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Showing 601 to 625 of 2332 results

601. The Insanity of Profanity

Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

James Merritt

... running away. He caught up with him, and said, “What is your name?” The man said, “Alexander, Sir!” He looked at him and said, “What did you say your name was?” He said, “My name is Alexander, just like yours, Sir!” He said, “Were you deserting?” He said, “Yes sir.” Alexander the Great got off of his horse, walked over to him, looked at him face to face, and said, “Soldier, either change your conduct or change your name.” III. The Proper Declaration Of God’s Name I want to turn ...

602. Trust

John 4:43-54

Sermon

James Merritt

... of doubt. He made a decision that would begin to change his life forever. He said, “Lord, you said it, that settles it, I believe it.” This man learned that seeing is not believing, but rather believing is seeing. I read one time about a man who was crossing a desert back in the days of the pioneers, and he ran out of water. He was dying of thirst when he came upon a water pump near an abandoned shack. Well he had no water to prime the pump, but he noticed there was a jug of water near the pump ...

603. Why Matter Matters

2 Peter 3:1-18

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... Adam incarnation. With the coming of the New Adam, the Last Adam, a new heaven and a new earth offer up a new universe of possibilities, if only we will open ourselves to receive them. There is an ancient tale of three horsemen riding across the desert one evening. As they crossed the dry bed of a river a loud voice called to them out of the darkness, commanding: “HALT.” They obeyed. The voice then told them to dismount, pick up a handful of pebbles, put them in their pockets . . .. And remount. Again ...

604. Water Your Faith

Illustration

Michael P. Green

The desert is seemingly void of all life, but given a little rainfall, life springs into existence and beauty. Life is there, but it is dormant. Unbelief is like that. It is the desert of one’s being. But the potential for life is there and needs only to be watered by faith to spring into existence and beauty.

605. The Ark Brought to the Temple

2 Chronicles 5:2-6:11

Understanding Series

Louis C. Jonker

... source text), is highly symbolic. The Most Holy Place was seen as the place of Yahweh’s presence, the earthly dwelling of the name. This was already symbolized by the ark of the covenant, which was closely associated with Israel’s wandering in the desert. By bringing the ark into the Most Holy Place, this symbolic meaning is now being transferred to the temple. One should, however, take note that—although the focus is very strongly on the ark of the covenant in this section—5:5 adds (in accordance ...

606. Matthias Chosen to Replace Judas

Acts 1:12-26

Understanding Series

David J. Williams

... –31. Peter, John … and Judas son of James: The names of the apostles are repeated, though they had already been given in the first volume (Luke 6:14ff.). This may have been to show that, though all of them, at the time of his arrest, had deserted the Master, only Judas had done so through deliberate defection. At heart, the rest had remained loyal. It may also have been to show that, though the separate works of each would not be chronicled in this book, they nevertheless all took their part in the work ...

607. Saul’s Conversion

Acts 9:1-19a

Understanding Series

David J. Williams

... of men, detached perhaps from the temple guard, to help with the arrests. 9:3–5 Damascus, if not the oldest city in the world, is at least deserving of the title of most enduring. It lies northwest of the Ghuta Plain, west of the Syrian-Arabian Desert and east of the Anti-Lebanon Mountains. Its region was an oasis, watered by a system of rivers and canals and famous for its orchards and gardens. From time immemorial, Damascus had played an important role as a center of religion and commerce. It was a ...

608. In Pisidian Antioch

Acts 13:13-52

Understanding Series

David J. Williams

... cf. Exod. 1:7, 9) during their stay in Egypt. From Egypt he had brought them out with mighty power (v. 17, lit., “with his arm”; cf. “with his hand,” 4:28) and, if we accept the variant reading of verse 18, had “carried them in the desert as a father his children,” which better suits the tone of this speech than the reading adopted by NIV (the variant texts differ by only one letter). So God had brought them into Canaan where he had destroyed (“brought down”; cf. Luke 1:52) the seven nations ...

609. Disagreement Between Paul and Barnabas

Acts 15:36-41

Understanding Series

David J. Williams

... could not see eye to eye on whether Mark should go with them again. Barnabas wanted to take him (aorist tense), Paul did not want to take him [present tense, i.e., as a continuing member of the missionary team, liable at any time to desert them], because he had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not continued with them in the work (v. 38). In the original account of Mark’s defection (13:13), a different word is used—a neutral term that means simply “to go away.” The expression here (from the Greek ...

610. Body / Ambassador

2 Corinthians 5:11--6:2

Understanding Series

James M. Scott

... Egypt, Isaiah 43:18–19 reads: “Do not remember the former things, and do not consider the old things (ta archaia). Look (idou), I am doing new things (kaina) which will now spring up, and you will know them. And I will make a road in the desert and rivers in the dry land.” This OT text plays a major role in the NT (cf. O. Betz). Paul identifies these “new things” with the redemptive work of Jesus Christ in the world. In the process, he recalls the “old (palaia) covenant” and the “new (kain ...

611. Identification and a Wish for Grace and Peace

Galatians 1:1-10

Understanding Series

L. Ann Jervis

... is in the present tense, indicating that the action is ongoing, with particular stress on the present—the Galatians are turned away from the one who has called them, and their present life demonstrates their choice. Paul charges that the Galatian believers are deserting the very one who called them (cf. 5:8). He begins his rebuke by focusing on their relationship with God. In their turning to a different gospel they are transferring their allegiance away from the one who wanted to deliver them from the ...

612. At Mount Sinai

Exodus 19:1-25

Understanding Series

James K. Bruckner

... . Additional Notes 19:1 The people are at Sinai from ch. 19 through the end of Exodus, through Leviticus, to Num. 10:10. In this narrative context of camping at Sinai for almost a year, the Lord delivered 613 commands, by rabbinic count. 19:2 “Desert” occurs three times in the first two verses, but the Hebrew midbar means “wilderness” or “seasonal pastureland where no one lives permanently.” The people lived here for a year and had a good supply of water, finding food for their flocks. It is not ...

613. The Lord Commands Joshua

Joshua 1:1-18

Understanding Series

J. Gordon Harris

... of entering the land. The land of opportunity will come as a gift from God’s grace as promised to Moses, and that gift unifies fighting in Canaan (1–12) with dividing allotments (13–21) among tribes and clans. God promises a land stretching from the desert (wilderness) in the south to Lebanon in the north, from the Euphrates in the east to the Mediterranean (Great) Sea on the west (vv. 3–4). These limits do not mark the actual borders of the emerging nation. Rather, God points Joshua and the tribes ...

614. Allotment for Judah

Joshua 15:1-63

Understanding Series

J. Gordon Harris

... in verses 1–12. The format of boundary descriptions and list of towns follows the outline for allotment of land east of the Jordan. The towns and villages are listed from the south; to the western foothills, in the hill country, and in the desert. There are twentynine towns and villages listed in the south, in the western foothills, thirty-nine towns and villages as well as Philistine towns and surrounding communities; thirty-eight towns and villages in the hill country; and six towns and villages in the ...

615. Zebah and Zalmunna

Judges 8:1-21

Understanding Series

Cheryl A. Brown

... down for him the names of the seventy-seven officials of the town. Supposedly Gideon called those men to a meeting, where he stood before them the two Midianite kings about whom they had taunted him and then taught . . . them a lesson by punishing them with desert thorns and briers (v. 16). The author did not go into as great a detail about what happened in Peniel but summarized, rather glibly, the most important points: Gideon also pulled down the tower of Peniel and killed the men of the town (v. 17). The ...

616. Disaster from the North

Jeremiah 4:5-31

Understanding Series

Tremper Longman III

... number of places in Scripture and is associated with the appearance of the Divine Warrior (Nah.1:5), God, who comes to punish. Turning to the animate part of creation, we see that people and birds also are gone. The fruitful land turns into a desert. “The dissolution of Judah is itself an undoing of creation” (Goldingay, Old Testament Theology, Volume 2: Israel’s Faith, p. 247). 4:27–28 In verse 27, we find the divine declaration that God will punish, but not completely. This appears to be a subtle ...

617. Judgment Against Evil Kings

Jeremiah 22:1-30, Jeremiah 23:1-8

Understanding Series

Tremper Longman III

... had been built out of timber brought from the cedar forests of Lebanon. Solomon’s palace went by the name “Palace of the Forest of Lebanon” (1 Kgs. 7:2). If the kings rebel against God, this plush building will become like a desert, a desert which will not sustain life. In verse 7b a related image is used, that of a ghost town. God will accomplish this transformation by sending against them destroyers who will tear down the building. Jeremiah’s prophecy was fulfilled in the Babylonian destruction ...

618. A Message About Babylon

Jeremiah 50:1--51:64

Understanding Series

Tremper Longman III

... muzzled and so it could eat its fill while working, thus the source of its joy. Threshing was a common prophetic metaphor of judgment. Because of this joy in the harm that it caused Judah, God will turn the Babylonian’s mother into a wilderness, a dry land, a desert. By the results we judge the mother to be known as none other than the land itself. It will be desolate. 50:14–16 Now the oracle addresses those who are attacking Babylon. It urges them to show no mercy, but to shoot all their arrows at the ...

619. Repentance to Bring Blessing

Hosea 14:1-9

Understanding Series

Elizabeth Achtemeier

... by God upon their sin (see the comment at 13:14). But Hosea has also announced that God cannot give up his people—his adopted son—forever (11:1–11); that on the other side of the judgment God will take Israel—his beloved wife—once more into the desert and there woo her again until she is betrothed to him in faithfulness to her covenant bond (see the comment at 2:14, 15). It is out of this latter promise, of an Israel restored to fidelity by God, that this passage in chapter 14 is spoken. 14:1 ...

620. Jesus Teaches Nicodemus

John 3:1-21

Understanding Series

J. Ramsey Michaels

... (Gr.: anthr?poi) is intended to recall the thrice-repeated anthr?pos of 2:25 and 3:1. 3:21 Lives by the truth: lit., “does the truth.” The phrase “to do the truth” occurs in the Qumran literature as an expression for faithful participation in the elect desert community. See, e.g., 1QS 1.5, 5.3, 8.2, 9. In early Christian Gnosticism (Ptolemy, Letter to Flora 6.5), a similar expression can mean to live according to the Reality that has come in Christ (i.e., to obey the law of God spiritually and not ...

621. Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand

John 6:1-15

Understanding Series

J. Ramsey Michaels

... has been retained alongside it from an oral or written source similar to the synoptic accounts. 6:5 Where shall we buy: Philip’s answer indicates that Jesus’ meaning is “How can we buy enough food? Where would we get the money?” The notion that they were in the desert, with no markets nearby, seems not to be an issue here, and there is no evidence in the text that this was the case. 6:6 To test him: Test is not used here in an ethical sense but means simply to elicit a response. Jesus wants to draw ...

622. The Impending Departure II

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

Understanding Series

J. Ramsey Michaels

... that his work is finished (17:4). The group of followers that his Father has given him is now ready to continue his mission in the world. Negatively, the setting of the prayer is the ominous prediction that the disciples will be scattered (v. 32) and will desert Jesus in his time of need (cf. Mark 14:27/Matt. 26:31). Where the first discourse had glanced momentarily at Peter’s individual “scandal” of denying his Lord (13:38), the second (as always) deals with the disciples as a group, focusing on the ...

623. The Command to Leave Horeb

Deuteronomy 1:1-8

Understanding Series

Christopher J. H. Wright

... . These verses form a bridge with Numbers 36:13, just as the closing chapter links the book with Joshua. The continuity and wholeness of the canon of scriptural books is clearly visible in these short strips of editorial velcro. The geographical context was in the desert, or wilderness, east of the Jordan . . . in the territory of Moab (vv. 1, 5). The precise location is uncertain from the list of the place names given. But the point is clear. Israel was still in the wilderness. This last book of the Torah ...

624. Worshipping Other Gods

Deuteronomy 13:1-18

Understanding Series

Christopher J. H. Wright

... deliberately going after other gods (and worse, leading others to do so) was, to say the least, gross ingratitude. In the light of all Israel owed to Yahweh, “no other god is owed anything” (Clifford, Deuteronomy, p. 82). But a more serious effect of such desertion was that it would cut Israel off from the very source of their salvation. Yahweh was not merely “their God,” but their saving God. Where would they turn to for salvation if they abandoned God (cf. Jer. 2:27–28)? To go after other gods ...

625. Moab Revolts

2 Kings 3:1-27

Understanding Series

Iain W. Provan

... amiss. 3:9–12 It could be expected that a military venture undertaken without prophetic advice should face disaster in the desert without a blow being struck. Jehoram gives the impression of recognizing the LORD’s hand in what has happened (v. 10), ... , 49, 51; 2 Kgs. 1:18; etc.). On the date of Jehoram’s accession, see the additional note on 2 Kgs. 1:17. 3:8 The Desert of Edom: The idea is to attack Moab from the south, rather than from the north. This is possible because Edom is under Judean rule (1 ...

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