Sermon and Worship Resources

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 4701 to 4725 of 4958 results

4701. The Lord’s Anger Against Nineveh

Nahum 1:1-15

Understanding Series

John Goldingay

... adds reference to Judah to make explicit that Yahweh now addresses the Judeans rather than the Assyrians; verse 15 supports this interpretation. Although it is Assyria that has directly afflicted Judah (ʿanah in the piʿel), Assyria was Yahweh’s agent, as it claimed in Isaiah (though “afflicting” is not particularly Isaianic language). But the time when it had that role is coming to an end. The time of affliction is over. We should not read too much into the no more. Over coming decades Yahweh will ...

4702. The Promised Glory of the New House

Haggai 2:1-9

Understanding Series

John Goldingay

... the comment on 1:2. Yahweh’s subsequent reminder (v. 5), “This is what I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt,” supports the general application of the phrase “the people of the land.” That piece of history is one that is open to being claimed by people who never went into exile as well as by people who did, and even by people in Samaria as well as by people in Judah. To exclude these groups, Yahweh would have needed to refer to coming back from Babylon or to recognizing Jerusalem. The ...

4703. The Lord Promises to Bless Jerusalem

Zechariah 8:1-23

Understanding Series

Pamela J. Scalise

... to spare Sodom for the sake of ten righteous men, but ten men could not be found. Many, many people (many multiples of ten) from the other nations will seek the Lord. In a bold move, they will grasp the hem of one Jew’s robe. This physical action lays claim to a desired relationship (cf. Ruth 3:9; 1 Sam. 15:27; Ezek. 16:8). By faith the woman suffering a long-term hemorrhage touched the hem of Jesus’ garment and was healed (Matt. 9:20–22; Mark 5:25–34; Luke 8:43–48). The hem of a garment ...

4704. Jacob Loved, Esau Hated

Malachi 1:1-5

Understanding Series

Pamela J. Scalise

... Although it is traditionally rendered “forever,” the phrase ʿad ʿolam can also mean “for a lifetime” (1 Sam. 27:12) or “long-enduring” (Gen. 49:26). 1:5 Beyond the borders of Israel: The Heb. phrase also means “over the territory of Israel.” The claims in Mal. 1:11 and 14 about the greatness of the Lord’s name among the nations support the NIV interpretation. This phrase, with its double meaning, may be another allusion to the book of Obadiah. The last 3 verses of that book are concerned ...

4705. The Vision of Obadiah

Obadiah 1:1-21

Understanding Series

Elizabeth Achtemeier

... to their homeland, as would also all of the dispersed exiles of the Babylonian conquests of the 6th century BC. In the kingdom of God, the people of God would once again be whole. Further, no enemy would threaten Israel’s borders or claim its territory. Thus, the Israelites in the southern desert, which was called the Negev, would possess Edom, verse 19. Those in the Shephelah or foothills of Palestine would have the coastal regions from the Philistines. Ephraim and Samaria in the north would belong ...

4706. A Room with Locked Doors

John 20:19-23

Sermon

King Duncan

... . I read something recently that gave me something new to worry about. It was once believed that only the United States and Russia possessed the last vials containing smallpox, the greatest killer in the history of the human race. In 1992, a Soviet defector claimed that the Russians had weaponized smallpox and actually produced up to twenty tons of it. With all the turmoil in the former Soviet Union, there is the nagging fear that one day a terrorist group may pay to gain access to this weaponized smallpox ...

4707. Timeout at Tiberias

John 21:1-14

Sermon

King Duncan

... there is Someone close by willing to catch you when you fall. Pastor Lloyd John Ogilvie once told about a friend of his as a youth, who was a circus performer. This friend described his experience of learning to work as a trapeze artist. He claimed that, once you know that the net below will catch you, you stop worrying about falling. You actually learn to fall successfully! What that means is, you can concentrate on catching the trapeze swinging toward you, and not on falling, because repeated falls in the ...

4708. No More Tears

Sermon

King Duncan

... chaplain of the U.S. Senate and one of the twentieth century’s most popular preachers, once remarked that God has equipped us to go deep-sea diving and instead we wade in bathtubs. Sacrifice is an important part of what it means to be a Christian. Can we claim the promises of Christ if we do not carry his cross? Now we’re not talking about salvation here. If you’re here today just to make sure you have a ticket for heaven, that’s already been punched for you by Christ. What we’re talking about ...

4709. People Who Procrastinate

Luke 9:51-62

Sermon

King Duncan

... , “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” Interesting response. Here’s what we don’t know about this man. Had his father just died? Certainly, if so, he did need to see to this immediately. Or did his father have a lingering illness that would claim him sometime in the near future? Or was he simply saying that he had responsibility for his father and that some day, some time his father would die, so he had better stay home until that day came? Whatever the answer, Jesus said to him, “Let the ...

4710. Many Disciples Desert Jesus

John 6:60-71

Understanding Series

J. Ramsey Michaels

... (though hidden) audience turns out to be Jesus’ disciples, not mentioned since 6:22. What is surprising is that their reaction to the discourse corresponds closely to that of “the Jews” who grumbled about Jesus (v. 41) and argued among themselves over his claims (v. 52). It is not self-evident that Jesus’ disciples in this passage are a well-defined group firmly committed to following him—except for the Twelve, who emerge as a distinct entity in verses 67–71. The term disciples is perhaps used ...

4711. Jesus Teaches at the Feast

John 7:14-24

Understanding Series

J. Ramsey Michaels

... 17; 14:1–6). The implication of all this for the hearers is inescapable. If Jesus is in the right as far as the law is concerned, they are wrong to be angry with him and to seek his life. They are in fact disobedient to the very law they claim to uphold (v. 19). The real shock for them comes not in the logic of the argument, however, but in Jesus’ remark, almost in passing, that they are trying to kill him (v. 19b). Indignantly they deny any such intent (v. 20). Their seeming lack of awareness of what ...

4712. Jesus Heals a Man Born Blind

John 9:1-12

Understanding Series

J. Ramsey Michaels

... the man’s identity (vv. 8–9), they confront him directly (vv. 10–12). Was he the same person as the blind beggar they had known before, or wasn’t he? Their disagreement recalls certain disputes or “schisms” in the crowd elsewhere in this Gospel over the claims and identity of Jesus himself (e.g., 7:12, 40–43; cf. 9:16; 10:19–21). The man’s response (v. 9) is also strangely reminiscent of Jesus. I am the man, he says, using the same formula of self-identification that Jesus had used (Gr ...

4713. Spiritual Blindness

John 9:35-41

Understanding Series

J. Ramsey Michaels

... to see clearly is one for righteousness (cf., e.g., 11:9–10; 12:35–36; 1 John 2:9–11). But the reversal used with the metaphor (v. 39) is present in its application as well: The blind are not guilty; the guilty ones are those who claim to see. The blind man was cured; the Pharisees, by their stubborn refusal to accept the reality of the power of God, only proved themselves blind. Their blindness was deeper because it was willful. In their case (not the blind man’s) the question, Who sinned? (cf. v ...

4714. The Raising of Lazarus

John 11:17-37, John 11:38-44

Understanding Series

J. Ramsey Michaels

... and despite the fact that he neither rebukes nor endorses her confession (he is similarly reserved about the confessions of Nathanael in 1:49, Peter in 6:69, and Thomas in 20:28). Martha acknowledges Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God in the context of his claim to be the giver of life; her explicit Yes, Lord to his question, Do you believe this? makes this clear. The narrator’s endorsement of her confession is seen in his use of the same two titles in stating the purpose for which the Gospel was written ...

4715. The Plot to Kill Jesus

John 11:45-57

Understanding Series

J. Ramsey Michaels

... . If there is anything corresponding to his momentous self-disclosure before the high priest (Mark 14:62; Matt. 26:64; cf. Luke 22:69), it is the exchange in Solomon’s Colonnade in the temple in 10:22–39. Even here, Jesus points back to claims made earlier, whether in word or deed (10:25). The trial of Jesus recorded in the synoptic Gospels is often divided into two trials: a “Jewish trial” and a “Roman trial.” John’s Gospel, however, replaces the Jewish trial with more about Jesus’ public ...

4716. The Triumphal Entry

John 12:12-19

Understanding Series

J. Ramsey Michaels

... on a donkey as on a throne. Jesus’ kingship has been mentioned only twice before in this Gospel, once in a more or less positive way (1:49), and once negatively (6:15). But in the passion narrative it will become the dominant category in which Jesus and his claims are presented—for the last time—to the world (cf. 18:33–38; 19:12–16, 19–22). The accent on kingship in the story of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem suggests that in a very real sense (just as the Passover notice in 11:55 intimated) the ...

4717. Jesus Washes His Disciples’ Feet

John 13:1-17, John 13:18-30

Understanding Series

J. Ramsey Michaels

... has warned of these very things in advance (cf. 16:4a, where he makes the same point about persecution). Those who remember his warnings (cf. Mark 13:23/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 ...

4718. The Impending Departure II

John 16:5-16, John 16:17-33

Understanding Series

J. Ramsey Michaels

... is identified here, as elsewhere in this Gospel (5:29 being the only exception), with Jesus’ victory over Satan, especially in his Passion (12:31; cf. 14:30; in the Synoptics, cf. Mark 3:23–27). Because the Passion is almost upon him, Jesus can claim that the world’s evil ruler now stands judged (v. 11; cf., “now” in 12:31). What is this world that the Counselor and the disciples will confront? Is it the world of the Jews or of the Gentiles? The preceding references to expulsion from synagogues ...

4719. Jesus Prays for His Disciples

John 17:1-5, John 17:6-19, John 17:20-26

Understanding Series

J. Ramsey Michaels

... may believe [or “know”] that you have sent me (vv. 21, 23). Jesus’ delight in these followers whom God has given him is carried over from verses 4–8. His acknowledgment to the Father that they are yours (v. 9) recalls verse 6, while the claim that glory has come to me through them (v. 10) further explains I have brought you glory on earth (v. 4)—thereby reinforcing the explanation already provided in verses 4–8. The dividing line, in fact, between report or presentation (vv. 4–8) and petition ...

4720. The Third Appearance

John 21:1-14

Understanding Series

J. Ramsey Michaels

... based on the fact that 153 is a “triangular” number, the sum of every integer from one to seventeen. All such theories are highly speculative, and none is at all convincing. The most intriguing observation is that of Jerome, who in the fourth century claimed that Greek zoologists listed 153 different kinds of fish (Commentary on Ezekiel 47:6–12; cf. Jesus’ parable in Matt. 13:47, in which the net gathers in “all kinds of fish”). One must take Jerome’s word for it, however; the surviving texts ...

4721. Jesus, Peter, and the Beloved Disciple

John 21:15-25

Understanding Series

J. Ramsey Michaels

... to these things and who wrote them down. We know that his testimony is true. The beloved disciple is here identified, not only as the source of the material to be found in the Gospel of John as a whole, but as the one who actually wrote it. The claim is that he is the Gospel’s author, and therefore, one would assume, its narrator as well. Yet he is not the narrator in verse 24 itself. Someone else is vouching for his authority: we know that his testimony is true. It is likely that the same person or ...

4722. Imitating Christ's Humility

Philippians 2:1-11

Understanding Series

F. F. Bruce

... ” is the quintessential Christian creed, and in that creed “Lord” is given the most august sense that it can bear. When Christians in later generations refused to say “Caesar is Lord,” they refused because they knew that this was no mere courtesy title that Caesar claimed: it was a title that implied his right to receive divine honors, and in this sense they could give it to none but Jesus. To them there was “but one God, the Father, … and … but one Lord, Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 8:6). In the ...

4723. The Beginning

Genesis 1:1-2:3

Understanding Series

John E. Hartley

... the Spirit, who was present over the waters, empowered God’s words, bringing into being what God had spoken (A. Kapelrud, “Die Theologie der Schöpfung im Alten Testament,” ZAW 91 [1979], pp. 165–66). The wording of Psalm 33:6, 9 supports this claim: “By the word of Yahweh were the heavens made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth . . . For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm.” The parallel in this psalm between “word” and “breath” (v. 6) communicates ...

4724. Adam and Eve

Genesis 2:4-25

Understanding Series

John E. Hartley

... partners grows as each person contributes significantly to the other’s life. Marriage, then, is one community in which a man and a woman can establish the rapprochement that is possible because humans are made in the image of God. The use of “cling” supports this claim, for in Deuteronomy it describes the desired way Israel is to relate to Yahweh, with whom the nation is in covenant (e.g., Deut. 10:20; 11:22; 13:4). The declaration they will become one flesh describes further the unity of a man and a ...

4725. The Sons of Noah

Genesis 9:18-29

Understanding Series

John E. Hartley

... from them. This curse has played an important role in race relations. Slave traders and owners in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries A.D. in particular used it as a defense for their cruel trafficking in humans, even to the point of claiming that they were carrying out God’s will in their slave trading. Their faulty identification of Canaanites with Africans and the obscurity of the curse show how they twisted a text for justification of their brutal deeds. Furthermore, these slavers were very ...

Showing results