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Showing 476 to 500 of 4977 results

476. The Disciples’ Insufficient Faith to Heal as Jesus Heals

Matthew 17:14-23, Matthew 17:24-27

Teach the Text

Jeannine K. Brown

... expectations due to their little faith (already at 14:15–16; 15:32–33). if you have faith as small as a mustard seed. Given that Jesus has already referred to the mustard seed as “the smallest of all seeds” (13:32), this statement is quite amazing. Their amount of faith need not be large to do all that Jesus expects the disciples to do and what they have been empowered to do (10:1). Yet the disciples—those consistently portrayed as having “little faith” (oligopistos, oligopistia)—do not even ...

477. Family in the New Kingdom Community

Mark 10:13-16, Mark 10:1-12

Teach the Text

Grant R. Osborne

... the eastern shore to avoid Samaria, then to enter Judea at Jericho). On the way he is accosted again by Pharisees. This was not an innocent question but rather a “test” designed to trip him up (see 8:11). The issue of divorce had become quite controversial both for political (the divorces of Herod Antipas and Herodias, discussed in 6:17–29) and religious reasons. There were three views in ancient Judaism: an open view (held by the followers of Hillel) that allowed divorce for any reason; a narrow view ...

478. Jesus and Women

Luke 7:36--8:3

Teach the Text

R.T. France

... of the two stories when later tradition supposed that Mary Magdalene (8:2) was formerly a prostitute. There is no biblical warrant for that idea. Luke makes no suggestion that Mary was the woman of 7:36–50, and he describes her deliverance in quite different terms. Historical and Cultural Background Women had a subordinate place in Jewish society. All of the guests at a dinner such as this likely were males. Rabbis typically took care to avoid being in female company (cf. John 4:27), let alone the ...

479. Christian Success and Christlikeness

1 Corinthians 4:1-21

Teach the Text

Preben Vang

... responsibility we have as Christians to look up to and copy Christ as well as to represent him accurately to others looking up to us. We all help one another in this way, since we need a vision of the ultimate goal (Christ), examples of others who are quite advanced (seasoned saints), peers who are just a little ahead of or behind us, and new learners looking up to us whom we seek to serve and develop. We have a responsibility to identify and imitate good role models and then to do the same for others.

480. Job Hears the Whispers of God’s Works

Job 26:1--31:40

Teach the Text

Daniel J. Estes

... . Some commentators regard Job as the speaker from chapter 26 through chapter 31, including this chapter. However, the tone of Job 28 is calm, in contrast to the turgid emotions of Job’s speeches both in chapter 27 and in chapters 29–31, and its content is quite distinctive as well. It may well be, then, that Job 28 is an interlude spoken by the narrator. If so, it serves as a transition from the three rounds of dialogue (Job 3–27) to the three extended monologues by Job (chaps. 29–31), Elihu (chaps ...

481. “Lord, Our Lord, How Majestic Is Your Name in All the Earth!”

Psalm 9:1-20

Teach the Text

C. Hassell Bullock

... the position lies somewhere between the All of Christ and the None of Christ approaches, which we could call the Some of Christ approach. Judging from the fact that the book of Psalms is the most quoted Old Testament book in the New Testament, it is quite clear that the New Testament writers believed their messianic hope was written in the lines of the Psalms, not merely projected on to them at a later time.4 The messianic hope in the Psalms falls into at least three paradigms. One is the royal paradigm ...

482. “Lord, Who May Dwell in Your Sacred Tent?”

Psalm 15:1-5

Teach the Text

C. Hassell Bullock

... Psalm 15 is a follow-up psalm that describes those who are ethically prepared to enter Zion’s sanctuary (15:1). Delitzsch, quite astutely, comments that Psalm 15 answers the question of who is the “company of the righteous” (14:5) for whom future ... and is used of God’s dwelling in sacred places (Exod. 24:16; NIV: “settled”), although the two terms are used quite synonymously here (see “Theological Insights”). 15:2 The one whose walk is blameless. Both the noun and the verb “walk” are ...

483. “The King Rejoices in Your Strength, Lord”

Psalm 21:1-13

Teach the Text

C. Hassell Bullock

... as if we are standing outside the temple and hearing the voices of worship, and we have a vague idea of what is going on inside the building as we try to picture the action in our mind’s eye. The question that the form critics put forward, and quite validly, is, What was taking place behind the words of the psalm, a scene for which the words of the psalm are either a description or an illusion? Since one liturgy, to continue the analogy, has just ended (Psalm 20), the strains of that service are still in ...

484. “The Earth Is the Lord’s, and Everything in It”

Psalm 24:1-10

Teach the Text

C. Hassell Bullock

... temple on the first day of the week (Sunday),[2] and in some Jewish traditions it is still recited on that day. The reason for the first day of the week is that God began to create the world on that day, which Psalm 24 celebrates. It is quite obvious that the orientation of the psalm is the temple, and even though the speakers are not identified and the ark is not mentioned, based on other information from Scripture (e.g., 2 Sam. 6), we assume that the ark accompanies the procession to “the mountain of ...

485. “The Span of My Years Is as Nothing before You”

Psalm 39:1-13

Teach the Text

C. Hassell Bullock

... Text Psalm 39 is a poetic essay on the brevity of life and its implications. All of us at some point should engage in this train of thought, and when we do, hopefully we will find that this thought accrues benefits for a more meaningful life. It is quite possible that these are the thoughts the suppliant has suppressed (39:1–3), because when he emerges from his self-imposed silence, they are the concern of the first prayer he prays: “Show me, Lord, my life’s end” (39:4a). We should point out to our ...

486. “As the Deer Pants for Streams of Water, So My Soul Pants for You, My God”

Psalm 42:1-11, Psalm 43:1-5

Teach the Text

C. Hassell Bullock

... Ps. 72:20),4the Elohistic collection of psalms in Books 2 and 3 still, with the positioning of the Korah and Asaph psalms,5gives the impression of the unmistakable Levitical seal. We might suggest that, by the time Books 2 and 3 were edited, it was quite obvious that the psalmic material belonged to the sanctuary and thus to the Levites who composed its musical staff, and such an editing as we see in Books 2 and 3 was both the Levitical seal of approval and the Levitical contribution. The question of why ...

487. “Ride Forth Victoriously in the Cause of Truth, Humility and Justice”

Psalm 45:1-17

Teach the Text

C. Hassell Bullock

... of diplomatic marriages, it was only natural to identify him as the unnamed king, and the queen as the princess of Egypt who became his bride (1 Kings 3:1; 9:16). However, since the psalm represents this king as a military figure (45:4), it does not quite match up with Solomon as a “man of peace,” as he is called in 1 Chronicles 22:9.3There is the possibility, of course, that our scribe was giving a full portrait of the king and that the reference to military exploits, real or ideal, was necessary to ...

488. “Be Exalted, O God, above the Heavens; Let Your Glory Be over All the Earth”

Psalm 57:1-11

Teach the Text

C. Hassell Bullock

... among the peoples. This indeed seems to be the undefined design of God’s emissaries of “love and faithfulness” whom he sends forth (57:3). As with the incipient notion of Israel as a light to the nations, we may also see the forming lines of Isaiah’s quite well-developed view that the word of God goes forth to accomplish a purpose, for which it cannot fail (Isa. 31:2; 40:8; 45:23; 55:11). Mission accomplished! Teaching the Text We want to remain faithful to the biblical text as we seek to hear the ...

489. “Human Help Is Worthless”

Psalm 60:1-12

Teach the Text

C. Hassell Bullock

... . 60:4 raised a banner to be unfurled against the bow.See Isaiah 30:17: “Till you are left like a flagstaff on a mountaintop, like a banner on a hill.” After the exodus, Moses declared that Yahweh was Israel’s “banner” (Exod. 17:15). Quite significantly, then, this is an allusion to Yahweh’s choice of Israel as his people. Mesopotamian military standards had the deity’s symbol on them.6Israel also carried banners into battle (Isa. 13:2–3; 31:9), but they probably bore no symbol of Yahweh ...

490. “May All the Peoples Praise You”

Psalm 67:1-7

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C. Hassell Bullock

... ).6The priestly benediction became a stylized way of reiterating God’s blessings on Israel. It is certainly not necessary to date the psalm in the postexilic era, as some do, based on the assumption that the priestly benediction was a later literary development. Quite to the contrary, the priestly benediction was discovered on a silver amulet in Ketef Hinnom in Jerusalem, dated in the seventh–sixth centuries BC.7 67:2 so that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations. God’s ...

491. God Has No Grandchildren

John 3:1-21

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... the question of his heart. “What did He say to this man who had dared to come to Him through the night? He did not say to him, “Nicodemus, I know what the trouble is with you; you are not honest. Nicodemus, you must quit swearing. Nicodemus, you must quit Sabbath-breaking. You must quit breaking your marriage vows. You must stop yielding to the lusts of the flesh.” No, He did not say that to this master in Israel. Had he done so Nicodemus would have blazed upon Him, for he was guilty of none of these ...

492. Pop Verses: Jeremiah 29:11

Jeremiah 29:11

Sermon

Charley Reeb

... for us is not complicated then why do we struggle with it? The answer: We have a will, too! Let me tell you a secret. Quite often people know what God’s will is for them; they just don’t want to do it. They hide behind the statement, “Woe is me ... will we just have to go back to fundamentals. Ever hear a reporter interview an athlete who has just come out of a slump? Quite often you will hear the athlete tell the report, “I just needed to get back to fundamentals.” Sometimes when we struggle in our ...

493. Joseph: The Righteous Carpenter

Matthew 1:18-25

Sermon

Charley Reeb

... and nurturing the Savior of the World! He would have missed being one of the most important figures in the history of the world. But he didn’t miss it because he was patient. I don’t want you to miss God’s wonderful plan for you too! Don’t quit on your faith. Don’t take the easy road. Don’t rush into something you will regret. God is working His purpose out for you. God is doing things in your present right now that will affect your future. This is why your patience and trust of God is critical ...

494. Signs of the End of the Age

Mark 13:1-31

Understanding Series

Larry W. Hurtado

... there the answer is far from specific, concentrating instead on warnings to be ready at all times. It is quite clear, then, that Mark intended his readers (who would naturally identify themselves with the disciples) to see their own preoccupation ... through it), and that for them it was the worst thing they would experience and could imagine. In the actual event, the war was quite costly. Josephus tells us that so many Jews were crucified that the hills were denuded of trees to provide the crosses! 13:20 For ...

495. Abraham Justified by Faith

Romans 4:1-25

Understanding Series

James R. Edwards

... was itself a meritorious work. Paul, conversely, understood believed as radical trust in God. It was common in Jewish midrash to take a verse (sometimes out of context) to try to prove one point or another. On the basis of Genesis 15:6 alone it would be quite impossible to say whether Paul or his opponents were right. But in considering the life of Abraham as a whole (Gen. 12–25) one is struck by the fact that Abraham repeatedly stood before the dilemma of believing in God’s promise of a son in spite ...

496. Submission to the Authorities

Romans 13:1-7

Understanding Series

James R. Edwards

... positive attitude toward Roman rule. In disagreement with this position, it must be said that Paul nowhere calls for submission to powers which in the main oppose Christ (8:37–39; Gal. 4:8–11; Col. 2:15). Moreover, the designation of governing authorities is quite similar to nomenclature for rulers in 1 Timothy 2:2 and 1 Peter 2:13. Above all, the subject here is not supernatural powers (that would belong at the end of ch. 8), but civil authorities and taxation (vv. 6ff.). Full discussions are given in ...

497. The Weak and the Strong

Romans 14:1--15:13

Understanding Series

James R. Edwards

... it may have been used in libations to pagan deities. Or it may have been a practical way of separating themselves from the excessive drinking, carousing, and orgies common in Gentile regions. Moreover, despite what some commentators say, Paul’s advice in 1 Corinthians and Romans is quite similar on this matter. In both instances he appeals to the motive of agapē (Rom. 14:15; 1 Cor. 8:1) and warns not to offend the conscience of the weak (Rom. 14:13; 1 Cor. 8:9). Although the discussion of 14:1–15:13 is ...

498. Balaam’s First Oracle

Numbers 23:1-12

Understanding Series

W.H. Bellinger, Jr.

... 7. The Kenites will also fall from their seemingly secure place. The word for nest (qen) is a play on qeni, Kenite. It is God’s power that brings about such victories for Israel and defeat for these peoples. The sense of verse 24 is quite difficult, but its point appears to be that even those who are initially victorious will fall. God’s power determines victory and defeat. The chapter ends with the simple note that Balaam and Balak conclude their interaction and go their separate ways. The character of ...

499. Paying Taxes to Caesar

Matthew 22:15-22

Understanding Series

Robert H. Mounce

... is that they are to give back to God what is God’s. Some have interpreted this to mean that life is clearly divided into two parts—the secular, with its appropriate obligations, and the sacred, with its duties to God. Such a division is actually quite impossible. Filson is correct in saying that “what Jesus means is that they have an obligation to the government over them, but they have a greater obligation to God; it covers all of life; in the present situation it includes the obligation to pay the ...

500. The Writing on the Wall

Daniel 5:1-31

Understanding Series

William Nelson

... anticipates the evil king Antiochus IV, “the little horn” who “grew as high as the host of heaven” (Dan. 8:9–11) and who “shall exalt himself and consider himself greater than any god” (Dan. 11:36). Though the representation of Belshazzar is perhaps not quite so dark as the one in Isaiah 14 or the ones in Daniel 8 and 11, he is similar to the evil kings in those passages in incurring God’s wrath for his overweening pride. Belshazzar’s offenses against heaven triggered heaven’s response ...

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