Synonyms: renounce, relinquish, dispense with, forswear, disclaim, disown, disavow, discard, wash one's hands of, give up, stop, cease, drop, forgo, desist from, have done with, abjure, abstain from, discontinue, break off, refrain from, set/lay aside, desert, leave, leave high and dry, turn one's back on, cast aside, break (up) with, vacate, quit, evacuate, withdraw from, surrender, cede, yield, indulge in, give way to, give oneself up to, yield to, lose oneself to/in, uninhibitedness, recklessness, lack of restraint, lack of inhibition, unruliness, wildness, impulsiveness, impetuosity, immoderation, wantonness
Antonyms: keep, claim, continue, stick by, self-control, power through, achieve, defend, bear, hope, acquire, quick visit, adopt, continue along, adhere, remain, pursue, support, take up, keep up, reuse, advocate, stay, persevere, cherish, keep going, carry on
Showing 3201 to 3225 of 4943 results
3201. Feasting and Fasting
Luke 5:33-39, Luke 5:27-32
Teach the Text
R.T. France
... it unlikely that these are the same objectors as in 5:30. It is perhaps a topic raised at the dinner table. John’s disciples. Given the initial impact of John’s revival movement (3:7–18), it is not surprising that we hear of groups of his followers continuing long after his death. See 7:18–19; 11:1; John 4:1–2; Acts 18:25; 19:3. often fast and pray. Our knowledge of the ascetic discipline of the “Baptist” movement comes only from this text, though 7:33 attests the popular view of John as an ...
Teach the Text
R.T. France
... her work. This book, often compared to The Diary of Anne Frank, is her account of her arrest and exile in a Siberian labor camp, where she endured endless indignities and deprivations. Despite the hardship, her spirit remained strong and resolute, and she continually gave testimony to the God she believed in. While in the labor camps, people who knew her situation sent her care packages. In the camp, prisoners had to pay for many things out of their very limited wages, including housing and even to receive ...
3203. Lessons on Devotion and Prayer
Luke 11:1-13, Luke 10:38-42
Teach the Text
R.T. France
... food takes priority over physical food. Martha’s desire to provide the best hospitality was not wrong in itself, but she had her priorities wrong. 11:1  teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples. Here is one of several incidental indications of a continuing group of followers of John the Baptist, seen as an uneasy parallel to the Jesus movement (cf. 5:33; 7:18–23). John had taught his disciples to fast and pray often (5:33), but we are not told what form those prayers took. Note that ...
3204. Two Testing Questions
Luke 20:27-40, Luke 20:20-26
Teach the Text
R.T. France
... of resurrection and the afterlife. Some of your listeners may find Jesus’s argument from Exodus 3:6 obscure or unconvincing. His point is that long after the patriarchs were dead, God still identified himself as their God. They must therefore have a continuing existence with him. In your teaching you might suggest other arguments for the afterlife from Scripture, especially if not constrained by the Sadducean focus only on the law of Moses. Tease out in what way Jesus’s argument depends on the character ...
3205. Getting Ready for the Passover
Luke 22:7-38, Luke 22:1-6
Teach the Text
R.T. France
... bars of a dark prison cage and the barbed wire of forced confinement, I could, for the first time, really see. He saw what he had done and realized the rest of his life needed to be lived out in serving others. He continues, “I began to understand why God views society not through easily corrupted kings but through peasant prophets who in their own powerlessness could see and communicate God’s perspective.”4 Literature: “Matryona’s House,” by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. In this story by the Nobel ...
3206. The Death of Jesus
Luke 23:44-49, Luke 23:26-43
Teach the Text
R.T. France
... , the irony in the mocking of Jesus to save himself if he is truly the Messiah. Ironically, it is by staying on the cross that Jesus confirms he is the Messiah and brings salvation to the world. Notice, too, that even on the cross Jesus continues to offer forgiveness and salvation (23:34, 43). He is truly the Savior of the world. Another traditional teaching method for this passage is to focus on Jesus’s words from the cross. Seven “last words” (sayings) of Jesus appear in the four Gospels. Three ...
3207. At the Tomb
Luke 24:1-12, Luke 23:50-56
Teach the Text
R.T. France
... was Preparation Day. That is, Friday. The work of burial by Joseph’s men had to be completed before the Sabbath began at sunset (cf. John 19:31). 23:55  The women who had come with Jesus from Galilee. Three of them will be named in 24:10. The continuity of the same group of witnesses to both the death (23:49) and burial of Jesus (both where and how he was buried) and then also to the absence of his body weakens any suggestion that the women went to the wrong tomb. 23:56  prepared spices and perfumes ...
Teach the Text
C. Marvin Pate
... 11  sin . . . deceived me. Paul uses an intensive form of the word “deceived” (exapata?), applying to himself a word used in Genesis 3:13 LXX (apata?) of Eve in the garden (cf. 2 Cor. 11:3; 1 Tim. 2:14), making it all the more likely that Genesis 2–3 continues to weigh heavily in Paul’s argument in 7:7–12. As he mentioned in 7:8, so the apostle repeats in 7:11 more intensely that the serpent/sin in the garden and sin in humanity perverted the holy law of God into disobedience. It is difficult to ...
Teach the Text
C. Marvin Pate
... Elijah complains to God that he is the only faithful one left, God corrects him by pointing out that he has maintained a remnant of seven thousand faithful ones in the midst of national apostasy (1 Kings 19:10–18). The Old Testament prophets continue the remnant theme (see, e.g., Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Joel). The prophets proclaim that since Israel/Judah has broken the covenant, and since they refuse to repent and turn back to God, judgment is coming. This judgment takes the form of terrible foreign ...
Teach the Text
C. Marvin Pate
... similar to those Paul raises in 11:33 with regard to the destiny of God’s people during their exile (see also 1 En. 63.3; 93.11–14; 4 Ezra 4.21; 5.36–40; 8.21). Moreover, the apocalyptic nuance of myst?rion (11:25) continues to influence Paul in 11:33: the undiscoverable wisdom of God’s salvation history has been revealed to Paul, the apocalyptic seer (cf. Dan. 2:20–23). 2. Jewish wisdom traditions inform Romans 11:33–35, particularly the notion that God’s wisdom was revealed to Israel ...
Teach the Text
C. Marvin Pate
... was retractable. Yet when Peter wrote his letter to the same Roman churches sometime between AD 64 and 68, at the height of Nero’s atrocities, he essentially repeated Paul’s words to obey the government if at all possible (1 Pet. 2:13–17). And Paul himself continued to call for the church to honor and pray for the king and his magistrates right up until his death (see 1 Tim. 2:1–3). All this is to say that the immoral condition of a government does not revoke the apostolic call for Christians to ...
Teach the Text
C. Marvin Pate
... , but, as I have described it, they will do so without any supporting social structure. . . . We can aid our students by coming alongside them in the midst of their tensions. When we do, we shift the locus of integration by implicitly inviting them to continue their struggles, not alone, but within the relative safety of the faith community.16 The body metaphor used by Paul indicates a unity of community, and the church is one of the best places “to receive the kind of teaching that encourages and deepens ...
3213. Applying God’s Wisdom to Life’s Issues
1 Corinthians 2:6-16, 1 Corinthians 1:18--2:5
Teach the Text
Preben Vang
... . As he said in this wise essay about literature, “what we do ‘purely for pleasure’ may have the greatest and least suspected influence upon us. It is [what we do] with the least effort that can have the easiest and most insidious influence upon us.” He continues by remarking that, we need to be acutely aware of two things at once: of “what we like,” and of “what we ought to like.” Few people are honest enough to know either. . . . It is our business, as Christians, as well as readers of ...
3214. Christian Maturity
1 Corinthians 3:1-23
Teach the Text
Preben Vang
... tense, it was intentional and aimed to highlight a special verbal aspect. This is significant here. Paul and Apollos simply planted and watered (aorist tenses). God, however, continued to give increase (imperfect tense, underscoring the ongoing quality of his action). All of the emphasis is on God’s continuous action. Paul’s farming metaphor completely undercuts the cliquish behavior of the Corinthians. The ones planting and watering must, obviously, work together; yet both of them are powerless ...
Teach the Text
Preben Vang
... of the cross. That Paul considered suffering an inseparable part of imitating Christ proves difficult, if not impossible, to dispute (e.g., Rom. 8:17; 2 Cor. 11:23–27; Phil. 3:10; cf. 1 Pet. 4:13–14). In fact, Paul understood his suffering as a direct continuation of Jesus’s sufferings, even seeing it, in some way, as completing Christ’s work for the church (Col. 1:24). He had heard Jesus’s word that a disciple should expect to be treated like his master (Matt. 10:24–25). The experience of (post ...
Teach the Text
Preben Vang
... a pole Moses had made on God’s command (Num. 21:6–9; cf. John 3:14–16).6 10:10  do not grumble. On his fourth point, Paul returns to a direct command. Grumbling was the norm rather than the exception for Israel and a continuing cause for God’s aggravation.7 The sheer number of references to “grumbling” during the desert experience makes it difficult to determine Paul’s direct point of reference in 10:10. Maybe Paul mentions Israel’s grumbling because he has faced similar reaction from the ...
3217. The Four Horsemen
Revelation 6:1-17
Teach the Text
J. Scott Duvall
... 4) The rider on a pale horse (6:7–8) Interpretive Insights 6:1  I watched as the Lamb opened the first of the seven seals. Then I heard one of the four living creatures say in a voice like thunder, “Come!” John’s heavenly vision continues as he observes the Lamb breaking the first seal. The Lamb alone is worthy to break each seal and unfold the scroll, indicating Jesus’s leading role in the consummation of human history. While John sees the Lamb, he hears the thunderous voice of the first living ...
Teach the Text
J. Scott Duvall
... in 5:9; 7:9; 11:9; 13:7; 14:6; 17:15). John’s message certainly involves God’s judgment against the nations as chapter 11 makes clear (11:3–6, 10). Yet, the positive aspect of God’s people bearing witness to the nations continues to play a significant role. Theological Insights This passage revisits the biblical truth that God’s purposes often involve suffering for his people. The Scriptures consistently affirm the redemptive role of suffering in the life of the believer (e.g., Rom. 5:3–4; 2 Cor ...
3219. The Bowl Judgments
Revelation 16:1-21
Teach the Text
J. Scott Duvall
Big Idea: God continues to pour out his wrath on the ungodly, leading to a climactic eschatological battle and resulting in the final judgment of the evil world system. Understanding the Text Following the introduction of the bowl judgments in ... sake of the preservation of apartheid and white privilege. And as they go from funeral to funeral, burying yet another victim of law and order or yet another killed by government-protected death squads, the cry continues to rise to heaven: “How long, Lord?”[9]
Teach the Text
J. Scott Duvall
... carried outside his bunker in a rolled-up rug and burned on the ground. Evil always consumes itself. Jesus is the Lord of lords and King of kings. Quote: The Acts of the Risen Lord Jesus, by Alan J. Thompson. Commenting on the theme of Jesus’s continuing rule and reign in the book of Acts, Thompson observes: A major emphasis of Jesus’s teaching was that the kingdom of God had already arrived. The kingdom of God had arrived, said Jesus, because the kingdom of God was present in his ministry. Because he ...
Teach the Text
J. Scott Duvall
... witnessing and indulging gross materialism.7 Three Funeral Laments over Babylon the Great Big Idea: Those who cooperate with worldly power systems (symbolized by Babylon) will lament their judgment because of what it will cost them. Understanding the Text This passage continues the account of Babylon’s destruction (17:1–19:5) with funeral laments by three groups: the kings (vv. 9–10), the merchants (vv. 11–17a), and the mariners (vv. 17b–19). They grieve not because they are truly sorrowful and ...
3222. God’s Judgment of Babylon Calls for Celebration
Revelation 19:1-10, Revelation 18:1-24
Teach the Text
J. Scott Duvall
... they are really pursuing in life. Where do our loyalties and priorities lie? Joining in Babylon’s sins leads to certain judgment, a judgment that also includes the loss of good and wholesome things such as music, work, food, light, and marriage. 2. The righteous must continue to trust that God will bring justice on the earth. Most commentators see this passage linked in some way to God’s answer to the prayers of the martyred saints in 6:9–11. How long, O Lord? Answer: a little longer. But one day God ...
Teach the Text
J. Scott Duvall
... ’s people will also bear the responsibility of reigning with him in the eternal garden city. Our relationship with God will involve doing something productive under God’s guidance and for his glory. What began in the millennium (see 20:4–6) now continues throughout eternity. We will not be bored or lazy or lack opportunities to serve. Heaven is not the absence of responsibility and work; it is the fulfillment of and completion of such things. We will do meaningful work forevermore. And we humans will ...
Teach the Text
Joe M. Sprinkle
... Israel to take a little bit of the Mount Sinai experience with them as they move toward the promised land. On Mount Sinai they had seen a manifestation of God on top of the mountain (Exod. 19:18–20; 24:16). At the tabernacle they continue to see such manifestations of God. That in turn helps the Israelites revere and worship Yahweh (Lev. 9:24b). Visible manifestations of God were unusual, however, even for Israel. Most of the time there was no overt, supernatural appearance of God in sacrificial worship ...
Teach the Text
Joe M. Sprinkle
... Molek (Lev. 20:3), and murder (Num. 35:33–34) all employ the language of purity and impurity. The sin (or purification) offering served to cleanse both sin and ceremonial uncleanness (Lev. 5:1–5; 16:16–22). Both sin and uncleanness threatened God’s continued presence in the midst of his people. In Lamentations the language of leprosy is used of those taken into exile who are unclean because of sin (Lam. 4:15; cf. Lev. 13:45). Both “leprosy” and the impurity of sin represent a movement away from ...
Showing results