Sermon and Worship Resources

Antonyms: keep, claim, continue, stick by, self-control, power through, achieve, defend, bear, hope, acquire, quick visit, adopt, continue along, adhere, remain, pursue, support, take up, keep up, reuse, advocate, stay, persevere, cherish, keep going, carry on

Showing 1276 to 1300 of 4681 results

1276. Job's Third Reply to Bildad

Job 26:1--31:40

Understanding Series

Gerald H. Wilson

... appears in 29:1 to indicate once again that this is a continuation of Job’s speech. Such a notice would hardly seem necessary without the intervening material of chapter 28. It seems clear that sandwiching this wisdom poem between two chapters bearing identical continuation formulas binds this poem into the context of Job’s ongoing speech. In addition, a careful comparison of the contents of chapter 28 with the speeches of the friends, Elihu, and Job, demonstrates that these verses have a much closer ...

1277. Elihu

Job 32:1--37:24

Understanding Series

Gerald H. Wilson

... may well have come to this position at a later date than the rest of the poetical segments, there is no reason to assume from a canonical point of view that any earlier form of the book—without the Elihu speeches—would or should bear any greater weight of authority than the present, final form. The alternative form of the introductory formula that announces the theophany in 38:1 (wayyaʿan yhwh ʾet ʾiyyob . . . wayyoʾmar, “Then the LORD answered Job . . . He said”) makes it clear, by referring to ...

1278. The Lord Speaks

Job 38:1--41:34

Understanding Series

Gerald H. Wilson

... . Humans can only look on with amazement as God works in the distant heavens (Ps. 8). Can you bring forth . . . lead out? The probing of the limits of human power continues with reference to the manipulation of additional constellations of the night sky including the Bear with its cubs. 38:33 Do you know the laws of the heavens? The rules and order that govern the movement of the stars through their seasonal rotations are beyond Job’s knowledge. Even the best of today’s scientists must admit to only a ...

1279. The Birth of Jesus Christ

Matthew 1:18-25

Understanding Series

Robert H. Mounce

... historically irreconcilable. There is no inherent necessity, however, for such a radical conclusion. For example, the angelic appearance to Mary (in Luke) and to Joseph (in Matthew) are not the same event. To Mary, the angel announces that, having found favor with God, she is to bear a son. In response to Mary’s query as to how that could be, since she has no husband, the angel explains that the Holy Spirit will overshadow her, and the child will be the Son of God (Luke 1:30–35). To Joseph, the angel ...

1280. Prayer

Matthew 6:5-15

Understanding Series

Robert H. Mounce

... the messianic banquet and the temptation a reference to the time of severe persecution at the end of the age (cf. Matt. 24:22). It is better to take the first three petitions as bearing upon the future consummation and the next four as related to God’s action in our lives at the present time (cf. Beare, p. 175). Whatever the primary focus, however, each petition has implications for both the present and the future. In form, the Lord’s Prayer opens very much like an Aramaic liturgical prayer known as ...

1281. God Will Redeem My Soul from the Grave

Psalm 49:1-20

Understanding Series

Craig C. Broyles

... the statements of verses 7–15. Redeem and give . . . a ransom are economic terms, meaning “to buy back” and “to pay a ransom price.” But no one, not even these wealthy, can afford the price that he should live on forever. As wealth has no bearing on the inevitability of death (vv. 7–9), so wisdom and foolishness are likewise irrelevant (vv. 10–11). The first of the refrains (v. 12, cf. v. 20) concludes, man, despite his riches, does not understand (the NIV paraphrases this as endure, but it is ...

1282. Jesus and Beelzebub

Matthew 12:22-37

Understanding Series

Robert H. Mounce

... Spirit of God. 12:33–37 Four centuries before Christ the Greek dramatist Menander noted that a person’s character reveals itself in the spoken word. Jesus put the same truth in the image of a tree and its fruit. A good tree bears good fruit, but a diseased tree bears unusable fruit. The quality of the fruit tells you what kind of tree you have. Matthew applies the saying of Jesus to the Pharisees who have just claimed that Jesus has exorcized a demon by the power of Beelzebub. People show by the fruit ...

1283. The Parable Of the Weeds Explained

Matthew 13:36-43

Understanding Series

Robert H. Mounce

... Son of Man will send out his angels to uproot from his kingdom “everything that is spoiling it” (Phillips) and “all who violate His laws” (Weymouth). The same scene is portrayed later in the Olivet Discourse (24:30–31). Some find it strange (Beare calls it “grotesque,” p. 313) that angels rather than demons inflict punishment, but in Revelation 14:18–20 angels are very much involved in carrying out the vengeance of God on the wicked. The fiery furnace (v. 42) into which evildoers are thrown ...

1284. Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand

Matthew 14:13-21

Understanding Series

Robert H. Mounce

... . Perhaps everyone had a lunch, but no one was willing to bring it out lest he or she would have to share it with others. When they were shamed into action, we see “the miracle of the birth of love in grudging hearts” (Barclay, vol. 2, p. 103). Beare rightly calls this particular approach (which was originally suggested by H. E. G. Paulus in 1828) “banal and inept” (p. 327). Others have taken it as a sort of midrash on the story of Elisha, who fed a hundred men with twenty loaves of barley bread and ...

1285. The Faith of the Canaanite Woman

Matthew 15:21-28

Understanding Series

Robert H. Mounce

... feeding of the four thousand relates to the Gentiles (the seven baskets of Matt. 15:37 symbolize the seven deacons of Acts 6:1ff.). Carrington (The Primitive Christian Calendar, p. 16) says that the writer of the Gospel was following a lectionary that required the duplication. Beare holds that we have here not simply a second account of a feeding but a more extensive cycle (p. 347). It is more likely that we have not two accounts of a single event but two separate but similar events. It is unlikely that the ...

1286. Peters Confession to Christ

Matthew 16:13-20

Understanding Series

Robert H. Mounce

... it refers to the central figure of Old Testament expectation. By his confession Peter is saying that Jesus is the One who comes in fulfillment of Israel’s hopes and dreams. He is the Son of the living God. Some modern writers would agree with Beare’s conclusion that this title is a “Christological confession cast in the language of the early church” (p. 352). Gundry, however, on the basis of Matthew’s “they will call him Immanuel, which means, God with us” (Matt. 1:23) and the account of the ...

1287. The Fig Tree Withers

Matthew 21:18-22

Understanding Series

Robert H. Mounce

... tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. To the tree he said, May you never bear fruit again! The disciples were astonished to see the tree wither so quickly and asked in amazement how it had happened (v. 20). Jesus ... bit of a pique and “blasting a fig tree for not doing what it was not able to do” (Barclay, vol. 2, p. 252). Beare calls it “the only cursing miracle in the Gospels” (p. 419). Some have suggested that the entire episode is the result of the tradition ...

1288. The Burial of Jesus

Matthew 27:57-61

Understanding Series

Robert H. Mounce

... front of the entrance, he left, but Mary Magdalene and the other Mary remained in front of the grave. Roman law allowed the relatives of a criminal to claim his body for burial. Otherwise it would be left on the cross for wild dogs and vultures. Beare holds the account of Jesus’ burial to be “legendary” and surmises that, like those of other criminals, his body was put in a trench and covered over by the soldiers (p. 538). No such reworking of the text is necessary. Isaiah, speaking of the Suffering ...

1289. The Guards' Report

Matthew 28:11-15

Understanding Series

Robert H. Mounce

... would intervene and persuade him (against taking any action). They would keep the soldiers out of trouble (v. 14). Matthew adds that the guards did as they were told and that this story has been making the rounds in Jewish circles ever since. Beare holds that verses 11–14 are “completely incredible as a whole” (p. 543). Stendahl would argue that it is “reasonable to suggest that the resurrection tradition in the Gospels has its nucleus in an experience of an empty tomb,” although around this basic ...

1290. Nebuchadnezzer’s Dream of a Tree

Daniel 4:1-18

Understanding Series

William Nelson

... is the case in Isaiah 40:1–2 (see Cross, “Council of Yahweh,” pp. 274–77). Because Nebuchadnezzar’s tree fails to bear the fruit of humility before God, it draws the wrath and judgment of God. Perhaps this is a point of contact with the NT, for ... John the Baptist rebukes the religious leaders of his day for not bearing the fruit of repentance: “The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will ...

1291. Daniel in the Den of Lions

Daniel 6:1-28

Understanding Series

William Nelson

... they endured persecution (Acts 5:40–41; 2 Cor. 11:23–29). Just as Job’s story cannot be taken as a promise that everyone will always be healed, so Daniel 6 cannot be understood as a promise that no one will ever be martyred. Yet it does bear witness that God sometimes acts in history to save his people from harm. In the parable of the unjust judge, Jesus encourages his followers to cry out for justice in this life and to believe that God will quickly respond (Luke 18:1–8). Furthermore, we know from ...

1292. Daniel’s Vision of a Ram and a Goat

Daniel 8:1-14

Understanding Series

William Nelson

... Greece). Media and Persia are paired elsewhere in Daniel and in the OT (Dan. 5:28; 6:8, 12, 15; 8:20; Esth. 1:14, 19; 10:2). Daniel observes the ram charging toward the west and the north and the south (8:4). History bears witness to Persian expansion. Cambyses (529–522) stretched the southern border toward Egypt. Darius (522–486) increased territory northward toward Scythia and westward toward Greece. It is odd that the ram does not charge toward the east, because Persia did conquer in the direction of ...

1293. Paying Taxes to Caesar

Mark 12:13-17

Understanding Series

Larry W. Hurtado

... term “image” is the same word used in Greek in Gen. 1:27 to describe humankind as made in God’s image. Some have suggested that Jesus intended an allusion to this passage, meaning that if the coin bore Caesar’s image it belonged to him, and since humans bear God’s image they owe him their all. We know of pious Jews who refused to handle this type of coin that bore what they regarded as a blasphemous claim for the emperor. That Jesus asked for a coin may indicate that he too avoided the handling of ...

1294. Whose Son is the Christ?

Mark 12:35-40

Understanding Series

Larry W. Hurtado

... significance of Jesus as Messiah cannot be measured by connecting him with David. The divinely inspired David is quoted as connecting the Messiah with the throne of God (at my right hand, v. 36), suggesting that the true Messiah is to be understood as bearing not only Davidic, but also divine, significance. The passage advises that Jewish messianic conceptions of the day were inadequate views of the role and person of the Messiah and the full sweep of God’s plan of redemption. At best, they only hinted at ...

1295. Signs of the End of the Age

Luke 21:5-38

Understanding Series

Craig A. Evans

... warns his followers, their opponents will lay hands on them and persecute them. Much of what Jesus describes appears in the Book of Acts (see 4:16–18; 8:1–3; 12:1–5). The Apostle Paul would later be brought before kings and governors before whom he would bear witness to the truth of the gospel (see Acts 22:30–23:9 where Paul speaks to the Sanhedrin; 24:10–23 where Paul is before Governor Felix; 25:1–12 where Paul speaks to Governor Festus; 26:1–32 where Paul speaks to King Agrippa and Bernice ...

1296. Jesus Before Pilate and Herod

Luke 22:66--23:25

Understanding Series

Craig A. Evans

... program in which he consistently portrays Jewish religious leadership as stubborn and as always resisting the Spirit of God (see Acts 7:51–53), but it also serves as an apologetic with regard to early Christianity’s relationship to the Roman state. Luke bears bold testimony: Whereas it may be true that Jesus was executed by Roman authority, he had been, nevertheless, pronounced innocent three times by this authority (23:4, 14–16, 22). Jesus was executed because of a failure of nerve on the part of ...

1297. The Death of Jesus

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

Understanding Series

J. Ramsey Michaels

... 5:6); “There are three that testify: the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement” (5:7–8). The testimony they bear is summed up in the words “God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son” (5:11). The notion of water as ... name was a small bush with blue flowers used in the purification of sacrifices by sprinkling. It had no stalk capable of bearing the weight of a sponge. Because the plant described here obviously does have a firm stalk or reed (cf. Mark 15:36/ ...

1298. The Burial of Jesus

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

Understanding Series

J. Ramsey Michaels

1299. Listening and Doing

James 1:19-27, James 1:1-18

Understanding Series

Peter H. Davids

... he also produced new creation: He has produced the new birth or redemption in all believers (John 3:3–8; Rom. 12:2; Eph. 1:5; Titus 3:5; 1 Pet. 1:3, 23; 1 John 3:9). This statement produces a startling contrast: Desire brings to birth, but it bears sin and death; God brings to birth redemption and life. Third, God does this new act of creation through the word of truth. This expression might at first glance be thought a reference to the creative word of God (Gen. 1) or to the veracity of all he says (e ...

1300. Wives and Husbands

1 Peter 3:1-7

Understanding Series

Norman Hillyer

... godly OT wives showed that they were submissive to their own husbands is illustrated by the example of Sarah. The occasion on which we are told that Sarah called Abraham her master is when she reveals her incredulity that, despite their advanced years, she was to bear her husband a son (Gen. 18:12 LXX). But her “submission” to Abraham when she called him her master is not to be understood in any slavish fashion—as is made clear by Sarah’s later refusal to allow Hagar and Ishmael to remain in the ...

Showing results