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Showing 851 to 875 of 1185 results

851. The Three Shower Gifts

John 1:1-18

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... .” In the Western Church we call this Sunday the “Second Sunday After Christmas.” The day after tomorrow, January 6, will be “Epiphany,” the official end of Christmas. Only a small percentage of Christians will take note, since they ceased being Christmassy the day after Christmas even though the church celebrates the twelve days of Christmas called “Christmastide.” But in the Eastern Orthodox tradition Epiphany IS Christmas. Epiphany is the day that the “wise men” arrived where Joseph and ...

852. A Call for Repentance - Ash Wednesday

Joel 2:12-17

Sermon

King Duncan

... of the poem he had once written. Later they would be set to music and become a great hymn of the church. The words of Robert Robinson’s poem go like this: “Come, Thou Fount of every blessing, Tune my heart to sing Thy grace; Streams of mercy, never ceasing, Call for songs of loudest praise.” His eyes slipped to the bottom of the page where he read words that struck his heart with conviction: “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it Prone to leave the God I love; Here’s my heart, O take and seal it, Seal ...

853. Prescription on a Pole

John 3:1-21

Sermon

David J. Kalas

... that Jesus’ allusion to the serpent on the pole is largely unfamiliar to the people in our pews. Nevertheless, that one reference by Jesus takes that obscure episode from the wilderness and elevates it to an event with enormous significance and meaning. It ceases to be just a strange little incident in the desert, and it becomes a grand foreshadowing of the grandest event of all. Now, as Jesus connects the dots for us in John 3, that peculiar pole becomes the cross. And, more remarkable still, Jesus ...

854. The Law of Unintended Consequences

Mark 1:40-45

Sermon

King Duncan

... it was first observed, it has been regarded with dread, and it has been associated with the word “unclean.” Besides causing the body to be covered with unsightly sores, leprosy breaks down the nervous system. According to writer Phillip Yancey the nerve endings cease to send signals of pain, and the body is damaged by actions as simple as wearing cramped shoes or grasping a splintered rake. “Pressure sores form, infection sets in, and no pain signals alert the person to tend the wounded area.” They ...

855. Peacemaker

Luke 2:8-20

Sermon

James Merritt

... what makes us enemies with God. Paul even said in Romans 5, “While we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His son.” (Romans 5:10, ESV) Do you know what the good news of Christmas is? The war is over. The hostilities have ceased. Jesus has conquered our sins. Once we surrender our lives to Him then we have peace with God which is exactly what Paul said in this verse. “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Romans 5 ...

856. Poem: I Shall Know Why - When Time Is Over

Eulogy

Emily Dickinson

I shall know why, when Time is over, And I have ceased to wonder why; Christ will explain each separate anguish In the fair schoolroom of the sky. He will tell me what Peter promised, And I, for wonder at his woe, I shall forget the drop of Anguish That scalds me now, that scalds me now.

857. A Small Town Is Blessed

Micah 5:1-4

Sermon

King Duncan

... , however it did. And there is a truth beyond that for millions of people who have believed since. The birth of Jesus made possible not just a new way of understanding life, but a new way of living it. The truth of this incarnation should never cease to amaze us. The mystery of the eternal, cradled in a manger, elicits awesome wonder and grateful praise.” (5) Notice what Buechner says: “The birth of Jesus made possible not just a new way of understanding life, but a new way of living it.” Let’s ...

858. When the New Comes, the Old Passes

Sermon

R. Robert Cueni

... gave Zeus the opportunity to grow up. As an adult, Zeus overthrew Chronos and became chief of the Greek gods. While a very interesting story, it fails at one key element of a suitable mythology. The story does not ?t the reality. Chronos (time) has not ceased swallowing his children. Consider the pattern of human existence. The days of our lives flit by. Months pass quickly. The years fuse together. We die. Time still swallows us. The comedian, Mel Brooks put it well. "One day when I was about 21 years old ...

859. Our Father Who Art in Heaven

Luke 11:1-13

Sermon

Maurice A. Fetty

... "interruption," so to speak, a time-arresting, time-altering event to change the course and nature of time. Woman: We further observe that in Judeo-Christian culture we speak of the coming end of time, the eschaton, when history as we know it will cease and be consummated in God's grand scheme of things. Think of the fascination with the Left Behind series by LaHaye and Jenkins. Consequently, Christians are urged to redeem the time because what we do in temporal, linear time affects our destiny in eternal ...

860. No Place Like Home

Illustration

Michael P. Green

... opposite banks of the Potomac River, the Union’s band played one of its patriotic tunes, and the Confederate musicians quickly struck up a melody dear to any Southerner’s heart. Then one of the bands started to play “Home, Sweet Home.” The musical competition ceased, and the musicians from the other army joined in. Soon voices from both sides of the river could be heard singing, “There is no place like home.” In a similar way, the church, in spite of its many divisions, is bound together by that ...

861. A Little Silver

Lk 12:13-21; 16:19-31

Illustration

Michael P. Green

... do you see?” “Now I see myself,” the rich man replied. Then the rabbi said, “Behold, in the window there is glass, and in the mirror there is glass. But the glass of the mirror is covered with a little silver, and no sooner is the silver added than you cease to see others, but you see only yourself.”

862. The Weaver

Illustration

Michael P. Green

My life is but a weaving between my Lord and me, I cannot choose the colors he worketh steadily. Oft times he weaveth sorrow and I in foolish pride Forget he sees the upper and I the underside. The dark threads are as needful in the weaver’s skillful hand As the threads of gold and silver in the pattern he has planned. Not till the loom is silent and the shuttle cease to fly Shall God unroll the canvas and explain the reason why.

863. Josiah's Reforms

2 Chronicles 34:1-13

Understanding Series

Louis C. Jonker

... (34:5). Second Chronicles 34:6–7 indicates that the reform measures were also extended to include the northern territories: the towns of Manasseh, Ephraim and Simeon, as far as Naphtali, and in the ruins around them. Since the northern kingdom had ceased to exist years before, the king of Judah could show his cultic influence by tearing down the altars and the Asherah poles and crushing the idols to powder and cutting to pieces all the incense altars throughout Israel. 34:8–13 Second Chronicles ...

864. The Fellowship of the Believers

Acts 2:42-47

Understanding Series

David J. Williams

... Lord’s return. 2:46 Every day the believers met in the temple. We are not told what they did there, but we may assume that they participated as fully as anyone could in the temple rites (see disc. on 3:1; cf. 21:16). They had not ceased to think of themselves as Jews, though unlike most Jews, they recognized that the Messiah had come. Beyond this, they ate together. The Greek could mean either “at home” or “from house to house.” The latter is to be preferred and implies that a number of homes were ...

865. The Choosing of the Seven

Acts 6:1-7

Understanding Series

David J. Williams

... a “ministry”—the same word as that used in verse 4 of the ministry of preaching. “There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord” (1 Cor. 12:5). But such were the demands on this service as the church continued to grow that it ceased to be carried out as well as it might have been, a problem made the more acute by their being now (perhaps there always had been) disparate groups within the church that met separately. In addition to all the difficulty of maintaining communications that that ...

866. In Pisidian Antioch

Acts 13:13-52

Understanding Series

David J. Williams

... the Gentiles (9:15), and events at Antioch had finally established him in that role. However, his commission had also included preaching to the people of Israel, and it remained his heart’s desire that all Israel should be saved (Rom. 9:1–3; 10:1). Never did he cease to identify himself with them. Always in every place that he went he would go first to the Jews, and when one synagogue turned him out he would go to another (cf. 18:6; 19:9). But there was no longer now any question that he would also go ...

867. The Council’s Letter to Gentile Believers

Acts 15:22-35

Understanding Series

David J. Williams

... in Antioch as brothers to brothers. The letter was not an encyclical, but was addressed specifically to the Gentile Christians in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia (v. 23). At this time Syria and (eastern) Cilicia were administered from Antioch as one province (this ceased to be the case after A.D. 72). Evidently the church in this province was predominantly Gentile. See 23:26 for the form of address. The church leaders had several objectives in writing this letter: First, they acknowledged that although those who ...

868. Paul and Silas In Prison

Acts 16:16-40

Understanding Series

David J. Williams

... . The more general word for authorities is used here; their correct title is found in the next verse. Timothy and Luke do not appear to have been involved, either as generally less conspicuous, less “Jewish,” or simply not there at the time. The we-passages cease at verse 17 (see disc. on vv. 10 and 40). 16:20–21 The chief governing power of a colony was vested in the duumvirs, two annual magistrates, who, in the past, though the practice may by that time have died out, had styled themselves ...

869. In Athens

Acts 17:16-34

Understanding Series

David J. Williams

... ” that strike the senses of the human mind). The Epicureans sought happiness in a simple life—by restraining the senses, not crushing them as the Stoics attempted to do. Death, they believed, brought a dispersion of one’s constituent atoms, and so one ceased to exist. 17:19 They … brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus: NIV interprets the Greek as meaning that they brought Paul before the council, not simply to the place called Areopagus. The construction of the Greek (epi with the accusative) is ...

870. Body / Ambassador

2 Corinthians 5:11--6:2

Understanding Series

James M. Scott

... El Almendro, 1994); idem, “Peace, Reconciliation,” DPL, pp. 695–99. In Qumran, the messianic “Son of God” or “Son of the Most High” was expected to effect worldwide peace: “He will judge the earth in truth and all will make peace. The sword will cease from the earth and all provinces will worship him” (4Q246 2.5–6). Cf. John J. Collins, “The Son of God Text from Qumran,” in From John to Jesus: Essays on Jesus and New Testament Christology in Honour of Marinus de Jonge (ed. M ...

871. Paul Opposes Peter

Galatians 2:11-21

Understanding Series

L. Ann Jervis

... word as “justification” (dikaiosynē). Paul asserts that through the death of Christ God’s righteousness is now available for those who believe, and he will go on to claim that since Christ’s death the law’s role of guiding toward righteousness has ceased. Therefore, the problem is not that Paul is setting aside the grace of God by disregarding the law as a means to righteousness. Rather, the problem is that the rival evangelists do not understand that the grace of God is now manifested in the ...

872. Freedom In Christ

Galatians 5:1-15, Galatians 5:16-26

Understanding Series

L. Ann Jervis

... ” (Galatians, p. 264). 5:24 Dying to passions was a goal of the ancient philosophies. We find it also in writings of Philo. For instance, Philo commends “the light of Isaac—the generic form of happiness, of the joy and gladness which belongs to those who have ceased from the manner of women [Gen. 18:11] and died to the passions” (On the Cherubim 8 [Colson and Whitaker, LCL]). See also Philo, On Husbandry 17. Plato writes: This then is why a man should be of good cheer about his soul, who in his life ...

873. Life by the Spirit

Galatians 5:16-26

Understanding Series

L. Ann Jervis

874. Freedom From Human Regulations Through Life With Christ

Colossians 2:6-23

Understanding Series

Arthur G. Patzia

... to a view that takes the cheirographon as a book of works kept by God in which all of humanity’s sins are recorded. Although the record is used by the evil spirits to accuse men and women of their fleshly and unspiritual condition, it ceases to be binding, because Christ has destroyed its effectiveness by his death on the cross. It appears, however, that such a view may concede too much. Would Paul not fall into the heretic’s trap by acknowledging the existence of something so preposterous as such ...

875. Timothy’s Encouraging Report

1 Thessalonians 3:6-13

Understanding Series

David J. Williams

... do we see how high a status Jesus had in the minds of his followers as a result of their experience of him, especially of his resurrection (see disc. on 1:1). People like Paul were nurtured on the truth that there is one God (Deut. 6:4). Without ceasing to believe that truth, they now prayed to him as Father and Son. The singular verb could be taken as further evidence of Paul’s belief that Father and Son are one. However, Greek regularly requires the verb to take its number from the first or the nearest ...

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