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 901 to 925 of 1069 results

901. False Teachers and Their Destruction

2 Peter 2:1-22

Understanding Series

Norman Hillyer

... incident (Num. 22:21–35) may be seen as an oblique reference to his description of the false teachers as being “like brute beasts” (2:12). In fact, Balaam’s donkey, an animal proverbial for its dullness and obstinacy, proved to be more sensitive than its master who, though a prophet, was himself mastered by a material love for “the wages of unrighteousness” (v. 15). The false teachers likewise have convinced themselves that they can get away with their disregard of God’s commands and prosper ...

902. The Plague on Livestock

Exodus 9:1-7

Understanding Series

James K. Bruckner

... you continue to muscle them (or “use power over them”) . . . look out!” The NIV omits the emphatic hinneh (KJV “behold”). The threat was quite clear: the LORD will bring a terrible plague on your livestock in the field. The sensitive target was Pharaoh’s personal property. Moses refers to “your” (in the personal singular form) three times. The word translated “livestock” comes from the root that means “purchasable property” (miqneh, from the verbal root qanah). The “terrible plague ...

903. Allotment for Ephriam and Manasseh

Joshua 16:1--17:18

Understanding Series

J. Gordon Harris

... reminded that the daughters could inherit the claim of their father as had been the law since Moses. Unfortunately, men do not automatically support the rights of women when land is being divided—even legal precedents do not make men that sensitive. In addition, the women assert their own case. There is nothing wrong with women asking for what rightfully belongs to them; in fact, the Bible commends them. Neither should men deride such women by calling them “forward” or “aggressive.” Instead, their ...

904. Ruth and Boaz on the Threshing Floor

Ruth 3:1-18

Understanding Series

Michael S. Moore

... —the opposite of what faithful patriarchs do. By contrast, Boaz’s vision of pastoral care utterly astonishes Ruth. Boaz, as Andersen puts it, “‘does hesed’; he does not merely appear to be like a man who ‘does hesed’” (“Yahweh, the Kind and Sensitive God,” in O’Brien and Peterson, eds., p. 82). Unlike the Levite’s father-in-law, Boaz convinces a council of his peers to let him take a foreign widow “under his wing.” Unlike the old Gibeahite, Boaz courageously takes a stand. The ...

905. Cyrus Helps the Exiles to Return

Ezra 1:1-11

Understanding Series

Leslie C. Allen

... 32:11; Deut. 20:1). Now the same God was at work again, laying the foundation for a new community of faith, whose members were thereby stamped as bona fide successors to the old community that had once occupied the land. Additional Notes 1:6 For a sensitive discussion of the spoiling of the Egyptians, see B. S. Childs, The Book of Exodus (OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1974), pp. 175–77. 1:7 / There are two traditions about the fate of the temple vessels. According to 2 Kgs. 24:13 (NRSV, REB), all of the ...

906. Opposition to the Rebuilding

Ezra 4:1-5

Understanding Series

Leslie C. Allen

... beginning of his reign: The precise reference is to his “accession year” (NRSV), the period from the end of 486 to April 485, when the first full regnal year began. Xerxes inherited an Egyptian revolt, which would have made him particularly sensitive to any suggestion that a neighboring country might cause further difficulties. 4:7 Bishlam, Mithredath: Or possibly “with the agreement of Mithredath” (REB), a Persian official. The ancient versions variously found in the first Aramaic term a name or a ...

907. Haman's Plot to Destroy the Jews

Esther 3:1-15

Understanding Series

Timothy S. Laniak

... her replacement installed. An assassination attempt by two officials was uncovered and executions followed. Chapter 3 begins with echoes of these earlier chapters. Like the king, Haman is a person with great honor (and wealth, 5:11). He also has a very sensitive ego. Mordecai, like Vashti, refuses to comply with a simple command to perform a gesture of deference. Thus, both challenge the honor of the one to whom all others pay their respects. Both Mordecai and Vashti provoke empire-wide efforts to punish ...

908. Purim Celebrated

Esther 9:20-32

Understanding Series

Timothy S. Laniak

... of Hammedatha, the Agagite, the enemy of all the Jews, as the one who had plotted against the Jews to destroy them (v. 24; compare 3:13; 8:11). Haman is now fully appreciated as the enemy of all Jews. His full title reminds those with intertextual sensitivities of the Agag/Saul backdrop for the story and of the stereotypical role Haman plays as the enemy in the laments, scheming and plotting (8:3, 5) against God’s chosen. Trusting fate, Haman cast the pur . As fate would have it, Haman’s plot was found ...

909. How Deserted Lies the City

Lamentations 1:1-22

Understanding Series

Tremper Longman III

... wandering.” These two cola should thus read: Jerusalem remembers her affliction and wandering, (and) all the treasures that were hers in days of old. For the meaning of this line, see commentary. 1:8–9 In a very subtle and psychologically sensitive discussion of the theme of the unclean woman representing Jerusalem in this passage, Dobbs-Allsopp (Lamentations, pp. 63–65) compares and contrasts the image with the common prophetic use of a sexually abused woman. In passages like Isaiah 47:3; Jeremiah ...

910. How the Lord has Covered the Daughter of Zion

Lamentations 2:1-22

Understanding Series

Tremper Longman III

... in the covenant curses from the book of Deuteronomy: Because of the suffering that your enemy will inflict on you during the siege, you will eat the fruit of the womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters the LORD your God has given you. Even the most gentle and sensitive man among you will have no compassion on his own brother or the wife he loves or his surviving children, and he will not give to one of them any of the flesh of his children that he is eating. It will be all he has left because of the ...

911. Judgment of Israel's Neighbors

Amos 1:1-2:5

Understanding Series

Elizabeth Achtemeier

... and was enraged by the opulence and injustice that he found, but as James Mays has written, “. . . it is time to lay to rest the ghost of the wilderness shepherd who reacts to city culture and cult because he sees it as an outsider whose sensitivities are outraged by its contrast to the simple life” (“Words about the Words of Amos,” p. 266). Similarly, the fashion in some liberation theologies of the present day has been to claim that only the poor can properly understand the word of God. Such a ...

912. No More Tears

Sermon

King Duncan

... Hitler expand his power. “Toward the end of the novel a psychiatrist is explaining a case of strange behavior to a young man who is one of the central characters. Refusing to face a world as grim as it really is, the psychiatrist says, some sensitive people try to run away from reality. But the facts must be faced, the psychiatrist insists, and one of these is that people are essentially the same fearing, snarling, fighting cavemen they were hundreds of thousands of years ago. “The young man asks what ...

913. Crucified, Dead, and Buried

John 19:17-27, John 19:28-37, John 19:38-42

Understanding Series

J. Ramsey Michaels

... criminal should not remain hanging on a tree overnight (Deut. 21:22–23) must have conflicted frequently with the Roman custom of leaving bodies on crosses as a warning to other criminals. At festival times, however, the Romans made concessions to Jewish sensitivities, (cf. Philo, Flaccus 83), and this year the fact that the following day was a Sabbath provided an additional reason for the Romans to be generous. 19:38 Arimathea: The exact location of this place is disputed, but the most widely accepted ...

914. Shining as Stars

Philippians 2:12-18

Understanding Series

F. F. Bruce

... to do with slavish terror: as Paul assures the Christians in Rome, “you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear” (Rom. 8:15). It is rather an attitude of due reverence and awe in the presence of God, a sensitivity to his will, an awareness of responsibility in view of the account to be rendered before the tribunal of Christ. In their community life they must recognize that God is present. Pagans who entered Christian meetings became quickly conscious of this. “God is really among ...

915. Thanks for Their Gifts

Philippians 4:10-20

Understanding Series

F. F. Bruce

... sent one by the hand of Epaphroditus. 4:11 Paul greatly appreciated the Philippians’ kind thought, but he assures them that he had not been in need of support of this kind. His language may suggest the embarrassment felt by his independent and sensitive spirit at saying “Thank you” for a spontaneous gift even from such well-loved and loving friends as the Christians in Philippi. Paul’s policy was not to live at the expense of his converts. He agreed that, like other apostles and Christian leaders ...

916. Abraham Tested

Genesis 22:1-19

Understanding Series

John E. Hartley

... moment. Perplexed about the lack of a lamb for the sacrifice, Isaac caught his father’s attention. Abraham alertly responded, “Here I am, my son.” This simple answer, the same in Hebrew as his response to God’s call (v. 1), shows Abraham’s sensitivity to Isaac’s every move. The similarity of these responses is unfortunately lost in NIV’s rendering, “Yes, my son.” Observing that there was fire and wood but no animal, Isaac asked where the lamb was for the burnt offering. Although he asked ...

917. Isaac and Abimelech

Genesis 26:1-35

Understanding Series

John E. Hartley

... g., Isa. 54:2–3). Isaac praised Yahweh for providing enough room for both peoples to live peaceably. Then he expressed his expectation that he would flourish in the land as God had promised. These incidents concerning the wells reveal Isaac’s sensitivity to the needs of the herdsmen of Gerar even as his own needs expanded. He conducted himself prudently, never letting the contention escalate into fighting. 26:23–25 Isaac then settled in Beersheba, having discovered sufficient sources of water to allow ...

918. The Only Place of Worship

Deuteronomy 12:1-32

Understanding Series

Christopher J. H. Wright

... , having no land, they were dependent on the offerings of the people and a share in the meat of those sacrifices that were not wholly consumed on the altar. Hence the warning not to neglect the Levites in verse 19. This social inclusiveness and compassionate sensitivity of Israel’s worship is expanded to include other categories of needy people: the widows, orphans, and aliens, in 14:27–29; 16:11, 14. It was not enough to insist that the poor and aliens be treated with judicial equality in court or to ...

919. Worshipping Other Gods

Deuteronomy 13:1-18

Understanding Series

Christopher J. H. Wright

... of Enlightenment secular presuppositions into the worldview of the church as much as of secular society. C. S. Lewis once said that if we no longer feel comfortable with the cursing psalms, for example, it is not because of our greater, “Christian” sensitivity, but because of our appalling moral apathy. We no longer feel the passion of the psalmist that God should deal with evil and evildoers and vindicate God’s own moral order in the world. We respond to idolatrous, blasphemous evil not with ...

920. The Temple’s Furnishings

1 Kings 7:13-51

Understanding Series

Iain W. Provan

... to reassure us that Hiram was not simply a Gentile with no Israelite roots. The fact that his mother was a widow, indeed, leaves open the possibility that he was a child of her first marriage, and therefore completely Israelite (cf. Ezra 4 for similar sensitivity to the question of Gentile involvement in temple building). Be that as it may, he is certainly described in a way that reminds us of another famous Israelite with a similar job to do—Bezalel, son of Uri, the chief craftsman involved in the ...

921. A Prophecy Against Babylon

Isaiah 13:1--14:23

Understanding Series

John Goldingay

... been mentioned, and this has the emphasis through the rest of the chapter (vv. 12–22). A series of similes and metaphors follows, and a more frightening sequence of literal images redolent of the television news when it is preceded by a warning for the sensitive who might not want to watch. Once more we are also reminded that this is not a mere earthly calamity (v. 13). 13:17–22 The portrait also now becomes politically specific. The army Yahweh is summoning is that of the Medes, further northeast than ...

922. Pharisees Reject the Divine Origin of Jesus’ Power

Matthew 12:22-37, Matthew 12:38-45, Matthew 12:46-50

Teach the Text

Jeannine K. Brown

... to all (12:31). Nonetheless, 12:31 has also been misunderstood and misused by many, given its provocative words “blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven.” Speculation about what falls under this category of an unforgivable sin has harmed many sensitive souls who might convince themselves that they have somehow committed this unforgivable sin. We should be very careful when teaching this text to locate Jesus’ words in the context of the passage: it is stubborn unbelief in Jesus as God’s ...

923. Jesus Turns to His New Family

Mark 3:31-35, Mark 3:20-30

Teach the Text

Grant R. Osborne

... the cross.”5Would you be willing to identify with Jesus if it meant being rejected by your family? Who really is your first love? The battle against demonic powers Nature: A snake can still bite even after its head has been cut off. Snakes have heat-sensitive pits that are capable of detecting a threatening presence even hours after death. Although Satan has already been defeated, he does not act as if he has been defeated and destroyed. The head of the evil one has already been crushed (Gen. 3:15), but ...

924. Parables of the Kingdom

Mark 4:1-20

Teach the Text

Grant R. Osborne

... “members” to remain only partially dedicated to Christ is never acceptable. 2. Discipleship and commitment are not optional. We live in a time when shallow commitment has all too often been regarded as the “normal Christian life.” Although “seeker-sensitive” ministry has many good qualities, one of its great dangers is the tendency to allow seekers to be comfortable with mere interest in Christ. The crowds are the seekers in Jesus’s ministry, and clearly they remain unbelievers throughout ...

925. The Exorcism of a Child Develops a Humble Model for Faith

Mark 9:14-32

Teach the Text

Grant R. Osborne

... up on you and continued to work in your life, just as Jesus did with the disciples. The danger of unbelief Object Lesson: Ask a blindfolded volunteer to trust you by falling back, keeping his or her body rigid, knees locked, and feet in place (be sensitive to gender and attire). Many people will trust you and fall into your arms. Now walk in front of the volunteer and have an assistant quietly take your place in back. Ask the volunteer to fall backward again. Most people will not fall backward with trust ...

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