Sermon and Worship Resources

Synonyms: touch, feel, sense of touch, tactile sense, tactility, contact, using one's hands, sensation, sense, suspicion, sneaking suspicion, notion, inkling, hunch, fancy, apprehension, presentiment, premonition, foreboding, love, care, affection, fondness, tenderness, warmth, warmness, emotion, sentiment, emotional state, compassion, sympathy, empathy, fellow feeling, understanding, concern, solicitude, solicitousness, tender-heartedness, brotherly love, sensibilities, sensitivities, self-esteem, ego, pride, opinion, belief, view, impression, intuition, instinct, estimation, guess, theory, hypothesis, thought, way of thinking, point of view, atmosphere, ambience, aura, air, mood, climate, character, overtone, undertone, tenor, spirit, quality, flavour, colour, aptitude, knack, flair, bent, talent, gift, skill, art, trick, faculty, ability, propensity, inclination, sensitive, warm, warm-hearted, tender, tender-hearted, caring, soft-hearted, sympathetic, compassionate, empathetic, responsive, receptive, intuitive, thoughtful

Antonyms: bad feeling, acrimony, animosity, animus, antagonism, antipathy, aversion, bitterness, detestation, disgust, dislike, disrelish, enmity, friction, grievances, grudges, hatred, hostility, loathing, malevolence, malice

Showing 576 to 600 of 2669 results

576. Walking in the Light

1 John 1:5--2:14, 1 John 2:15-17

Understanding Series

Thomas F. Johnson

... the truth is not in us, i.e., in our hearts or inmost being. If it were, we would recognize and admit our condition, stay in the light, and be forgiven. “Our self-understanding is false” (Kysar, I, II, III John, p. 39). 1:9 If the opponents’ attitude and belief are wrong (vv. 6 and 8), the right approach to sin is to keep on walking in the light (v. 7) and to be honest about one’s sins (v. 9). If we confess our sins is the true alternative to claiming to be without sin. The word confess (homologe ...

577. Warning Against Antichrists

1 John 2:18-27

Understanding Series

Thomas F. Johnson

... belonged to the community (lit., “they were not from us”). They had belonged to the group in the sense of being part of the same organization (from which they went out), but they did not belong to the group in the sense of sharing its core beliefs. How they could have been or become part of the group in any sense is never explained. The best historical guess is that they were Gentile converts who had been influenced by the emerging gnostic ideas of the Hellenistic world, and who had never really given ...

578. Test the Spirits

1 John 4:1-6

Understanding Series

Thomas F. Johnson

... ; 14:30; 16:11), in which there is no salvation (cf. Col. 1:13; 1 Cor. 5:2, 5; Cyprian, On the Unity of the Church). Though the opponents claim to be God’s representatives (1:6; 2:4, 6), the world’s values have so permeated their thinking and beliefs that they speak from the viewpoint of the world (lit., “from the world,” ek tou kosmou). The world is not only their physical location, since they have left the community (2:19; 4:1; 2 John 7), but it is the locus of their proclamation. Their words are ...

579. Let Us Love One Another

2 John 1:1-13

Understanding Series

Thomas F. Johnson

... were once a part. The key passage is 1 John 2:19a: “They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us.” Gone out may, from the opponents’ standpoint, also mean “in the spirit of missionaries, to win over others to their … beliefs” (Smalley, 1, 2, 3 John, p. 328). First John 4:1 also says that “many false prophets have gone out into the world.” For in early Christianity, including the Elder’s churches, there were only two spheres of spiritual reality: in Christ, or in Johannine ...

580. God’s Covenant with Abram

Genesis 15:1-18

Understanding Series

John E. Hartley

... to express that feeling to God. On hearing God’s answer, Abram had to decide whether to continue to exercise faith or not. Now as then, God often demands that one maintain faith in the face of improbable circumstances in which belief appears ridiculous. Such was Abram’s experience. If he had told one of his Canaanite neighbors about God’s promise, his words would have sounded incredible. Nevertheless, God wanted him to believe the promise despite the physical improbabilities of its being fulfilled ...

581. The Glory of Zion

Isaiah 60:1-22

Understanding Series

John Goldingay

... of chapter 2 (see R. J. Mouw, When the Kings Come Marching In: Isaiah and the New Jerusalem [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983], pp. 5–9). This is also a reminder to Christian theology that its understanding of heaven must not be too ethereal. Belief in a transformed city goes with belief in a resurrected body. A related dominant motif of chapter 60 is the splendor of Yahweh and of Jerusalem (vv. 1–3, 5a, 19–20; for the chiastic structure of vv. 1–3, see the Introduction). What so draws the nations to ...

582. Herod and Hometown Misunderstand Jesus’ Identity

Matthew 13:53-58, Matthew 14:1-12

Teach the Text

Jeannine K. Brown

... to reports about Jesus with concerns that John the Baptist has been resurrected (14:1–2). Matthew then proceeds to tell the story of John’s execution by Herod (14:3–12), which occurred sometime earlier, as is made clear in 14:2, where Herod expresses his belief that John has risen from the dead. 14:2 This is John the Baptist; he has risen from the dead! Herod’s notion that Jesus is somehow John raised from the dead will find a counterpart in various people’s opinions about Jesus in 16:14. Some ...

583. Jesus, Messiah and Lord, Is True Interpreter of the Torah

Matthew 22:15-22, Matthew 22:23-33, Matthew 22:34-40, Matthew 22:41-46

Teach the Text

Jeannine K. Brown

... Scriptures and their understanding of God. Jesus draws his scriptural argument from the part of the Old Testament canon that would have been accepted as authoritative by the Sadducees, the Pentateuch (Exod. 3:6; see Matt. 22:32). Jesus implies that the Jewish belief in resurrection is based on God’s power to change (and not merely reanimate) human bodily existence. 22:30 they will be like the angels in heaven. Jesus provides an analogy to help make his point. Those who will be raised in the eschaton ...

584. Spiritual Hypocrisy—Living by the Rules, Not by the Heart

Mark 7:1-23

Teach the Text

Grant R. Osborne

... good to others and to hide the reality of who we are at the core of our being. The reason is that in reality we must, with Paul, admit that we are “the foremost of sinners” (1 Tim. 1:15). However, the Bible demands that we live our beliefs, that our lifestyle reflect God’s demands, and that this faithfulness to his ethical mandates be observable to those around us. This is at the heart of Jesus’s diatribe against the scribes and Pharisees in Matthew 23, a series of seven woes centering on the fact ...

585. Realizing the True Nature of Jesus the Christ

Mark 8:27-30

Teach the Text

Grant R. Osborne

... genius that ever lived.” Oprah Winfrey claims Christian faith but denies the uniqueness of Jesus as the only way to the Father. We live in an age when many people believe that there is no absolute truth, that truth is determined by the sincere beliefs of each person. But here we see that Jesus corrects the wrong views of the crowds. According to Jesus, there is absolute truth. “Who do you say I am?” Applying the Text: After the disciples answered the question about the perspectives of the people ...

586. The Christian Shema: Loving God and Neighbor

Mark 12:28-34

Teach the Text

Grant R. Osborne

... kingdom.” Jesus means that because of his understanding and recognition of Jesus, this scribe is on the verge of becoming part of the kingdom community. Yet we are not told if the man took the final step; we do not know if this led to repentance and belief (1:15). Probably Mark wants his readers to ask this of themselves: “How far am I from the kingdom?”7 No one dared ask him any more questions. The leaders are forced to acknowledge Jesus’s absolute victory over them. In the last two parts of this ...

587. The Birth of God’s Son Announced

Luke 1:26-38

Teach the Text

R.T. France

... of miraculous events in the Gospel stories as a whole the extent to which this particular miracle is in a class of its own the possibility of a man born without a human father being truly human the relationship between the belief in Jesus’s virginal conception and the belief that he is the Son of God the paradoxical combination of the divine and the human as a persistent feature of the Gospel stories and as the basis for the Christian doctrine of incarnation All these issues are important, both for ...

588. Two Memorable Healings

Luke 5:17-26, Luke 5:12-16

Teach the Text

R.T. France

... checked himself carefully for skin patches as leprosy workers were instructed to do. What followed for him was a night full of despair, plagued by questions and anxieties. “What would this do to my life . . . my work? I had gone to India in the belief that I would serve God by helping to relieve suffering. Should I now . . . go underground so as not to create a stir? I would need to separate myself from my family, of course, since children were unusually susceptible to infection. I knew all too well ...

589. The Story of Abraham versus the Story of Israel

Romans 4:1-25

Teach the Text

C. Marvin Pate

... of God (4:23–24a, 25b) Historical and Cultural Background 1. God’s power to raise the dead to life (see Rom. 4:17b) was a cherished belief of most ancient Jews (see Deut. 32:39; 1 Sam. 2:6; Tob. 13:2; Wis. 16:13; cf. Rom. 8:11; 1 Cor. 15:22, 36 ... the atoning death and resurrection of Jesus. In this lies the second half of Paul’s experiential argument: as with Abraham, the Christian’s belief in the God of the impossible (4:24b) was born out of God’s promise (4:25) and therefore not out of human merit ...

590. The New-Covenant Blessings: Peace and Hope

Romans 5:1-11

Teach the Text

C. Marvin Pate

... of the last days (compare, e.g., Dan. 12:1 LXX; Mark 13:19, 24; Rev. 6–19 with 2 Cor. 1:4, 8; 2:4; 1 Thess. 1:6; 2 Thess. 1:4), as I have argued elsewhere.4These two backgrounds—Adamic and eschatological—are related: the belief emerged in Second Temple Judaism that those who suffered the end-time tribulation for righteousness’ sake would inherit the lost glory of Adam. Paul seems to be drawing on these backgrounds to say that Christians ensure the lost glory of Adam for themselves as they suffer for ...

591. Witnesses of the New Covenant

Romans 12:1-8

Teach the Text

C. Marvin Pate

... mention of the “body of Adam” in the Jewish literature contemporaneous with Paul. But this objection can be adequately met by the next theory. 7. A. J. M. Wedderburn proposes that the roots of the idea of the body of Christ stem from the ancient Hebrew belief that one person represents many, and many are incorporated in the one (Gen. 12:1–3; compare Gen. 14:17–20 with Heb. 7:4–10; Josh. 7:16–26).11This reciprocal relationship takes one a long way toward understanding the body of Christ, and it ...

592. Message to Ephesus

Revelation 2:1-7

Teach the Text

J. Scott Duvall

... the truth without forfeiting love. We must always hate the sin without hating the sinner, an ever-present temptation for those responsible for guarding the theological integrity of a local church. It can be helpful to distinguish between levels of belief (i.e., core convictions, persuasions, and opinions) so that we are able to have doctrinal discussions that are only as charged as they absolutely must be.6Separating primary from secondary doctrinal issues will help promote relational harmony in some cases ...

593. Saul’s Finest Hour

1 Sam 11:1-15

Teach the Text

Robert B. Chisholm Jr.

... for help. However, his decision to do so is probably practical. Rather than conducting a time-consuming siege against the town, he undoubtedly welcomes the opportunity to end this campaign in a mere week and add Jabesh Gilead to his list of subjects. His decision surely presupposes his belief that no one will be willing or even able to organize an army so quickly and come to the aid of the city. If the longer Qumran text is taken as reliable (see above under “Historical and Cultural Background”), this ...

594. God’s Protection Takes the Form of a Faithful Friend

1 Samuel 20:1-42

Teach the Text

Robert B. Chisholm Jr.

... to the Hebrew text, Jonathan makes David swear an oath again. This reading is problematic for at least two reasons: (1) There is no prior Davidic oath recorded in the immediate context, except for the one in verse 3, where the oath simply emphasizes David’s belief that his life is in grave danger. If we retain the Hebrew text, the prior oath must be one made in conjunction with the original covenant Jonathan made with David, recorded in 18:3. (2) The relationship of 20:17b to the statement is unclear. How ...

595. The Lord Guides, Encourages, and Protects David

1 Samuel 23:1-29

Teach the Text

Robert B. Chisholm Jr.

... his side (v. 7a) and even asks the Lord to bless the Ziphites for collaborating with him in his efforts to kill David (v. 21). But when one looks at Saul’s reasoning, his misguided assumption makes more sense. In typical fashion, Saul bases his beliefs and actions on sight. Because David has put himself in a precarious position (v. 7b), Saul assumes that God has engineered the circumstances in his favor. His limited focus, based strictly on what his eyes see at a specific time, stands in sharp contrast to ...

596. Eliphaz Condemns and Counsels Job

Job 22:1-30

Teach the Text

Daniel J. Estes

... own theological dogma by attacking Job’s integrity. He begins by stating that Job’s situation is of little concern to Almighty God (22:1–5). He goes on to charge that Job is ethically wrong in his behavior (22:6–11) and theologically wrong in his beliefs (22:12–20). Eliphaz finishes by counseling Job to submit to God so that his prosperity can be restored (22:21–30). Historical and Cultural Background In Job 22:14, as in Isaiah 40:22, God is pictured as reigning in the vault of heaven above the ...

597. “The Lord Looks Down . . . to See If There Are Any Who Understand”

Psalm 14:1-7

Teach the Text

C. Hassell Bullock

... of faith in God’s existence but rather of its perversion: “Although they say, ‘As surely as the Lord lives,’ still they are swearing falsely” (5:2). The question is whether a philosophical atheism existed in the ancient world. Given the pantheistic beliefs of Israel’s neighbors, and sometimes of Israel herself, where is there room for an absolute denial of God’s existence? Indeed, the common argument that the psalm cites a time of practical atheism, that is, when people acted as if there were ...

598. “No One Can Redeem the Life of Another or Give to God a Ransom for Them”

Psalm 49:1-20

Teach the Text

C. Hassell Bullock

... In the Psalms such passages as 16:10; 23:6; 49:15; and 73:24–25 have been viewed as containing some degree of belief in the afterlife, especially for the righteous. Proponents of immortality revealed point to Job 19:25–27 as a wisdom text that affirms ... may make the following observations. First, in Israel’s world the doctrine of the afterlife is well attested, from the robust belief of Egypt to the rather anemic view of Mesopotamia and Canaan. Israel should not be expected to copy such a doctrine, but ...

599. Resurrection and Accountability

Daniel 12:1-13, Daniel 11:36-45

Teach the Text

Ronald W. Pierce

... death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again” (1 Thess. 4:13–14). Through the pain, suffering, and grieving of this life, we can still believe, and through that belief we can be a witness to the world around us of the unimaginable joy of resurrection to eternal life. The bad news: in the end, the wicked will face shame and everlasting contempt. Theological Book: Rob Bell’s controversial bestseller Love Wins appeared in June ...

600. How Do You Get Rid of Evil without Destroying Good?

Matthew 13:24-30

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... Episcopal, or the Lutheran, or the Catholic Church? Doctrine is important, but let’s not forget Jesus’ biggest confrontation was with the Pharisees, purists in doctrine—those who made right belief and right interpretation of law the ultimate route of God. It interests me that some of the groups that are rigid in doctrine, purists in their belief, are cold and calloused, and in my mind, furthest from the compassionate mind of Christ. Others who hold to the notion that the church is to be a “called ...

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