Good News of the kingdom was preached in the temple of Jerusalem, the seat of Jewish religious authority, both by Jesus and by his apostles. (However, when the Spirit descends upon the disciples, they are not at the temple, but in an “upper room” [Acts 1:13] in Jerusalem.) The way Luke’s Gospel concludes makes it evident that a sequel volume is planned. The disciples are left waiting in ...

3107. Doxology

Romans 11:33-36

Understanding Series

James R. Edwards

... ’s long and difficult philosophy of history now yields to a doxology to God’s wisdom. A lesser soul than Paul, having plunged into the labyrinth of divine sovereignty and human sin, might, like Job, have emerged shaking his head in despair. Not so the apostle. The severity of the problem magnifies the greatness of God. Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! (v. 33). What the mind cannot know, the heart, as Pascal recognized, may know by other reasons. The limits of reason lead ...

3108. Paul's Plan to Visit Rome

Romans 15:23-33

Understanding Series

James R. Edwards

... the Roman Empire. Exactly why he chose to evangelize Spain (as opposed to Gaul, for instance) we are not told. We know that Spain had an established Jewish population at the time, although how much of an attraction that would have been for the apostle to the Gentiles is a matter of debate. Spain’s network of roads promised an itinerant missionary access to the entire peninsula, but Paul can scarcely have chosen Spain simply because of its roads. Perhaps the word “around” (Gk. kyklō, v. 19) provides a ...

3109. The Harvest of the Earth

Revelation 14:14-20

Understanding Series

Robert W. Wall

... the temple where God dwells (cf. 7:15; Dan. 7:14b) with a message that the time to reap has come. It is God and not God’s angel who makes the demand. Moreover, the message it carries from God seems fitting since the Risen Jesus had taught his apostles that knowledge about the timing of salvation’s history belongs only to God (cf. Acts 1:7). We are not told about the people who are ready for harvesting. On the one hand, the image of a sickle commends the interpretation that John has God’s judgment of ...

3110. The King Who Exalts Himself

Daniel 11:36-45

Understanding Series

William Nelson

... Olympios (Driver, Daniel, pp. 191–93) and Apollo (Collins, Daniel, p. 387). Because Antiochus was such a megalomaniac, behind his back some mockingly called him Epimanes, “the mad one,” instead of Epiphanes, “God manifest.” In an echo of Daniel 11:36, the apostle Paul predicts that the coming Antichrist “will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God” (2 Thess. 2:4). Verse 36 ...

3111. Jesus Predicts His Betrayal

John 13:18-30

Understanding Series

J. Ramsey Michaels

... 23/Matt. 24:25) will maintain, in the face of every disappointment, their faith in Jesus as all that he claimed to be (i.e., that I am he, v. 19), and in so doing find their faith vindicated. They are the ones who prove themselves truly “apostles” or “sent ones,” and to them the promise of verse 20 is given. The brief mission oracle ends appropriately with a prophetic guarantee of the authority of the messengers (cf. the placement of Matt. 10:40–42 and Luke 10:16 at the end of substantially longer ...

3112. The High Priest Questions Jesus

John 18:19-24, John 18:15-18, John 18:25-27

Understanding Series

J. Ramsey Michaels

... of the guards, interpreting Jesus’ response as a refusal to answer the high priest’s question, and therefore as a sign of contempt, rebuked Jesus and struck him, probably because of Exodus 22:28 (“Do not … curse the ruler of your people”). The Apostle Paul is described as showing respect for this principle in Acts 23:2–5. But while Paul apologizes for his behavior by pleading ignorance, Jesus squarely denies the charge of evil speaking: If I said something wrong, … testify as to what is wrong ...

3113. Two Kinds of Wisdom

James 3:13-18, James 3:1-12

Understanding Series

Peter H. Davids

... springs; Laodicea had to put up with lukewarm water piped in from a distance. In the Jordan valley the traveler would have to guess which of several springs seen in the distance were sweet and travel miles accordingly. See further E. F. F. Bishop, Apostles of Palestine, p. 187; or D. Y. Hadidian, “Palestinian Pictures in the Epistle of James,” p. 228. The King James Version reads, “So can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh”; this reading follows an inferior Greek text that harmonized 3:12 ...

3114. Be Holy

1 Peter 1:13-2:3

Understanding Series

Norman Hillyer

... 2 Pet. 1:4; 2:10, 18; 3:3), but always with its negative meaning. The expression can characterize Gentile behavior (Rom. 1:24; Eph. 2:3; 4:22; 1 Thess. 4:5) and corresponds to the rabbinical “evil inclination.” See E. F. F. Bishop, Apostles of Palestine: The Local Background of the New Testament Church (London: Lutterworth Press, 1958), p. 162. Ignorance in Jewish terminology meant more than a lack of knowledge. It characterized those who did not know the true God. The choice of word may imply that many ...

3115. Wives and Husbands

1 Peter 3:1-7

Understanding Series

Norman Hillyer

... for every Christian to be neatly dressed: a dowdy, unkempt appearance is no advertisement for a gospel of grace. But Peter has in mind unnecessary extravagances in his reference to braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. The apostle is not forbidding Christian women from having hairdos or from wearing ornaments. His language is to be taken as more figurative than literal, since grammatically (by a hendiadys: see Additional Note on 2:25) he means “gold-braided hair,” after the ...

3116. Faith in the Son of God

1 John 5:1-12, 1 John 4:7-21

Understanding Series

Thomas F. Johnson

... �heard,” seen, “looked at,” “touched,” “appeared to us”; 1 John 1:1–3), not on wishful thinking or on projected hopes. When the writer says, we … testify, he is standing with his mentor, the beloved disciple, and with the other elders and apostles, who witnessed “the Christ event.” What they claim to have seen and the burden of their testimony is that the Father sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Two elements are present here: (a) the relationship between Jesus and his “Abba ...

3117. The Fall of Man

Genesis 3:1-24

Understanding Series

John E. Hartley

... events, especially Cain’s murder of Abel and the increase of violence in society to such an intolerable level that God had to inundate the earth, become explicable and necessary as an outgrowth of the sin of the first humans. For the Apostle Paul the first humans’ disobedience is a key element in his theology of redemption (Rom. 5:12–14). Jesus, the second Adam, overcame their failure to provide salvation for all. To classify the dual purposes of this text Wenham uses the terms “protohistorical ...

3118. The Radiant Face of Moses

Exodus 34:29-35

Understanding Series

James K. Bruckner

... like the sun” as he appeared with Moses (Matt. 17:2–5). They were also enveloped in a “bright cloud” from which God spoke. In this way the Lord revealed to the disciples that a new kind of “face to face” experience was possible in Jesus. The apostle Paul used the unveiled face of the resurrected Christ as a way to describe the source of the Christian’s experience of God: “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the ...

3119. Firstborn Animals

Deuteronomy 15:19-23

Understanding Series

Christopher J. H. Wright

... be no doubt that the early church found in Deuteronomy 15 a charter for their attempt to eliminate poverty in their midst, and Luke links the growth of the church as firmly to that social and economic effort as to the evangelistic preaching of the apostles (Acts 2:42–47; 4:32–35). There is missionary power in joyful generosity. When it comes to working out how such a socioeconomic ethic can be addressed to secular society, we have other hermeneutical steps to take. The first step is the presupposition ...

3120. Follow the Lord's Commands

Deuteronomy 26:16-19

Understanding Series

Christopher J. H. Wright

... for all nations). Distortion of the law, whether toward legalism or toward antinomianism, usually creeps in when God’s people forget either the grace of God on which alone they stand or the glory of God for which alone they exist. The Apostle Paul’s efforts to establish an authentically scriptural understanding of the law in relation to God’s grace did not take place alone. Rather, it happened alongside his efforts to establish an equally scriptural understanding of the mission of Israel to the ...

3121. About Donkeys and True Greatness

Mark 11:1-10

Sermon

King Duncan

... contrast can be made between the kingdom of this world and the kingdom of God. Brute force versus gentle peace. And yet, more than 2,000 years later the only reason we even know Pontius Pilate’s name is that each time we say the Apostle’s Creed, we say about Christ, “He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried . . .” Ultimately gentle peace won out over brute force, as it will one day when the final chapter of humanity is written. True humility is a beautiful thing to see ...

3122. Please Pass the Resurrection Biscuits

Luke 24:35-48

Sermon

King Duncan

... the way you live.” That happened in the lives of those first disciples. Their lives were changed in a matter of days or a few weeks after their encounter with the risen Christ. From frightened and uncertain men marked by doubt and envy, they became apostles of great courage and self-giving. How about you? What difference has been made in your life seeing the hands and feet of the risen Christ? As a teenager, Joni Eareckson Tada enjoyed riding horses, hiking, tennis, and swimming. However, on July 30, 1967 ...

3123. The Pointer

Mark 6:14-29

Sermon

Ron Lavin

... Stephen's persecutors were enraged. They picked up stones and started to throw them at him. While Stephen was being stoned to death, he looked up to heaven and saw an amazing sight. He saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God (Acts 7:56). We say in the Apostles' Creed that Jesus is sitting at the right hand of God. Why was he standing? Hold that story in your mind for a moment as we look at another story from our time. This new story may help us understand this vision of Jesus standing. A boy genius was ...

3124. No Reason to Worry

Matthew 6:25-33

Sermon

April Yamasaki

... long. He had compassion on the crowds and healed people. He went about preaching and teaching without a place of his own to put down his head. He and his disciples were sometimes so busy that they hardly had time to eat. The apostle Paul described his own efforts for God's kingdom, as he persevered to preach the gospel and plant new churches in spite of being beaten, stoned, shipwrecked; enduring hunger, thirst, and sleepless nights; facing the uncertainties and danger of travel and many other hardships ...

3125. Sheep Without a Shepherd

Mark 6:30-34

Sermon

King Duncan

... t working, so the first thing he said was “There’s something wrong with this microphone.” The people responded, “And also with you.” You and I know the truth. There’s something wrong with all of us. In our lesson for the day Mark tells us, “The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught. Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, ‘Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some ...

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