Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 701 to 725 of 972 results

701. Parables Discourse: Importance of Response to the Kingdom Message

Matthew 13:1-23

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Jeannine K. Brown

... (and so on). Conversely, when revelation is given and not received, God’s revelation will eventually be taken away—like a plant that cannot find what it needs in inhospitable soil (13:5–7). So human response and divine revelation are not mutually exclusive in Matthew. As God’s revelation in the preaching of Jesus finds soil in which to take root, more is revealed, which then provides opportunity for greater faith and trust. When Jesus’ message of the kingdom does not find fertile soil to take ...

702. Jesus’ Compassion and Authority to Feed and Heal

Matthew 15:21-28, Matthew 15:29-39

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Jeannine K. Brown

... that trust is the right response to Jesus. Understanding the Text For a third time in Matthew, Jesus withdraws from controversy (15:21; see also 12:15; 14:13) to minister with healing to the crowds (15:22, 30–31). Given that Matthew focuses almost exclusively on Jesus’ ministry to Israel (10:5–6), it is significant that the story of the healing of a Canaanite woman’s daughter is included (15:21–28; note 15:24). This is only the second encounter between Jesus and a Gentile supplicant; the first ...

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

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

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Jeannine K. Brown

... :28), and his resurrection demonstrates that God has truly vindicated him as the Messiah and the servant of the Lord. Whether we come from ecclesial traditions that tend to emphasize the arrival of the kingdom in Jesus’ life and ministry or those that focus more exclusively on his death as the key point of meaning for understanding Jesus, we would do well to lean into a more holistic way of preaching Jesus. Matthew does not begin with the cross, so preaching Jesus as inaugurator of the kingdom through his ...

704. 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

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Jeannine K. Brown

... . If the greatest commands are to love God and neighbor, now extended to even one’s enemies and persecutors, then all such lines are reconfigured. Preaching the love commands has the potential to reorient our perspective to such an extent that the naturally exclusive question “Who is my neighbor?” is reconfigured to such an extent that the question becomes “How do I act as neighbor to all?” (see Luke 10:29, 36). Preaching the truth that Christians ought to cross all kinds of boundaries to become ...

705. The Jewish Leaders as Negative Foil for Jesus’ Followers

Matthew 23:1-39

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Jeannine K. Brown

... upon the Jewish leaders are meant to instruct his followers and Matthew’s readers/hearers. Jesus critiques the hypocrisy of the Jewish leaders, but Matthew has included these critiques as a warning to his own community, since hypocrisy is by no means the exclusive domain of Jesus’ opponents in the narrative. So as we preach and teach this text, our own focus should be on what we as believers in Jesus can learn for Christian living from these “woes.”6The first and foremost warning of this passage ...

706. Eschatological Discourse: Prediction of the Temple’s Destruction

Matthew 24:1-35

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Jeannine K. Brown

... different terminus points in the chapter. Here and at 24:13–14 telos is used to describe the end to which these precursor signs point, the temple’s destruction (24:15–16). When Jesus refers to the end of the age, Matthew uses the term synteleia exclusively (13:39, 40, 49; 24:3; 28:20). “The question which Jesus is here answering was about when the temple would be destroyed, and that is the ‘end’ most naturally understood here.”2 24:14 this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole ...

707. Eschatological Discourse: Being Faithful and Merciful

Matthew 25:14-30, Matthew 25:31-46

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Jeannine K. Brown

... over all the nations, Matthew evokes Daniel 7:13–14 in the Septuagint and highlights the universal authority that Jesus as Son of Man will exercise (see 28:18). 25:32 All the nations. There is debate over whether “the nations” (ethne) refers exclusively to Gentiles or to all nations, including Jews and Gentiles. It is most likely that ethne refers to all peoples, Jews and Gentiles, given the modifier “all” and Matthew’s use of ethne inclusively to refer to Jews and Gentiles earlier in the ...

708. Jesus Is Tried before Pilate and Sentenced to Death

Matthew 27:1-10, Matthew 27:11-26

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Jeannine K. Brown

... the end, all humanity is responsible for Jesus’ death. It has been a stain on the history of Jewish-Christian relations that the words of 27:25, “His blood is on us and on our children,” have been used not only to focus blame (exclusively) on Jews but also to inflict harm on them. As Amy-Jill Levine suggests, “The failure to understand the Jewish Jesus within his Jewish context has resulted in the creation and perpetuation of millennia of distrust, and worse, between church and synagogue.”5 Yet a ...

709. Discipleship and Mission

Luke 10:1-24, Luke 9:57-62

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R.T. France

... historian, is wide-ranging in its history of Christian missions. The term “faith missions” was connected with missions that did not have a set income for their missionaries. In fact, some of the missionaries would not solicit funds, relying exclusively for provision on God. But it went even further. Speaking of the Christian Missionary Alliance (1887), Central American Mission (1890), Sudan Interior Mission (1893), and Africa Inland Mission (1895), to name but a few, Tucker says, “These missions were ...

710. The Failure of Israel’s Leadership

Luke 11:37-54

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R.T. France

... ) recalls his radical pronouncement, recorded elsewhere (Matt. 15:11; Mark 7:15), that impurity comes from within, from the heart, not from what is touched or eaten. 11:40 Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? An exclusive concern for “external” ritual betrays too limited an understanding of God. God did prescribe some rules of purity, but his law is even more concerned with ethical behavior and spiritual values. To miss that is to be “foolish” (one who lacks good judgment ...

711. Divided Loyalties

Luke 12:1-12, Luke 12:13-21

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R.T. France

... both Jewish and pagan sources. Luke himself will provide ample evidence of this in Acts. We know from Josephus (Ant. 20.200) that the Sanhedrin contrived the death of “James the brother of Jesus the so-called Messiah,” while rabbinic sources testify to the exclusion of the minim (heretics) from the synagogues and to the execution of some followers of Jesus (b. Sanh. 43a). Nero’s violent persecution of Christians in Rome in AD 64/65 (Tacitus, Ann. 15.44) apparently was not widespread, but by the early ...

712. Ready for the Kingdom of God?

Luke 13:31-35, Luke 13:22-30, Luke 13:18-21

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R.T. France

... their salvation is that he knows them. Without that, they are simply “evildoers” (quoting Ps. 6:8). They may have heard his teaching, but they have not responded to it (cf. 6:47–49). 13:28 you yourselves thrown out. The motif of inclusion and exclusion continues from 13:24–27. The identity of “you” is not explicit, but the context, including the contrast with the many from all quarters of the world in 13:29, suggests that Jesus addresses those of his Jewish hearers who have not responded to ...

713. Lessons in Discipleship

Luke 17:11-19, Luke 17:1-10

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R.T. France

... situation here of a single Samaritan being in a group with nine Jews in this border region must presumably be accounted for by the dire situation of those ostracized because of their disease; ethnic prejudice has given way to the camaraderie of suffering and social exclusion. There are echoes in 17:11–17 of the healing of Naaman (to which allusion has already been made in 4:27), a foreigner with leprosy, healed with a word, cured as he went away, and returning to offer thanks (2 Kings 5). Interpretive ...

714. The Revolutionary Values of the Kingdom of God

Luke 18:31-34, Luke 18:18-30, Luke 18:15-17

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R.T. France

... cause but also challenges our most basic assumptions about how society should operate. The phrase “treasure in heaven” (18:22) raises the issue of rewards. The outcome of true discipleship is eternal life (18:18, 30), not as a remuneration earned by faithful service (for the exclusion of that idea, see 17:10), but as God’s gracious gift to those who enroll under his kingship. But it is not just “pie in the sky when you die”; there is compensation, and much more, even in this life (18:30) for those ...

715. Two Testing Questions

Luke 20:27-40, Luke 20:20-26

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R.T. France

... to be envisaged as a simple continuation of life as we know it now. In that deathless (and birthless) existence (“like angels”) there is no place for the procreation that is the basis of earthly marriage, and so perhaps Jesus is suggesting that the exclusiveness that is so important to earthly marriage will be transcended in heaven. At any rate, he warns against any attempt to depict the life of “children of the resurrection” as being just like life on earth. 20:35 those who are considered worthy ...

716. “When Will These Things Happen?”

Luke 21:5-38

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R.T. France

... (e.g., Isa. 13:10; 34:4, the passages more explicitly alluded to in the parallel Mark 13:24–25). Interpretive Insights 21:7 when will these things happen? And what will be the sign? This question, which sets the agenda for Jesus’s reply, is exclusively concerned with the prediction that he has just made of the destruction of the temple. It does not (as the equivalent question in Matt. 24:3 does) prompt any reference to the second coming (the parousia). 21:8 many will come in my name. These are ...

717. At the Tomb

Luke 24:1-12, Luke 23:50-56

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R.T. France

... entrance to the complex. Spices were used not to embalm the body but to counter the effects of decomposition in a warm climate. Jewish convention did not much value the testimony of women (as is reflected in 24:11). The choice of women (exclusively) as the first witnesses of Jesus’s resurrection is a striking divine challenge to human prejudice (and also an indication of the authenticity of the accounts, since no Jew would have invented so unconventional a source of evidence). Interpretive Insights 23:50 ...

718. The Mystery and Mercy of God

Romans 11:25-32

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C. Marvin Pate

... 12:1; 2 Chron. 12:1–5; Dan. 9:11; cf. b. Sanh. 10.1). (c) The most recent theory, proposed by Bruce Longenecker, is that of unified Israel, which builds on the second possibility. He writes, Instead, in 11.26 Paul is thinking exclusively of an ethnic entity, and moreover, of that entity as a whole. Throughout 9–11, Paul draws out the disparate courses of two groups—believing and unbelieving—within ethnic Israel. By the inclusive “all” in 11.26, he joins both groups together. Thus Paul looks ...

719. The Divine Plan of Salvation

Romans 11:33-36

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C. Marvin Pate

... :27), and Paul goes even further by asserting that Christ is the fullness of God himself (2:9). To put it another way, the key to the meaning of life is Jesus Christ. Whereas once that honor might have been accorded to the law, now it belongs exclusively to the Son of God. Illustrating the Text The seeking mind must turn to the heart’s praise. Hymn Text: “God Moves in a Mysterious Way,” by William Cowper. A renowned poet and hymnist, Cowper (1731–1800) spent a great deal of his life in deep, chronic ...

720. Paul, Phoebe, Patronage, and Spain

Romans 16:1-27

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C. Marvin Pate

... as we will see later. 4. In 16:1 Paul uses the word “church” for the first time in Romans. The New Testament word for “church” is ekklēsia, which means “gathering, congregation, assembly.” In classical Greek the term was used almost exclusively for political gatherings. In particular, in Athens the word signified the assembling of the citizens for the purpose of conducting the affairs of the city. Moreover, ekklēsia referred only to the actual meeting, not to the citizens themselves. When the ...

721. Christian Maturity

1 Corinthians 3:1-23

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Preben Vang

... of the Corinthian church groups. They do not have or seek social status as patrons. Rather, they are mere servants commanded to work on God’s field (3:9). The patron is God; he alone gives the increase (3:6–7). Whatever status they might have comes exclusively from their Christ-granted relationship to God. Because they were servants of the Lord, the Corinthians came to faith in Christ (3:5), not in Paul or Apollos. 3:6 but God has been making it grow. In Koine Greek the aorist tense was the default ...

722. Separation of Faith and Life

1 Corinthians 5:1-13

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Preben Vang

... is to call the church back to identity with Christ, to restore both the individual and the collective testimony of the believing community. They may live in Corinth, but their primary community is the Christ community—a community that should be guided exclusively by allegiance to Christ’s message. The church is a body of believers encouraging and instructing one another in their joint pursuit to reveal Christ. (2) Paul does not judge Corinth or the Corinthians in general. He is convinced that outside ...

723. Being Wronged versus Claiming One’s Right

1 Corinthians 6:1-11

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Preben Vang

... Such emphasis is wrongheaded and has created much confusion as to the character of sanctification.3 The Corinthians are holy because they belong to God, not because they have been separated from Corinth. Separation is the secondary reality that flows from exclusive belonging.4 Paul’s emphasis is on their relationship to God through his Son, Jesus Christ. They now belong to a different community, and because they relate differently to God, they should relate differently to each other. The passive force of ...

724. Unity of Life and Faith

1 Corinthians 6:12-20

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Preben Vang

... becomes “one with her in body” and will be no different from her at the time of the resurrection. Those who belong to Christ are part of his body and have become “one with him in spirit.” These are two opposite, mutually exclusive spheres of belonging.5 6:18 whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. As several commentators have pointed out, the expression “All other sins a person commits are outside the body” is a Corinthian slogan based on their dualistic anthropology, which made ...

725. The Focus of Christian Worship

1 Corinthians 14:26-40, 1 Corinthians 14:1-25

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Preben Vang

... the prophet’s faithfulness as a Christ follower. Put differently, in an honor-driven society, when a wife speaks shamefully to her husband, people (outsiders) will draw the conclusion that the wife’s relationship to her husband is less than exclusive (see the “Historical and Cultural Background” section in the unit on 11:2–16). Parading her independence from her husband in this way would violate the honor of the paterfamilias and violate the message of Christ. Consequently, the church would ...

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