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 5000 results

901. Food Sacrificed to Idols

1 Corinthians 8:1-13

Understanding Series

Marion L. Soards

... questions: What does God want the believers to know, and how do they know it when they do? 8:3 Paul briefly states the answer to his implied questions. The appropriate criterion is not knowledge but love for God. To focus on knowledge demonstrates an inadequate understanding. What matters is to be known by God, and the evidence of God’s knowing a believer is the believer’s love for God. God’s will and work, not a self-inflated estimation of the value of what one knows, must be the first priority ...

902. Idol Feasts and the Lord's Supper

1 Corinthians 10:14-22

Understanding Series

Marion L. Soards

... eating in pagan cultic locations. Apparently Paul thought that idol worship was not purely idle activity. He refers to the sacrifices of pagans to idols as being offered to demons. This comment is not a full-blown exposition on the demonic, nor is it possible to understand exactly what Paul believed a demon to be, although his thought here is in perfect line with OT passages that identify pagan gods as demons and condemn such sacrifices (see Exod. 22:20; 32:8; Deut. 28:64; 32:17; Ps. 106:36–37). Paul’s ...

903. The Resurrection Body

1 Corinthians 15:35-58

Understanding Series

Marion L. Soards

... first and second Adam. 15:48–49 The argument in verse 48 is like by like: as was the earthly man, so are humans of the earth, and as is the man from heaven, so are the ones of heaven. Verse 49, however, makes a crucial point about Paul’s understanding of the resurrection of the dead: in the present life humans bear the likeness of the human Adam, and in the future (so shall we) believers will bear the likeness of the one from heaven who has already been raised from the dead when they too experience the ...

904. Prologue

Revelation 1:1-3

Understanding Series

Robert W. Wall

... medium by which the believing community is nurtured and corrected by the word of God (cf. 1 John 1:4; 2:12–14, 21, 26; 5:13). Further, the exhortation to hear these “words of prophecy” suggests the first audience derived an understanding of God’s triumph through Christ from those impressions recovered by listening to Revelation read aloud. While he has seven Christian congregations in mind, there is reason to believe that the seer understood the number seven to carry universal significance. Further ...

905. To the Church in Ephesus

Revelation 2:1-7

Understanding Series

Robert W. Wall

... core, or “logos,” of Johannine Christianity is that God is love and truth, and God’s love and truth are incarnated in Jesus Christ (John 1:1–18). Further, the apostolic witness to the incarnated “logos,” Jesus Christ, represents the normative understanding of love and truth (esp. 1 John 3:11–4:21). The deeper logic of this interpretation of the Christian gospel suggests a twofold clarification of Christ’s message to Ephesus. First, any tolerance for teaching contrary to the apostolic witness ...

906. The Birth of Samuel

1 Samuel 1:1-20

Understanding Series

Mary J. Evans

... , Hannah is communicating her personal longing for a son and her genuine desire to dedicate to the Lord all that he gives her, including her son (she assumes that a son is necessary for her to do this). The prayer expresses no doubt that God will understand her position and will listen as she pours out her heart. The sensitivity of the writers contrasts with that of both Elkanah and Eli. Eli fails to spot the woman’s distress and presumes she must be drunk—not an unreasonable assumption at this stage in ...

907. Samuel Anoints David

1 Samuel 16:1-13

Understanding Series

Mary J. Evans

... to get away as soon as possible, and his conviction on being faced with the impressive Eliab that his task was done is understandable. Saul had also had an exceptional physique (1 Sam. 9:2). The intervention of God (v. 7) is portrayed more as a gentle ... wonder what David looked like. He was good-looking, maybe with a country boy’s tan, and it is easy to understand that David’s attractiveness inspired great love and loyalty. Reference to height, which influenced the people’s affirmation of Saul and ...

908. Job's Reply to Eliphaz

Job 6:1–7:21

Understanding Series

Gerald H. Wilson

... to forsake the fear of the Almighty. It is Job’s fear of God (1:9) that has been at issue in the test of suffering, and now Job hints that his will to fear may be eroding. Intense suffering often diminishes our ability to understand and believe. When the pursuit of survival exhausts our energies, we have little left to sustain our faith. This is when we most need believing friends who resist the temptation to criticize our struggling faith, and instead come alongside us to give testimony of the continuing ...

909. Peters Confession to Christ

Matthew 16:13-20

Understanding Series

Robert H. Mounce

... that they tell no one that he was the Christ. There was still much that they needed to learn about his messiahship, specifically that he must go to Jerusalem and be put to death (cf. v. 21). If his own disciples did not yet understand fully what messiahship entailed, how quickly would others of the Jewish faith rush to make him the fulfillment of their nationalistic hopes and dreams? Ill-informed action like this would make his role that much more difficult. Better to keep silent for now. Additional ...

910. Daniel’s Dream of Four Beasts

Daniel 7:1-14

Understanding Series

William Nelson

... other metals (2:44–45). Finally, it is used of the lions, which broke in pieces all of the bones of those cast into the den (6:24). 7:8 Ch. 7 may have undergone some development over time. If the earlier version put forth a ten-king scheme understanding Antiochus IV as the tenth and final king, that means that all of the references to the eleventh horn in the vision and the interpretation are secondary. The verses thought to be secondary are as follows: 7:7d–8, 11a, 20–22, and 24–25 (Hartman and Di ...

911. The Kings of the South and the North

Daniel 11:2-35

Understanding Series

William Nelson

... and the revolt, because these are alluded to, but before the final victory in 164, when it would be apparent that the armed struggle was more than “a little help.” Not all who follow the teachings of the wise ones, the ones who truly understand the revelations about the future, are trustworthy. Daniel warns that many who are not sincere will join them (11:34). This might refer to the Hasideans (Collins, Daniel, p. 386). They agreed with the wise ones about being faithful to Jewish practice but disagreed ...

912. The Request of James and John

Mark 10:35-45

Understanding Series

Larry W. Hurtado

... but there are other features that make this passage somewhat distinctive. The question put by James and John (vv. 35–37) gives us the first explicit indication of the kind of messianic expectation that the disciples held. What emerges is, on the one hand, both an understandable human ambition and a hope that is consonant with what we know of ancient Jewish expectation about the rule of the Messiah. On the other hand, we can see a dream that is seriously out of keeping with what the reader knows now to be ...

913. Hannah Dedicates Samuel

1 Samuel 1:21-28

Understanding Series

Mary J. Evans

914. David In Saul's Service

1 Samuel 16:14-23

Understanding Series

Mary J. Evans

915. The Lord Appears to Elijah

1 Kings 19:9-18

Understanding Series

Iain W. Provan

... whisper. Elijah needs to remember the past, but he also needs to realize that there is more to the LORD than fire. 19:13–18 It is not immediately clear to us why it is important for Elijah to realize this, and there is no evidence that Elijah himself understands. Indeed, even the attempt to jog his memory appears to fail. For when he is asked a second time the question of verse 9 (What are you doing here, Elijah?, v. 13), his answer is exactly the same as before (vv. 10, 14). The entire point of the ...

916. The Call of Elisha

1 Kings 19:19-21

Understanding Series

Iain W. Provan

917. Jehu Kills Joram and Ahaziah

2 Kings 9:14-29

Understanding Series

Iain W. Provan

... (two or three eunuchs—a common condition of officials of royal courts in the ancient Near East; cf. the “official” in 2 Kgs. 8:6). She is thrown down onto the plot of ground beneath (v. 36)—the most natural reading of the phrase is to understand it as Naboth’s land by the royal palace (1 Kgs. 21:1)—and trampled underfoot by Jehu’s chariot horses (v. 33). Unmindful of prophecy (cf. 2 Kgs. 9:10), or perhaps simply aware of the stereotypical nature of much prophetic utterance (cf. 1 Kgs ...

918. Jezebel Killed

2 Kings 9:30-37

Understanding Series

Iain W. Provan

919. A Word to Busy Parents

Luke 2:41-52

Sermon

King Duncan

... would have been concerned. She asked her son, “Why did you worry us like this? We’ve been looking for you anxiously.” Jesus answered, “Did you not know that I must be about my Father’s business?” Luke tells us that Mary and Joseph didn’t really understand what Jesus meant by this, but he went home with them and was obedient to them. We are also told that Mary kept these things hidden in her heart, and that Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man. Can’t you imagine ...

920. How Intelligent Is God’s Design?

Matthew 2:1-12

Sermon

Susan R. Andrews

... complexity of a loving God who does somehow allow pain and suffering to exist. Bewilderment but also wonderment. Wonderment, whenever I find myself teetering on the edge of elegance, teetering on the edge of mystery — whenever I reach a point where my mind can no longer understand where my heart is leading me. I am not much of a scientist, which may be obvious to many of you. After all, the only reason I passed physics in high school was because I finished all my experiments, and put a fancy cover on my ...

921. God’s Absurd Answer

Luke 6:27-38

Sermon

Susan R. Andrews

... guide. As they shouted at each other with bitter anger in their voices, I couldn’t help notice that with their dark Semitic hair and skin, these two “enemies” looked like twins. In a modern twist on the Cain and Abel story, I began to understand how so much hatred had grown between two peoples who are so much alike. However, a contrasting experience ten years later has given me some hope. Several years after 9/11, I attended an interfaith peace conference in Washington DC. It began with a powerful ...

922. Mimosa Pudica

Luke 10:1-10, 16-24

Sermon

Robert C. Cochran

... has already experienced God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The harvester merely collects the bounty from another’s work. You’re not telling the people you share your faith with anything they don’t already know. What you’re doing is helping them understand what they’ve already experienced in life by making a personal connection. They see how your experiences connect with theirs and thus see theirs in a whole new light: the very light of Christ. The British writer Ben Johnson once said that William ...

923. Clearing the Eyes

John 9:1-12, John 9:13-34, John 9:35-41

Sermon

David & Marian Plant

... party one belonged to or if one’s political party of choice was determined by one’s view of God. Of course, this is sort of a chicken and egg kind of question. I’ve tried unsuccessfully to use the internet to find the story with no avail but my understanding of the results were that if one tended to see God as a judging God, that heaven and hell were an absolute, and that we needed to be saved from our sins, most times the person was a Republican. On the other hand, if one believed that God was loving ...

924. The Art of Following

Matthew 4:12-17, Matthew 4:18-22

Sermon

Dean Feldmeyer

... and give it to the poor and come, follow me. Follow me, and I will make you fishers of people. Follow me, and let the dead bury the dead. Take up your cross and come, follow me. And for most of us that’s fine as long as we understand it in that safe, detached, metaphorical way. Again, Kierkegaard puts it in more strident terms: “To want to admire, instead of follow Christ is not an invention of bad people; no, it is more an invention of those who spinelessly want to keep themselves detached at a safe ...

925. Blessed

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

Dean Feldmeyer

... life. To hunger and thirst after righteousness is to seek diligently for God’s will and to strive mightily to do it. The promise is that if we do these two things we will get that for which we seek. We will, in fact, come to know and understand God’s will so that we can do it. Blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy. Mercy is not, necessarily, pity. If we are not very careful we will mentally paraphrase this beatitude to read, “Blessed are the pitiful for they shall be pitied.” Nothing ...

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