Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 426 to 450 of 797 results

Deuteronomy 14:1-21

Understanding Series

Christopher J. H. Wright

... blessing (7:13 and 11:14)—they are not mere products of the fertility of nature, still less the gift of any fertility god of Canaan. Deuteronomy’s constant educational passion surfaces again at the end of the verse (so that you may learn . . . ), but with typical Deuteronomic human warmth. Inculcating the fear of God could be achieved during a family party just as much as during family prayers. The allowance made for long-distance commuters (vv. 24–26) only serves to reinforce the intention that the ...

427. The Temple’s Furnishings

1 Kings 7:13-51

Understanding Series

Iain W. Provan

... fashioned from bronze (vv. 15–47). Solomon himself, however, is described as making the furnishings of gold (vv. 48–50). 7:13–14 Although Hiram is summoned from Tyre, the authors are most careful to point out that it is only his father, from whom he had learned his trade, who is a native of that city. His mother is an Israelite widow from the tribe of Naphtali in the far north of the country, near the Phoenician coast. The detail may well have been provided to reassure us that Hiram was not simply a ...

428. Solomon's Adversaries

1 Kings 11:14-25

Understanding Series

Iain W. Provan

... ) to whose wisdom people should listen as the Queen of Sheba had listened to Solomon (Matt. 12:42; Luke 11:31; cf. also Matt. 13:54; Luke 2:40, 52). Like the wisdom teachers of the OT, Jesus is often to be found in the Gospels encouraging his hearers to learn about God by observing how God’s world works (e.g., Matt. 6:25–34; Luke 12:22–34). More than that, however, the NT presents him to us as himself the incarnation of wisdom, the very Wisdom of God (1 Cor. 1:24), present with the Father from the ...

429. Ben-Hadad Attacks Samaria

1 Kings 20:1-12

Understanding Series

Iain W. Provan

... with no gods or many, the strategy would have had a fair chance of success. The world that the Arameans actually inhabit, however, is not such a world, and military planning will not make it so. “Other things” are not equal—and the Arameans have to learn this (like the Egyptians before them) as much as the Israelites need to be reminded of it. 20:26–34 The vast army of the Arameans marches up a second time against Israel, whose forces are by comparison but two small flocks of goats (vv. 26–28 ...

430. The Shunammite's Land Restored

2 Kings 8:1-6

Understanding Series

Iain W. Provan

... unique Hb. word in v. 15 means) and somehow (we are not given the details) takes power. 8:16–24 We last heard of Judah in 2 Kings 3, when Jehoshaphat was involved in the ill-fated campaign against Moab. We now return to Judah to learn of Jehoram son of Jehoshaphat—first introduced briefly in 1 Kings 22:50 and then mentioned again in 2 Kings 1:17. After two relatively righteous kings (Asa and Jehoshaphat), Judah has a monarch who shares with his Israelite counterpart not only a name (see the additional ...

431. Athaliah and Joash

2 Kings 11:1-21

Understanding Series

Iain W. Provan

... all that remains to shield David’s “lamp” (8:19) from the winds of irreversible change. 11:4–16 It is not immediately clear who the Jehoiada is who organizes the coup that eventually unseats Athaliah, but in the course of the narrative we learn that he is the chief priest (vv. 9, 15 etc.). Choosing his moment (in the seventh year), he conspires with the commanders of the various military units in Jerusalem (Carites, guards) and manages to create a secure environment in which the young prince can ...

432. Jehoahaz King of Israel

2 Kings 13:1-9

Understanding Series

Iain W. Provan

... (note the careful way in which John 1:1–42 addresses the issue). Thus it is not surprising that the typological significance of Elisha in relation to Jesus has been downplayed. Solomon and Elijah are presented in the NT as those from whom Christian believers can learn. Whether Elisha is presented in this way is less clear. Hebrews 11:34–35 (and possibly v. 36, if the boys from Bethel are in mind) may be taken as referring to him, and the early church certainly exercised faith of the kind being exhorted ...

433. Isaiah’s Commission

Isaiah 6:1-13

Understanding Series

John Goldingay

... worship, the first of these (1:15) would have been especially relevant. Whichever it is, Isaiah finds that a vision of the holy God shuts the mouth. 6:6–7 Isaiah’s instinct to infer that holiness will be the end of him turns out to be mistaken. He also learns that holiness can mean forgiveness. In keeping with his stress on fire as a means of judging/purging (1:25; 4:4), a coal from the incense altar touches the part of Isaiah’s body that he recognized to be the place of pollution (cf. Num. 16:46–47 ...

434. The Lord's Devastation of the Earth

Isaiah 24:1-23

Understanding Series

John Goldingay

... to each other as members of one family. God invites them to live in the light of that. This is, among other things, the best way to evade the consequences of the curse. The vision of 2:3 is then of the nations’ re-learning a revelation they have forgotten. The curse consuming the earth suggests another model for understanding causality in the world (see on 9:18–21). Once again disaster comes not only as God’s act but as the “natural” result of wrongdoing. Violence and sexual immorality ...

435. The Servant of the Lord

Isaiah 49:1-7

Understanding Series

John Goldingay

... this. Isaiah had been designated Yahweh’s servant (see 20:3), as had prophets in general (see, e.g., Amos 3:7). In the present context, however, the expression raises questions. The servant of Yahweh has been a major focus of chapters 41–48, and we have learned that: Jacob-Israel is Yahweh’s servant (41:8–9) Yahweh’s servant has a specific role to fulfill (42:1–4) Jacob-Israel cannot fulfill that role (42:19) Nevertheless Jacob-Israel is still Yahweh’s servant (43:10; 44:1–2, 21, 26; 45:4 ...

436. Israel's Sin and the Servant's Obedience

Isaiah 50:1-11

Understanding Series

John Goldingay

... ; Stuttgart: Calwer, 1990, p. 360). Perhaps the prophet literally received a new message from God on waking every day, in which case the vast bulk of these messages were not put into this book. More likely, the picture of being awoken every morning to learn is part of the metaphor of teacher and pupil. But it does function to make the claim that the teacher has consistently instructed the pupil. It also prepares the way for the further use of the “awakening” motif in chapters 51–52. The God ...

437. The Suffering and Glory of the Servant

Isaiah 52:13--53:12

Understanding Series

John Goldingay

... he had to fulfill. The word “punishment” (musar) is not a legal one but suggests the chastisement of a child or a student by a parent or a teacher in order to teach a lesson. He gets beaten like a child or a student so that other people may learn from it. The supreme significance of his going through what they went through as well as what they did not go through is thus that this brought us peace and healing (v. 5). We do not yet know how this happens, though the implication may be that watching him ...

438. The Future Glory of Zion

Isaiah 54:1-17

Understanding Series

John Goldingay

... is a familiar exhortation in these chapters, but characteristically the Poet now takes familiar words in a new direction. In a modern Western culture the image here would no longer work. The solution for a Western woman today who has had her husband walk out on her is to learn to be her own person, perhaps with the help of her sisters, and a man who has walked out in a fit of temper can by no means assume that he can walk back in. In a traditional culture, reproach continues to attach to a woman who could ...

439. Signs, Sayings, and Oracles of Judgment

Ezekiel 12:1-28, Ezekiel 13:1-23, Ezekiel 14:1-11, Ezekiel 14:12-23

Understanding Series

Steven Tuell

... and all his troops, the prophet says, the Lord will scatter to the winds, and the Lord will pursue them with drawn sword (v. 14; compare 5:2; 11:8–10). Ezekiel well knew the temper of Jerusalem’s leaders. In 2 Kings 25:4–5, we learn that Zedekiah and his guards did try to flee the city once Babylon had breached its walls; however, as Ezekiel foresaw, the escape attempt failed. Ezekiel’s statement that the king “will not see” the land of his exile (v. 13) also proves grimly accurate. After the ...

440. Riddles and Metaphors

Ezekiel 15:1-8, Ezekiel 16:1-63, Ezekiel 17:1-24

Understanding Series

Steven Tuell

As a priest, Ezekiel was literate and well educated. His learned background is apparent in his imaginative use of a variety of literary forms and styles. The effect of this creativity on his original audience was evidently mixed; some contemporaries dismissed him as a teller of riddles (20:49; the NIV renders the Heb. meshalim “parables”) or “one who sings love ...

441. An Unholy History

Ezekiel 20:1-29, Ezekiel 20:30-49

Understanding Series

Steven Tuell

... of swearing oaths in the Lord’s name (see Exod. 20:7; note, though, Jephthah’s presence in the ranks of the faithful in Heb. 11:32). The Bible cites the child sacrifices of Ahaz and Manasseh as demonstrations of their wickedness, and as idolatrous practices learned from the nations (see, e.g., the prohibition of child sacrifices to the god Molech in Lev. 18:21; 20:2–5). However, the accounts of Ahaz or Manasseh’s child sacrifices do not mention Molech (compare 1 Kgs. 11:7 and 2 Kgs. 23:10); nor ...

442. Ammon, Moab, Edom, and Philistia

Ezekiel 25:1-7, Ezekiel 25:8-11, Ezekiel 25:12-14, Ezekiel 25:15-17

Understanding Series

Steven Tuell

... that the recognition formula in these chapters expresses any dawning faith in the Lord. It is better, with John Strong (“Tyre’s Isolationist Policies in the Early Sixth Century BCE: Evidence from the Prophets,” VT 47 [1997], p. 217) to see the nations as learning the Lord’s power as a warrior, through their fruitless efforts to oppose the divine will. Later texts in the HB (see Isa. 66:17–24; Zech. 14:20–21) do affirm God’s gracious presence among the nations, a theme that will of course ...

443. Tyre, Sidon—and Israel

Ezekiel 26:1-21, Ezekiel 27:1-36, Ezekiel 28:1-19, Ezekiel 28:20-26

Understanding Series

Steven Tuell

... neighbors who maligned them (v. 26), Israel will at last be able to live in safety (v. 26). God’s deliverance will cause Israel to know the Lord—but not in the way that God’s judgment brought the knowledge of God to the nations. The nations learn the power of God the warrior, and the folly of opposing God’s designs. Israel will enter into a relationship: “Then they will know that I am the LORD their God” (v. 26). Additional Notes 26:2 Tyre. Herodotus (Hist. 2.161) records an assault on Tyre ...

444. Ezekiel a Watchman

Ezekiel 33:1-20, Ezekiel 33:21-33

Understanding Series

Steven Tuell

... Repentance leads not only to a changed heart, but to a changed world. The turning point of this book, as of Ezekiel’s life and ministry, comes in verses 21–22: In the twelfth year of our exile, in the tenth month on the fifth day (v. 21), Ezekiel learns of Jerusalem’s fall. The city fell in the eleventh year, ninth day, and fourth month of Zedekiah’s reign and Jehoiachin’s captivity (2 Kgs. 25:2–4). It took over a year for a refugee to bring word of this tragedy to Ezekiel’s community at Tel ...

445. A Prophecy Against Gog

Ezekiel 38:1-39:29

Understanding Series

Steven Tuell

... enemy. So, in Daniel, the northern enemy is Seleucid Syria (Dan. 11:6–15), and particularly Antiocus IV Epiphanes (175–164 B.C.; Dan. 11:40–45). Ezekiel 38–39 reflects these later developments in the image of the “enemy from the north.” Now we learn what will happen to Gog once his long-predicted invasion has begun. “When Gog attacks the land of Israel, my hot anger will be aroused, declares the Sovereign LORD” (v. 18)—for all the world as though God had not summoned Gog to Israel for ...

446. Prologue to the Law of the Temple: The Lord Comes Home

Ezekiel 40:1--43:12

Understanding Series

Steven Tuell

... year after the fall of the city,” points to another unusual feature. Usually, the dates in Ezekiel consist of simply a numbered year, month, and day (though he applies the date in 1:2 to the exile of Jehoiachin). Only here and in 33:21, where Ezekiel learns of the city’s fall, does the date expressly mark the length of “our exile.” Rather than in a numbered month, this vision is said to have come “at the beginning of the year” (Heb. roʾsh hashanah). The first ten days of the year in the ...

447. The Law of the Temple

Ezekiel 43:13-27, Ezekiel 44:1-31, Ezekiel 45:1-12, Ezekiel 45:13--46:24

Understanding Series

Steven Tuell

... bit of evidence for the date and setting of these chapters in their final form. According to the Demotic Chronicle, the Persian king Darius I issued a command in Egypt in his third year (ca. 519 B.C.): Let be brought unto me the learned men . . . from among the (military) officers, the priests, (and) the scribes of Egypt so that, being assembled together, they may in concert write the law of Egypt which had been (observed) formerly through the forty-fourth regnal year of Pharaoh Amasis, (that is) the ...

448. Jesus the Messiah from Joseph’s Family Line

Matthew 1:1-17

Teach the Text

Jeannine K. Brown

... we routinely ask the question “Where are you from?” to get a sense of who a person is—their identity. The genealogy of Jesus is an answer to this question “Where are you from?” in Matthew’s context. And in a similar way, we learn something valuable from hearing about a person’s roots and personal location. Jesus is the Messiah, who brings restoration of Israel from exile. Mythology: In the Greek myth of Sisyphus, this famous king was sentenced to a terrible eternity for insulting the gods. In ...

449. Jesus as True King of Israel

Matthew 2:19-23, Matthew 2:13-18, Matthew 2:1-12

Teach the Text

Jeannine K. Brown

... the rule of Herod’s son Archelaus by settling in the north, in Galilee. 2:4 chief priests and teachers of the law. This first reference to Jewish leaders in Matthew’s Gospel couples Israel’s temple leaders with its learned men. The chief priests were the key leaders of temple functions and activities; they held both religious and political authority centered in Jerusalem and in alliance with and under the authority of Roman occupation. “Teachers of the law” translates grammateis (traditionally ...

450. Jesus Tempted in the Wilderness

Matthew 4:1-11

Teach the Text

Jeannine K. Brown

... cites from Deuteronomy 8:3, which recounts Yahweh’s humbling of Israel by making them reliant on manna to teach them that “one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord” (NRSV). While Israel struggled to learn the lessons of the wilderness, Jesus passes the first test with flying colors by recalling God’s words to Israel and the story of Israel’s wilderness days. Jesus answers the second temptation (4:6)—to throw himself down from the top of the temple ...

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