Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 426 to 450 of 2157 results

Matthew 5:38-42

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... whom. Not what’s superficial and ephemeral, glitzy and gossip-y. What we should be fearful of “missing out” on is what God is doing right here and right now. We need to have our eyes peeled and our hearts opened to whatever new visions and versions of a faith-filled life are being offered to us each and every day. If bad “FOMO” is the fear of withdrawal from social media, good “FOMO” is the fear of withdrawal from God. Without God’s life, we are devastatingly empty and convulsively anxious ...

427. An Announcement to a Virgin

Luke 1:26-38

Sermon

King Duncan

... change her answer. She said “Yes” to God and the world has never since been the same. The American Standard Version of the Bible translates Mary’s answer to the angel like this: “Behold, the bondslave of the Lord; be it done to me according to ... your word.” Though it doesn’t appear in more modern versions of the New Testament, this word “bondslave” is important. The scourge of slavery was common in New Testament times. Some slaves were ...

428. An Announcement for a New Year

Galatians 3:26--4:7

Sermon

King Duncan

... are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.” What an important passage. “When the set time fully arrived . . .” Many of us prefer the King James version of this phrase, “When the fullness of the time was come . . .” Both versions are basically saying, “When the time God had chosen had arrived, God sent Christ into the world.” Christ came at the right time, the perfect time in human history. God had already been at work for thousands of ...

429. A Guide to a Rich and a Joyous Life

Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

King Duncan

... teachings and example of Jesus. I read recently that 97% of Americans say the 10 Commandments are important but only 5% can name 3 of them. I’m not going to give you a test. Here is an abbreviated form of these commandments as they appear in the New International Version of the Bible. [I am going to ask you to stand in reverence for these ancient laws as I read them.] God says: I am the Lord your God . . . You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of ...

430. Building a New Team

Mark 8:31--9:1

Sermon

Wayne Brouwer

... few people seem to show up at the try-outs. Application There is a scene in Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring where a partnership is forged among those who would accompany Frodo on his journey to destroy the ring of power. The movie version makes for a very gripping visual illustration, and the original literary text is equally as moving. What comes through is a sense of selflessness as the bond that unites these creatures. Furthermore, each subsumes his will to the greater cause, and trusts an unseen ...

431. A Personal History

John 18:1—19:42

Sermon

David J. Kalas

... , I was saved, healed, forgiven, and reconciled. It was 2,000 years ago, but it is part of my personal history. An Alternative Application Isaiah 52:13—53:12; John 18:1—19:42. “We Esteemed Him Not.” For so many of us, the King James Version was the translation of scripture we first heard and where we learned some of the most familiar passages. In the case of Isaiah’s suffering servant passage, I remain tied and drawn to the poetic language of the old King James. One phrase in particular especially ...

432. Personal History

John 18:1-11

Sermon

David J. Kalas

433. When You Reach the Rejection Hotline

Acts 4:1-22

Sermon

King Duncan

... by a co-worker’s idea. Rejection. It happens to everybody. It happens to best-selling writers. Ken Taylor’s paraphrased version of the Bible which he called The Living Bible was rejected by 63 publishers. He finally self-published it. Quite ... a seminar; she had sought me out because by now she had seven children, nowhere to live, no job and no food to give them. The short version is I bought her a piece of land, built a house on it, found her a job and moved my youngest brother in with me so that ...

434. Signed, Sealed, and Delivered

2 Timothy 3:10--4:8

Sermon

James Merritt

... . They are like two halves of a sentence – they both go together. A good way to remember it is this – The New is in the Old concealed The Old is in the New revealed There are several other things to remember about the Bible. First, in the version that we have the 66 books are not arranged in chronological order. Some books that you read later than other ones are actually written earlier than the ones that come before it. The bookend books (Genesis and Revelation) are placed exactly where they need to be ...

435. When the Dragon Wins

Luke 21:5-38

Sermon

R. Robert Cueni

... of the world. Luke 21 is not language intended for prediction. It is language of hope, particularly hope in the midst of life's most difficult circumstances. On several websites, you can buy different versions of cartoon drawings of dragons on posters, T-shirts, coffee mugs, and even new pajamas. One of those versions portrays the dragon resting after a good meal. This fire-breathing monster is leaning against a tree, belly distended from lunch, contented look on his face, and a little puff of smoke rising ...

436. Solomon’s Death

2 Chronicles 9:29-31

Understanding Series

Louis C. Jonker

... :41–43. 9:29–31 Whereas the source text in 1 Kings 11:41 refers the reader to “the book of the annals of Solomon” for more information on “the other events of Solomon’s reign—all he did and the wisdom he displayed,” the Chronicler’s version differs considerably. The latter refers to the other events of Solomon’s reign, from beginning to end, and the reader is referred to a list of prophetic writings. It seems as if 1 Chronicles 29:29 could rather have been the source text used here in 2 ...

437. Hezekiah Purifies the Temple

2 Chronicles 29:1-36

Understanding Series

Louis C. Jonker

... ’s own father, Ahaz. These evils of the fathers are strongly expressed in 29:6: our fathers were unfaithful (ma?al); they did evil in the eyes of the LORD our God and forsook (?azab) him, again with two strong programmatic words in the Chronicler’s version of this statement. The intention of the king (29:10) is expressed clearly (to make a covenant with the LORD, the God of Israel), and to do so, he calls upon the “priests and Levites,” whom the LORD has chosen . . . to stand before him and serve ...

438. Peter Addresses the Crowd

Acts 2:14-41

Understanding Series

David J. Williams

... point remains that Jesus had been exalted to a place of power and authority, marked by his receiving from the Father the promised Holy Spirit to give to human beings (v. 33). There may be yet another allusion to the Psalms in these words, this time to the version of Psalm 68:18 quoted by Paul (Eph. 4:8): “When he ascended on high, he … gave gifts to men.” For Peter declared that what they now saw and heard was Jesus’ gift poured out on his people (v. 33). Significantly, in the quotation from Joel it ...

439. Stephen’s Speech to the Sanhedrin

Acts 7:1-53

Understanding Series

David J. Williams

... to misunderstanding; Terah’s death is anticipated in Gen. 11:32) or he was drawing on a different tradition. The Samaritan version of Genesis 11:32, for example, has Terah dying at one hundred forty-five years instead of two hundred five. Either ... it more likely that the speech came to Luke from a source and not out of his own head, since the LXX, Luke’s own preferred version, bears no trace of this tradition (see note on v. 46). From Haran, God sent him (i.e., Abraham) to this land where you are now living ...

440. Philip and the Ethiopian

Acts 8:26-40

Understanding Series

David J. Williams

... at a number of points but is sufficiently close to express the prophet’s intention, Luke regularly uses the LXX regardless of whether the original speaker used it or not. But on this occasion, the Ethiopian was most likely reading that version, and it would probably have been the version with which Philip was most familiar. These particular verses speak of the Servant suffering for others but in the end reaping his reward (a hint of the resurrection? see disc. on 26:23). It was ready-made as a starting ...

441. Body

2 Corinthians 5:1-10

Understanding Series

James M. Scott

... :7–8a MT reads: “And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever.” The citation in 1 Corinthians 15:52, however, uses a proto-Theodotian version, which translates Isaiah 25:8a slightly differently: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” Hence, Paul yearns for the day of resurrection, when “the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in ...

442. The Supremacy of Christ

Colossians 1:15-23

Understanding Series

Arthur G. Patzia

... Greeks attributed to Wisdom or Logos for headship, the early church attributed to Christ. He, in other words, is the divine Logos (cf. John’s prologue in 1:1–3) who governs the body (sōma) of the cosmos. It is quite possible that a Christian version of this hymn initially celebrated Christ’s headship over the cosmos. The new development in Colossians is that Paul interprets body not as cosmos but as church. In other words, although Christ is head of the whole world, only the church is his body. The ...

443. The Man of Lawlessness

2 Thessalonians 2:1-12

Understanding Series

David J. Williams

... NIV’s rendering of enestēken, has already come (cf. RV “is now present,” RSV “has come,” NEB “is already here”), but because of the difficulty that it creates (i.e., in what sense could the Thessalonians have thought that it was present?) a number of versions have shied away from the common usage and have opted instead for the idea of imminence: cf., “the day of Christ is at hand” (AV); “the day of the Lord is just at hand” (ASV). R. D. Aus, for example, in ZNW 67 (1976), pp. 252–68 ...

444. Advice About Widows, Elders and Slaves

1 Timothy 5:1-6:2

Understanding Series

Gordon D. Fee

... he appeals to the content of what he here cites: “The worker deserves his wages.” This is a saying of Jesus, exactly as it appears in Luke 10:7 (cf. the slightly different version in Matt. 10:10). It should be noted that in the only other instance where Paul actually cites the words of Jesus (1 Cor. 11:24–25), he also cites a version he shares with Luke, in contrast to Mark and Matthew. This should surprise us none, given Paul’s apparent closeness to Luke. The point of all this, of course, is not to ...

445. The Christian and the World

James 4:1-12

Understanding Series

Peter H. Davids

... of the Old Testament otherwise unknown. However, the Scripture says formula always introduces a direct quotation whenever it is used elsewhere in the New Testament. No passage has been found in any version that is identical to this quotation. That leaves one with a lost book as the probable source, which would be no more unusual than Jude’s quoting 1 Enoch (Jude 14 = 1 Enoch 1:9). The Greek of the quotation is ambiguous. The two most probable translations are The spirit ...

446. The Sin and Doom of Godless Men

Jude 1:1-16

Understanding Series

Norman Hillyer

... Jude explains, the peril has arisen more subtly, for certain men … have secretly slipped in (pareisedysan) among you. The Greek word, which occurs in the NT only here, is most expressive: pareisdyein is used of the clever pleading of a lawyer, gradually insinuating his version of the evidence into the minds of judge and jury. It describes the action of a spy stealthily getting into the country, or of someone sneaking in by a side door. False teachers have managed to get into the church. Jude describes the ...

447. At Mount Sinai

Exodus 19:1-25

Understanding Series

James K. Bruckner

... Mt. Musa.) 19:4–6 Some scholars consider this meeting with the Lord to be the birth of Israel (e.g., Brueggemann, “Exodus,” p. 835; Durham, Exodus, p. 262). If we are to use the metaphor of the birth of Israel as a people and take the Lord’s version of the story into account (v. 4), they were born when they cried out in Egypt and the Lord delivered them through the sea; they were nurtured as an infant in the wilderness (see Deut. 32:10; Ezek. 16:4–6); and brought by God to be presented, ready to ...

448. Division of the Land East of the Jordan

Joshua 13:8-33

Understanding Series

J. Gordon Harris

... east and west. Following the chronology of the conquest, Joshua divides first the land east of the Jordan. Insight: Gad, Reuben, and the Half Tribe of Manasseh In the books of Joshua and Deuteronomy, Reuben is mentioned before Gad, whereas in Numbers 32 the versions vary as to which precedes the other (MT, LXX, and Samaritan). Gad precedes Reuben in the list of cities in Numbers 32:34–38. In other verses, Gad precedes Reuben in the Hebrew text (MT) except for verse 1. Numbers probably preserves the older ...

449. Israel Fights the Remaining Canaanites

Judges 1:1-36

Understanding Series

Cheryl A. Brown

... 10:29; 17:28). Why did the author choose to tell the story of Joseph’s taking Bethel first in the area of the central hill country, in comparison with Joshua’s account, which begins with Jericho and Ai and does not mention Bethel? The version in Judges points to the author’s interest in cultic centers, particularly Jerusalem, Bethel, and Dan. Bethel and Dan were the two major cultic centers of the northern kingdom; surely it is intentional that the author’s account of the northern tribes’ activity ...

450. The Family of Abraham

1 Chronicles 1:28

Understanding Series

Louis C. Jonker

... is understandable. He wanted to emphasize that the origin of this people goes back to the covenant bearer, whose name was changed from Jacob to Israel. 1:35–54 The genealogy of Esau starts in 1:35. It is clear that this list is an abridged version of Genesis 36:1–19. Apart from Eliphaz and Reuel, three other sons of Esau are mentioned. This differs slightly from Genesis 36:10, which features only the first two. For each of these two sons, the Chronicler lists a few sons, again with slight differences ...

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