Synonyms: replica, copy, representation, mock-up, dummy, imitation, double, duplicate, lookalike, reproduction, prototype, stereotype, archetype, type, version, style, ideal, paragon, perfect example, specimen, perfect specimen, fashion model, supermodel, mannequin, sitter, poser, subject, artist's model, photographic model, design, mark, configuration, variety, kind, sort, original, original design, exclusive, toy, miniature, facsimile, prototypical, prototypal, archetypal, illustrative, perfect, exemplary, classic, flawless, faultless, consummate, impeccable
Antonyms: deficient, imperfect
Showing 1551 to 1575 of 3160 results
Sermon
King Duncan
... happen to be in the right place at the right time or is God trying to say something to us in giving shepherds such prominence in the Christmas story. Maybe, by including shepherds, God is telling us that the gospel is for all people. It’s the sort of thing God would do. The gospel isn’t just for the politically or monied elite. The shepherds had no power or wealth. They were at the very bottom of society. Their hygiene wasn’t all that great. Neither were their manners. They certainly weren’t among ...
1552. People of Influence
1 Thessalonians 1:1-10
Sermon
King Duncan
... God put them here for a reason and they seek to live out God’s purpose for their lives. It’s so easy to drift through life. Some of us drifted into our jobs. We woke up one day and there we were. We really didn’t plan it. It sort of happened by default. For some of us it has worked out well, but we can’t say it was the result of a life-plan. Some of us drifted into our marriages. Some of us drifted into our present state of health. We could have made better choices, but ...
Children's Sermon
King Duncan
... branch. The olive branch represents peace. Which claw is the eagle facing? That's right, it's facing the claw holding the olive branch. That means that America wants peace, not war. Our Bible passage today is about peace. Around the world right now, there are all sorts of wars going on. Countries are fighting one another. But the Bible says that someday all wars will stop. We will have peace all over the world. There won't be any more fighting, no more killing, no more war. We will be in God's presence ...
1554. After Katrina
Song of Songs 8:1-14
Sermon
David E. Leininger
... Talmage, using the 93rd Psalm as his text ("The floods have lifted up, 0 Lord, the floods have lifted up their voice..."), told an audience of some 5,000 that what the voice of the flood had to say was that nature was merciless and that any sort of religious attitude toward nature meant emptiness. He said, "There are those who tell us they want only the religion of sunshine, art, blue sky and beautiful grass. The book of nature must be their book. Let me ask such persons what they make out of the floods ...
Sermon
Darrick Acre
... ? Not knowing the facts they, like us, invent a worst-case scenario. They argue backwards from horrible ending to just cause. After all, in the light of his terrible fate, surely this man must have done something unspeakably wicked. The parable, however, says nothing of the sort. In fact it says nothing about this man, good or bad, other than that he failed to be wearing proper wedding attire. Perhaps he wasn’t aware of the dress code, even as I was not for Monday’s lunch with Louie Shingler. Perhaps he ...
Sermon
Edward Inabinet
... , and on Madison Avenue, at 73rd Street, tears leapt from my eyes as though I had been struck in the face." (2) Frederick Buechner suddenly knew the newness of life that is available to everyone who puts his or her faith in Jesus Christ. The same sort of thing happened to the Apostle Paul, that man who considered himself the chief of sinners, the lowest of the low, the blasphemer of God and Jesus Christ, the persecutor, the murderer of Christians. But Christ touched his life. He went from being a persecutor ...
1557. The Living Hope
1 Peter 1:1-12
Sermon
Edward Inabinet
... book, A SEVERE MERCY, Sheldon Vanauken, who lost his wife to cancer, tells of the last day he saw his friend C. S. Lewis. They had lunch together and talked about death or, as he says, "the wakening after death." Vanauken suggested that death would be a sort of coming home, and Lewis agreed. When it came time to part, he insisted that they keep in touch and then said with a cheerful grin, "We''ll certainly meet again here or there." The two friends shook hands and Lewis made his way across the busy highway ...
Sermon
Donald B. Strobe
... over so odd a conclusion. So, the ancient writers of the Creed stood on their hind feet and said confidently, I BELIEVE IN GOD THE FATHER ALMIGHTY... II. HISTORICALLY, WE HAVE HAD A LOT OF PROBLEMS WITH THAT WORD “ALMIGHTY.” It leads us into all sorts of silly questions about, Can God do anything? A teacher once asked a Sunday School class, “Is there anything God cannot do?” One bright pupil replied, “Yes. He can’t please everybody!” That’s true. And there are other things God cannot do as ...
Sermon
Donald B. Strobe
... paid with their life for that faith. That proclamation spelled the end to all dictatorships, all tyranny. It was said of our Puritan ancestors that they bowed the knee to God,and therefore could not bow the knee to any earthly power. That confession of faith has all sorts of practical ramifications. It tells us what we should do when we come face to face with any earthly power that tries to lord it over us. It tells us how to handle difficult decisions. Do we really dare to put Jesus’ way of love to work ...
Sermon
Donald B. Strobe
... it to heaven? Who knows? I don’t. I surely hope they do. The question is: would I be offended if they did? I get the impression that some Christians think of heaven as an exclusive club, and their enjoyment of it depends upon how exclusive it remains. They are sort of like Groucho Marx who said that he would never want to belong to a club which allowed people like him to be a member. Some, it seems, wouldn’t want to go to heaven if certain people might happen to be there. Of course I have no special ...
Sermon
Donald B. Strobe
... is fit for life under the conditions of earthly existence, so God will also clothe us with a spiritual body, fit for heavenly existence. II. AND SO THE CREED SPEAKS OF THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. That is a puzzling phrase, and has caused us all sorts of problems over the centuries. Some have taken it literally, and have desired to be buried in a certain place, or facing in a certain direction, so they will be raised in a certain way. Others have forbidden cremation, feeling that it would somehow be more ...
Sermon
Donald B. Strobe
... shape over the centuries to become what we call the “canon” of Holy Scripture, was itself a condensation of a vast number of writings, both Jewish and Christian, some of which never made it into our Bibles. Church Councils met during the early centuries to sort out these writings and determine which ones merited inclusion and which ought to be left out. The Bible which we now have is pretty much the one which Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria set forth for his congregation in a pastoral letter in the year ...
Sermon
Donald B. Strobe
... people who are allowed to advertise in them are “born again” people, and those receiving the book are urged to patronize their establishments only. This seems to me to be a dangerous form of spiritual elitism, and could very well result in the crassest sort of hypocrisy where people will profess having been born again in order to attract business. Perhaps the words of a minister friend of mine are apropos at this point. He says that when politicians begin to speak about God, you’d better hang onto ...
Sermon
Donald B. Strobe
... God thinks we are real. He created all of us to be His children. We are made “in God’s image” as Genesis so quaintly puts it. However, over the centuries that image has become somewhat tarnished. Our original resemblance to God has become overlaid with all sorts of accretions across the centuries and that is why God saw fit to issue a new edition of what it means to be truly human. We call that new edition Jesus, the Christ. And Christ called upon us to become what we really and truly are: children ...
Sermon
Donald B. Strobe
... wanted to travel to Galilee, he went through Samaria. Most Jews would not have done that, preferring instead to avoid the Samaritans by crossing over the Jordan River into Perea, then traveling north along the Jordan valley and crossing back after bypassing Samaria...sort of the way modern travelers must go if they wish to avoid possible terrorist attacks. In ancient times, as today, it was dangerous to travel in Samaria. Bad blood had flowed between Jews and Samaritans for so long that nobody could see an ...
Sermon
Donald B. Strobe
... for them, and so they thought that they had cooked up a neat little scheme to get rid of Him once and for all. They brought before Him a poor woman caught in the very act of adultery. (One wonders whether they might have arranged a “set-up,” sort of a “sting” operation or entrapment in order to put Jesus on the horns of a dilemma. Otherwise how come they were around to witness the woman’s adultery and to catch her “in the very act”? One might come up with some interesting speculations in this ...
Sermon
Donald B. Strobe
... for a person to sin while still in the mother’s womb! Others in ancient times believed in the pre-existence of souls. They got that notion from Plato and the Greeks. They believed that all souls existed before the creation of the world, in sort of a gigantic “soul-pool,” and took turns entering a human body. The Greeks believed that such souls were inherently good, and that it was only their entrance into this bodily form which corrupted them. On the other hand, many rabbis of Jesus’ day believed ...
Sermon
Donald B. Strobe
... unnamed “sinful woman” Mary of Bethany? Often that woman is identified with Mary Magdalene; wrongly, I suspect. (Mary Magdalene has gotten a “bad press” over the years.) We wish that we knew but we will leave it to the Biblical commentators to try and sort out the relationship between the several similar stories of an anointing in the New Testament record. Jesus was reclining on a couch to eat, which was the ancient custom. Mary could easily approach Jesus’ feet as He reclined with His head at the ...
Sermon
Donald B. Strobe
... that it stuck in his throat, and a few minutes after he slipped away from the meal, you might have seen him gagging in the bushes outside the dining hall. It is indeed hard to eat while you are living a lie. We must not imagine that Judas was some sort of monster. Truth told, he was more like most of us than we care to admit. Betrayal of Christ cannot be laid on Judas alone. In a sense, all of us are his accomplices. At times we are all guilty of betrayal of Jesus and His cause. Judas’ act terrifies ...
Sermon
Donald B. Strobe
... Christ) and everything that has happened since then is called “A.D.” (Anno Domini - “the year of our Lord?”) Parenthetically, we might note the irony in the fact that even those who deny Christ must date their denials from His birth! Is this all some sort of gigantic mistake, or does the birth of Christ in our world really make that much difference? It didn’t seem to make much difference at the time. Not a single historian of the period so much as mentioned it. Yes, a few of ancient historians ...
Sermon
Donald B. Strobe
... .” These are the people who sap your strength and weaken the church. Then there was Andrew who said, simply, “This is a difficult situation. I’ll see what I can do. I’ll find whatever I can find, and trust Jesus to do the rest.” That’s the sort of person Andrew was. He brought the boy with his lunch to Jesus. He was always bringing somebody to Jesus. He even brought his brother, Simon Peter, to Jesus. Peter went on to become the great leader of the early Church, but if it were not for Andrew, we ...
1572. Slippery Rock
Matthew 16:21-28
Sermon
Donald B. Strobe
... 490, and then we can stop forgiving at the 491st time. Jesus’ words pointed toward infinity. Just as there is no limit to God’s forgiveness, there should be no limit to our own. III. ANOTHER ASPECT OF PETER I’VE NOTICED: HE WASN’T THE SORT OF MAN WHO LOOKED BEFORE HE LEAPED. One day when in Capernaum, the tax-collectors came to Peter and asked him if his Master paid the half-shekel Temple tax. When asked if his Master would contribute, Peter unhesitatingly volunteered, without even looking into the ...
Sermon
Donald B. Strobe
... a message to deliver.” In the New Testament itself, those who belonged were called “disciples.” The word literally means “students.” They had not yet arrived, but were on their way. I am afraid that too many people look upon joining the church as sort of a “graduation,” rather than enrolling in kindergarten. After joining, they have graduated, and now become alumni, whose only task now is to sit back and criticize, rather than get in and do. But from the very first, those who joined the church ...
Sermon
Donald B. Strobe
... a deeper source. Thomas first appears in the Lazarus story. (John 11:1-16) News had come to Jesus that his friend Lazarus was ill. But for two days Jesus made no move to do anything at all. Then he started off for Bethany. Bethany was sort of a “bedroom community” for those who worked and worshipped in Jerusalem, situated just over the Mount of Olives, a couple of miles away from the Holy City. The disciples knew that in going to Bethany, Jesus was putting Himself perilously close to His enemies who ...
Sermon
Donald B. Strobe
... which fall out of the Sunday newspaper, an advertisement for a “14K gold microned” Religious Keepsake Watch, with “Genuine Leather-Backed Strap.” It is only $8.88 and, instead of having the twelve hours on its face, it has a picture of Jesus—sort of like on a “Mickey Mouse” watch—and it has the twelve apostles instead of the twelve hours. Nine o’clock is listed as “Jude,” a form of Judas. That settles the question. Or does it? Perhaps the manufacturers chose “Jude” because it ...
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