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 3401 to 3425 of 4942 results

3401. I Have Come Into My Garden

Song of Songs 5:1-16

Understanding Series

Elizabeth Huwiler

Dream and Search: A new scene opens with 5:2. The central man, who was the principal speaker throughout the fourth chapter, is no longer present. Now the woman’s voice predominates, occasionally punctuated by a question from the daughters of Jerusalem. The structure of the section is much like that of 3:1–11. It opens with an apparent dream report (5:2–7; compare 3:1–4), followed by an address to the daughters of Jerusalem (5:8; compare 3:5), a transitional question (5:9; compare 3:6), and a descriptive ...

3402. God and Idols

Jeremiah 10:1-16

Understanding Series

Tremper Longman III

The Supremacy of Yahweh: 10:1–5 The chapter begins with a diatribe against idolatry, which is reminiscent of the biting sarcasm used by Isaiah (40:18–20; 41:7, 29; 44:6–23; 46:5–7). After the admonition to listen to the divine oracle (vv. 1–2a) the passage begins with the call to avoid the ways of the nations, which are further defined as signs in the sky. The latter is a reference to astrology, the use of astral phenomenon to determine the future. This method was used to read the minds of the gods ...

3403. The Covenant is Broken

Jeremiah 11:1-17

Understanding Series

Tremper Longman III

Betraying the Covenant: At the heart of Jeremiah’s charge against Judah is the accusation that it has broken the covenant and now faces the impending implementation of the curses. In particular and most strikingly, it has broken the covenant by its worship of foreign gods as specified by the following oracle. 11:1–8 The Lord now instructs Jeremiah to accuse the people of Judah that they have broken the covenant. Prophets often functioned as lawyers of the covenant as God commissioned them to accuse his ...

3404. God Rejects Zedekiah’s Request

Jeremiah 21:1-14

Understanding Series

Tremper Longman III

God Rejects Zedekiah’s Request for Prayer: The setting of Jeremiah’s next judgment oracle is more definitively described than some of the previous ones. Zedekiah, the last Judean king (597–586 B.C.), sends two individuals, Pashhur and Zephaniah (the second is a priest, but the first may be as well) to Jeremiah to request that the prophet intercede with the Lord for them. We can get even more specific about the date because the prophet’s response to the priests’ request includes a mention of “the ...

3405. Judgment Against Evil Kings

Jeremiah 22:1-30, Jeremiah 23:1-8

Understanding Series

Tremper Longman III

Oracles concerning the Kings of Judah The previous chapter issued an oracle against Zedekiah, and now the prophet continues the diatribe against Judah’s kings. At first the oracle is addressed to the “king of Judah” without specification (22:1–10). After this initial speech Jeremiah addresses Shallum (22:11–17 also know as Jehoahaz, who ruled for only a few months in 609 B.C.). Then (22:18–23) he turns his attention to Jehoiakim (609–597 B.C.), followed by Jehoiachin, who ruled only a few months in ...

3406. Lying Prophets

Jeremiah 23:9-32, Jeremiah 23:33-40

Understanding Series

Tremper Longman III

Prophets Who Lie: Jeremiah now trains his sight on false prophets. The rest of the chapter collects various prose and poetic oracles pronouncing judgment on those who claim to speak God’s word when in actuality they do not. Jeremiah was not the only one offering a “word of the LORD.” The false prophets bear a special burden of God’s anger because they make it more difficult for the people to discern the authentic divine message. Jeremiah 28 will recount a particular conflict between Jeremiah and a false ...

3407. The Recabites

Jeremiah 35:1-19

Understanding Series

Tremper Longman III

35:1–2 Jeremiah 35 describes a symbolic-act prophecy (see Jer.18)—that is, a prophecy that is accompanied by a dramatic action that illustrates the verbal oracle. The events of this chapter are dated to the reign of Jehoiakim, which scrolls back the time from the previous oracle that dated to the last few months of the reign of Zedekiah. We know that Jehoiakim reigned from 609–598 B.C. Later in the chapter Jonadab, the leader of the Recabites, will state that they are in Jerusalem because of the siege of ...

3408. Jehoiakim Burns Jeremiah’s Scroll

Jeremiah 36:1-32

Understanding Series

Tremper Longman III

Jehoiakim Burns the First Jeremiah Scroll: The next story is one of the most gripping and vivid of the book. It also has interest as a book that gives a rare glimpse at the preparation, presentation, and development of a biblical book, though at the end of the story the scholar is still left with many questions. For this chapter, see J. A. Dearman, “My Servants the Scribes: Composition and Context in Jeremiah 36,” JBL 109 (1990), pp. 403–21. 36:1–7 These verses describe the instructions that are given to ...

3409. The Fall of Jerusalem

Jeremiah 39:1-18

Understanding Series

Tremper Longman III

The Fates of Zedekiah, Jeremiah, and Ebed-Melech: This section narrates the fall of the city of Jerusalem at the hands of the Babylonians, and then focuses in on the fate of three specific people: Zedekiah, Jeremiah, and Ebed-Melech. The section concerning the latter breaks up the story of the Babylonian’s treatment of the prophet. The lesson of all three vignettes is that God repays those who obey him as well as those who do not. Much of this chapter is paralleled to Jeremiah 52:4–16 and 2 Kings 25:1–12. ...

3410. Gedaliah Assassinated

Jeremiah 40:7--41:15

Understanding Series

Tremper Longman III

The Assassination of Gedaliah: The narration of the immediate postdestruction period in Judah continues. While the leaders of Judah are being carted off to Babylon, the narrator stays with Jeremiah in Judah. The focus shifts momentarily from the prophet to the new Babylonian-appointed governor of the Persian province of Judah, Gedaliah (see commentary on 39:11–14), who is ruling from the town of Mizpah. The story that follows is the first part of an account of an episode that will explain why a significant ...

3411. A Message About Moab

Jeremiah 48:1-47

Understanding Series

Tremper Longman III

Oracle against Moab: After Egypt and Philistia, Moab is the next object of God’s attention. The geographical movement is from south to north and then west to east. While Philistia is to the west of Israel, Moab is directly to the east on the eastern shores of the Dead Sea. Today, this region is occupied by the country of Jordan. It is a region typified by deep wadis and extensive plateaus. The Bible paints the origin of the Moabites in dark colors. In Genesis 19, after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah ...

3412. The Fall of Jerusalem

Jeremiah 52:1-30, Jeremiah 52:31-34

Understanding Series

Tremper Longman III

The Fall of Jerusalem: By placing the description of the fall of Jerusalem after the oracles against the foreign nations and as last in the canonical book, the editor reminds the reader of what is of first order importance in the book. Yes, Babylon and the other foreign nations will get what they deserve, but Judah deserves its punishment as well. The description of the fall of Jerusalem also is a way of showing how Jeremiah’s earlier prophetic words did come to pass. It is Jeremiah not the false prophets ...

3413. Remember, O Lord, What Has Happened to Us

Lamentations 5:1-22

One Volume

Tremper Longman III

A Final Lament and Appeal: Lamentation ends with a prayer asking God to remember the suffering of God’s city, Jerusalem, and his people. The prayer is one of the community as indicated by the consistent use of the first person plural pronoun. After the invocation in verse 1, the prayer continues with a long description of the suffering of a once proud and glorious place (vv. 2–18). It ends with a series of “why” questions (vv. 19–22), similar to the laments of the psalms (see Pss. 10:1, 13; 22: 1; 42:5, ...

3414. God’s Love for Israel

Hosea 11:1-11

Understanding Series

Elizabeth Achtemeier

The Nature of God: The almost hidden note of hope with which chapter 10 ended is here sounded at full volume: God cannot give up this people! (Cf. my son v. 1; my people v. 7.) The principal theological question that this passage raises is, What finally will be the factor that determines the outcome of human history? And certainly the prophetic answer to that is “God.” As the Lord of all history, God will make the final decision as to what the recompense of human action and attitude will be. But then the ...

3415. Repentance to Bring Blessing

Hosea 14:1-9

Understanding Series

Elizabeth Achtemeier

The God of Free Grace: We can reasonably consider this oracle to be the last message delivered by Hosea in his prophetic career, and therefore to be properly placed by the redactor at the end of the Hosianic collection. The NIV paraphrases verse 1b. The Hebrew of that line reads, “You have stumbled in your iniquity.” Israel has stumbled. It is already falling, and its end is near. Hosea has announced that inevitable end in the oracles that have gone before. The plagues of death and the destruction of Sheol ...

3416. The Day of the Lord

Joel 2:1-11

Understanding Series

Elizabeth Achtemeier

2:1–11 In 1:15, Joel announced the imminence of the day of the Lord. He now tells what that day will be like. Some scholars have maintained that this section does not concern God’s final judgment and is instead a description of the invasion of the locusts of chapter 1. In such a view, the locust plague would be not a past event, but a present one. Several features of this passage would, on the face of it, seem to support such a position. It describes a large and mighty army, verse 2 (cf. v. 11), and that ...

3417. Nineveh to Fall

Nahum 2:1-13

Understanding Series

John Goldingay

The City's Fall: Chapter 2 describes an attack on a city. Once again there is just one indication that the city is Nineveh (v. 8). For the most part the account could apply to any city, and Judeans would be wise to reflect on the way it might apply to Jerusalem; it is quite similar to prophetic threats concerning Jerusalem (see, for instance, Isa. 10:28–34). Indeed, the way it follows straight on from 1:15 pushes us in that direction, especially if we read it in light of the Masoretes’ chapter division ...

3418. A Call to Return to the Lord

Zechariah 1:1-6

Understanding Series

Pamela J. Scalise

Superscription (1:1): Zechariah prophesied to a community that knew the fulfillment of prophecy as a fact of their lives. Earlier prophetic announcements of judgment had been proven true in the destruction of their nation. The prophet’s ministry, and the ongoing ministry of the book, is to persuade its audience that the reliability of God’s earlier words of judgment stands as evidence that God’s promises and commands are also true. While fulfillment of salvation promises began in the early years of the ...

3419. The Lord Removes Falsehood

Zechariah 13:1-6

Understanding Series

Pamela J. Scalise

13:1 For the last time in the book of Zechariah God makes a promise regarding the house of David. The promise also includes the inhabitants of Jerusalem. This is the eighth of seventeen promises in chapters 12–14 that begin with the phrase, on that day. A fountain will be opened in Jerusalem. Ezekiel 47:1–12, Joel 3:18, and Zechariah 14:8 describe an eschatological water source that will flow out of the temple and water the land. This fountain in 13:1 has a ritual purpose to cleanse [the house of David and ...

3420. Jesus Teaches at the Feast

John 7:14-24

Understanding Series

J. Ramsey Michaels

The unity of 7:14–8:59 becomes apparent once it is recognized that 8:1–11 is the record of a separate incident and not an original part of John’s Gospel. Only by ignoring these verses and moving from 7:52 to 8:12 without a break can the reader sense how closely chapters 7 and 8 go together. Jesus’ temple ministry is presented in the form of one long discourse, even though it is probably assumed to have been given over a period of several days during the Feast of Tabernacles, and even though the material ...

3421. The Pharisees Investigate the Healing

John 9:13-34

Understanding Series

J. Ramsey Michaels

When their informal interview with the man who had been blind proved inconclusive, his neighbors brought him to the Pharisees (v. 13). The narrator takes the opportunity to add the significant footnote that the miracle happened on a Sabbath. In connection with this, he refers again to the actual procedure Jesus had used (v. 14), for it was this procedure, not the healing itself, that violated the Sabbath law (i.e., the Mishnah, Shabbath 7.2). Just as in the case of the Bethesda healing in chapter 5, the ...

3422. Abram and Lot Separate

Genesis 13:1-18

Understanding Series

John E. Hartley

Abram and Lot Separate: This account unfolds in the four scenes of Abram’s return to Canaan (vv. 1–4), the separation of Abram and Lot (vv. 5–13), God’s renewal of the promise of land and offspring to Abram (vv. 14–17), and Abram’s settling near Mamre (v. 18). 13:1–4 Abram went up from Egypt with Sarai and Lot to the area south of Canaan called the Negev. Abram had become very wealthy in livestock and in silver and gold. Leaving the Negev, Abram traveled north through the hill country, eventually arriving ...

3423. The Death of Sarah

Genesis 23:1-20

Understanding Series

John E. Hartley

Abraham Purchases the Cave of Machpelah: In the preceding episode Abraham reached the pinnacle of his journey with God by proving his complete obedience to God even in regard to his beloved son (ch. 22). Before his death he faces two more basic issues: the burial of Sarah and finding a wife for Isaac. In this chapter, Abraham deals with the first of these. This account consists of the report of Sarah’s death (vv. 1–2), the negotiations for the purchase of a lot (vv. 3–16), and Abraham’s taking ownership of ...

3424. Jacob and Esau

Genesis 25:19-34

Understanding Series

John E. Hartley

The Birth and Early Rivalry of Esau and Jacob: The next patriarchal narrative, that of Jacob (25:19–36:43), extends from Jacob’s birth to Esau’s lineage. (See the Introduction for an overview of the Jacob narrative as a whole and its relationship to the Joseph story.) Three incidents set the stage for the drama of Jacob’s life: the struggle of Jacob and Esau in the womb and at birth (vv. 19–26), a brief portrait of the two boys (vv. 27–28), and Jacob’s stealing the birthright from Esau (vv. 29–34). 25:19– ...

3425. Jacob Gets Isaac's Blessing

Genesis 27:1-40

Understanding Series

John E. Hartley

Jacob Steals Esau’s Blessing: This suspense-filled narrative portrays a family torn between the conflicting wills of a father and a mother. An indulgent father favors a rugged, athletic, unpretentious older son while a brilliant, domineering mother manipulates matters to the advantage of her younger son, who loves to take care of the animals and do chores around the tent. “Son” is a controlling word in this narrative, being employed by each parent to emphasize his or her respective love for and favoritism ...

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