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 951 to 975 of 1153 results

951. Peter Speaks to the Onlookers

Acts 3:11-26

Understanding Series

David J. Williams

... :30): Anyone who does not listen to him will be completely cut off from among his people. The warning is probably against willful disobedience. Such a warning is never out of place in Christian preaching, but always it belongs, as here, in a context of tender concern (cf. “Now, brothers” v. 17). 3:24 In the Greek, this verse is closely linked with verses 22–24: “For Moses said, ‘The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me.… Indeed, all the prophets from Samuel on, … have foretold ...

952. Living as Children of Light

Ephesians 4:17--5:21

Understanding Series

Arthur G. Patzia

... a virtue that promotes human relationships: Lying is replaced by truth (4:25); anger is removed by reconciliation (4:26); a person who once robbed goes to work (4:27); harmful words give way to helpful ones (4:29); bitterness, passion, anger, and insults give way to tender-heartedness, forgiveness, and love (4:31–5:2). 4:25 The exhortation that each one must put off falsehood uses the same word (apotithēmi) that was used in 4:22. Lying is to be put away because it does not belong in one’s new life ...

953. Queen Vashti Deposed

Esther 1:1-22

Understanding Series

Timothy S. Laniak

... former queen. Ironically, while treating the king with unequivocal deference, Esther will prove to be more independent than Vashti. Xerxes is the king of a vast realm, unprecedented in scope and power. He is also, we learn, a king with a “dangerously tender ego” (Fox, Character, p. 26). This enormously powerful Gentile monarch is a weak man. He is quickly enraged and easily consoled. He seems unable to make decisions without his band of advisers, who provide just-in-time solutions for his dilemmas, and ...

954. Proverbs of Solomon

Proverbs 12:1-28

Understanding Series

Roland E. Murphy

... is a frequent target of the sayings. 12:10–11 Both of these antithetic sayings would be at home in a peasant culture. The point of verse 10 is to contrast the universal consideration that the righteous have for others, even for an animal, in contrast to the “tender mercies” (as the RV puts it) of the wicked who have no regard for any one. Verse 11 finds a close parallel in 28:19. Diligence and serious farmwork is urged in verse 11a, as opposed to stupid activity that has no goal. 12:12 The text is ...

955. Judgment Against Israel

Hosea 5:1-15

Understanding Series

Elizabeth Achtemeier

... prophet then turns to the Israelites as a body. The Hebrew of verse 3a reads, “I know Ephraim,” and that means much more than simply knowing about them and what they have done. The Lord speaks from a covenant relation of love with a bride, of tenderness toward a son. God knows Israel as a husband knows his wife and as a father knows his child. Nothing about Israel is hidden. And so from a relationship gone sour, Yahweh states that his bride has turned to harlotry with the fertility deities of the land ...

956. Punishment for Israel

Hosea 9:1--10:15

Understanding Series

Elizabeth Achtemeier

... traditions concerning Yahweh’s loving relation with this people. God found the fathers, the forebears of his people and of the prophet (your fathers). Finding them was as delightful to him as finding grapes in the desert—a fantastic possibility—or the first tender figs on a fig tree. Always, in Hosea’s oracles, there is notice of Yahweh’s love for his people, which serves to emphasize the perfidy of Israel’s faithlessness. Despite God’s adoption of and love for Israel, when Israel, guided ...

957. God’s Love for Israel

Hosea 11:1-11

Understanding Series

Elizabeth Achtemeier

... Yahweh left Israel unyoked, and that the yoke on a heifer did not rest on the heifer’s jaws, but on its neck, as the NIV has emended. There is no way to decide definitively between these two readings, but in either case, the tenderness of Yahweh toward Israel is indicated. Despite God’s unmerited love for his son Israel, that people has continually gone away and worshiped the Baals, verse 2, never remembering that their redemption from slavery came from Yahweh’s healing, verse 3. Given the context ...

958. Witnesses Summoned Against Israel

Amos 3:1-15

Understanding Series

Elizabeth Achtemeier

... 7–8 (cf. Isa. 31:4). For a sheepbreeder like Amos, lions were devastating enemies, and it is jarring to use such a simile in connection with God. But the figure is a healthy corrective for any society that believes that God is only a sweet lover or tender mother or succoring friend who overlooks every wrong. The God of the Bible is a terrifying foe of those who would make him less than Lord over every life and every thing. Second, God’s absolute sovereignty over history is affirmed in verse 6. While the ...

959. A Lament and Call to Repentance

Amos 5:1-17

Understanding Series

Elizabeth Achtemeier

... the case in the holy history, God’s reaction to the people’s sin is not wrath but grief (cf. Gen. 6:6), and judgment on them is carried out in the sorrow of a disappointed lover (cf. Matt. 23:37–38 and parallel). We shall encounter the same tenderness in 7:1–6, and it is a good note to keep in mind when interpreting Amos’s judgment oracles. Verses 4–5 continue the divine speech and point out to Israel what it should have done. Scholars have interpreted these verses in a variety of ways—as ...

960. Deliverance Promised

Micah 2:12-13

Understanding Series

Elizabeth Achtemeier

... the prophets (Isa. 40:11; Jer. 23:3), and it is then applied to Christ in the NT (Mark 6:34 and parallel; 14:27 and parallel; John 10:11–17; Heb. 13:20; 1 Pet. 2:25; 5:4; Rev. 7:17). While the figure embodies the thought of tenderness and care (cf. Isa. 40:11), it also serves as a royal image (cf. Ezek. 34:23). Kings in the ancient Near East were known as the shepherds of their people (cf. Jer. 49:19), and Yahweh, who is Israel’s shepherd, is at the same time also Israel’s ...

961. Prayer and Praise

Micah 7:14-20

Understanding Series

Elizabeth Achtemeier

... visit the sins of the fathers upon the third and the fourth generation, but God’s steadfast, covenant love endures for thousands of generations (cf. Exod. 20:5–6). And so God will have compassion (rāḥam) upon Israel, a word used to denote the tender, unconditional love of a mother for the child of her womb (reḥem). This passage does not concern Israel alone, however. The NIV and most commentators emend the possessive pronoun in verse 19c to read, “you will cast our iniquities into the depths of ...

962. The Man Among Myrtle Trees

Zechariah 1:7-17

Understanding Series

Pamela J. Scalise

... return to Jerusalem” echoes the promise in verse 3, but without condition. The return will be with mercy, reversing the 70 years of withholding mercy (v. 12). The word “mercy” comes from the same root as “womb” (rkhm), suggesting an association with the fierce loyalty and tender care that a mother feels for her children. The Lord’s love for the people Israel is even greater than a mother’s love (Isa. 49:15). As evidence of God’s return, my house will be rebuilt in the holy city. Ezra 5:1–2 ...

963. Robbing God

Malachi 3:6-18

Understanding Series

Pamela J. Scalise

... s way. 3:7b–10 The people’s quoted response is a practical question, “How are we to return?” God’s response is also practical, identifying a particular offense from which they can turn back. God does not, however, meet their question with tenderness but instead addresses them with a cleansing accusation: “Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me.” The choice of words emphasizes the difference between the two parties, God the creator and ʾadam, “human being” (NIV “a man”), the creature. No ...

964. No More Tears

Sermon

King Duncan

... her arms giving comfort and solace. Does that sound too sentimental to you? If so, blame it on Jesus. After all, didn’t he teach us to pray saying, “Abba” or “Daddy?” For all his power and might and majesty, the God of the Bible has the tender heart of the most loving mother or father in all the world. “He will wipe away every tear.” Philosopher Peter van Inwagen writes on the problem of suffering. He says, “I have never had the tendency to react to the evils of the world by saying, ‘How ...

965. When Jesus Prays

John 17:20-26

Sermon

King Duncan

... one who has volunteered to stand with you, giving you comfort and confidence. Jesus reassures us that we can come to God as any child can come to a loving parent. We can pray, according to Thomas G. Long, “not as outsiders, but as God’s children, tenderly, honestly, and confidently. In our secret, whispered prayers, we are known so well that God, like a mother listening with her heart to her children, can finish our sentences.” (4) Christ prays for us and all who believe on his name. That is the first ...

966. A Woman Burdened with Guilt

Luke 7:36-50

Sermon

King Duncan

... the meal they took off their sandals. This woman of the city positioned herself at Jesus’ feet. Standing behind him, she began to weep. Soon she was kneeling at his feet and her tears were falling on his feet. Her tears were so great that she tenderly used her long hair to wipe them off. Furthermore, she kissed his feet and anointed them with perfume. The Pharisee was scandalized by such behavior. For one thing, women didn’t take down their hair in public--some men would even divorce their wives if they ...

967. The Covenant of Circumcision

Genesis 17:1-27

Understanding Series

John E. Hartley

... those who are stubbornly disobedient have uncircumcised hearts (Jer. 9:25–26; Ezek. 44:7; Wenham, Genesis 16–50, p. 24). Those whose hearts are impervious to God’s word may be radically changed by the removal of its hard foreskin. This divine operation makes the heart tender and pliable so that it becomes pure and holy, loving to do what God commands. 17:25 Nations descended from Ishmael continue to circumcise their children at the age of thirteen, as a rite of passage from childhood to adulthood.

968. Dinah and the Shechemites

Genesis 34:1-31

Understanding Series

John E. Hartley

... girls of marriageable age in small shepherd clans were not permitted to go about unescorted. Shechem son of Hamor . . . saw her. Drawn by her beauty, he raped her. Afterward he longed for her to become his wife. His lust appears to have turned to love, for he spoke tenderly to Dinah in order to win her affection. Since in that society a marriage had to be negotiated, Shechem pressured his father, Hamor, the ruler of that area, to take the necessary steps to get her as his wife. To do that Hamor had to go to ...

969. Jacob Goes to Egypt

Gen 46:1–47:12

Understanding Series

John E. Hartley

... (12:2). God supported this word of salvation with the promise that his presence was going down to Egypt with him (26:24; 28:15, 20; 31:3–5). God also assured him that he would bring him back, that is, for his burial, adding the tender promise that Joseph would place his own hand on his eyes, meaning that his beloved son Joseph would attend to his burial. Jacob’s worship of God at Beersheba completed his retracing of Abraham’s initial journey through the promised land upon his return from Haran ...

970. The Sign of Immanuel

Isaiah 7:1-25

Understanding Series

John Goldingay

... 15; 32:17), which is what Ahaz actually sought (2 Kgs. 16). Don’t be afraid is a Middle Eastern deity’s standard invitation/challenge to a devotee, especially a king. Do not lose heart suggests “be tough-minded” (lit. “your mind must not be tender”). It is soft to be activist, in the mistaken conviction that you are responsible for your people’s destiny. Key to Isaiah’s challenge is the name of the son he brings with him, Shear-Jashub, “a remnant will return,” though this name conveys an ...

971. Comfort for God's People

Isaiah 40:1-31

Understanding Series

John Goldingay

... ’s song in a foreign land, and they are committed to remembering Jerusalem, painful though that is. They consider it their highest joy and want God to remember it, too (Ps. 137). Now Yahweh declares, “I have remembered it.” So Yahweh commissions some tender speaking to it. The expression is literally “speak to Jerusalem’s heart.” We have noted that the heart in Hebrew thinking is more the mind than the emotions, and the comforting of Jerusalem involves giving it some facts to chew on. There are ...

972. The Necessity of Vigilance in Light of the Parousia

Mark 13:32-37

Teach the Text

Grant R. Osborne

... fig tree in verses 28–31 centers on the destruction of Jerusalem (yet includes the second coming [see below]), and the sayings in verses 32–37 relate to the return of Christ. Interpretive Insights 13:28 lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out . . . summer is near. As William Lane points out, the Mount of Olives had fig trees as well as olive trees, so this is a natural metaphor.1There were two types of fruit: an “early (green) fig” in March/April and the ...

973. A Special Child Promised

Luke 1:5-25

Teach the Text

R.T. France

... 1:21 as declaring his saving role. John, also a common name, is not explicitly interpreted in that way, but it represents the Hebrew Yohanan, meaning “God has been gracious,” and 1:14–17 (and still more 1:68–79) will spell out how God’s grace (“the tender mercy of our God” [1:78]) is to be exercised through John’s ministry. 1:15 He is never to take wine or other fermented drink. John’s ascetic lifestyle, which is described in Mark 1:6, is based on what looks like a lifelong Nazirite vow ...

974. Priorities

Luke 12:35-48, Luke 12:22-34

Teach the Text

R.T. France

... I know He watches me; His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me. [Refrain] I sing because I’m happy, I sing because I’m free, For His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me. “Let not your heart be troubled,” His tender word I hear, And resting on His goodness, I lose my doubts and fears; Though by the path He leadeth, but one step I may see; His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me; His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me ...

975. Use It or Lose It

Luke 19:11-27

Teach the Text

R.T. France

... fragments Pascal writes about the nature of discipleship: I love poverty because he loved it. I love riches because they afford me the means of helping the very poor. I keep faith with everybody. . . . I try to be just, true, sincere, and faithful to all men. I have a tender heart for those to whom God has more closely united me; and whether I am alone or seen of men, I do all of my actions in the sight of God, who must judge of them, and to whom I have consecrated them all.2 Film: Saving Grace, directed ...

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