Synonyms: thirstiness, dryness, parched, craving, strong desire, longing, yearning, avidity, hunger, voracity, keenness, eagerness, lust, appetite, passion, love, crave, want, covet, desire, hunger for/after, lust for/after, hanker for/after, have one's heart set on
Antonyms: aversion, distaste, apathy, dislike, hatred, antipathy, disgust, disregard, abhorrence, acrimony, wet, animosity, animus, antagonism, bad feeling, bitterness, be averse to, detestation
Showing 1576 to 1600 of 1838 results
One Volume
Gary M. Burge
... to follow God. The only thing the people do well is evil. Micah is exceedingly distressed and likens his own reaction to that of a man who craves grapes and figs but arrives too late in the field to get any. In short, he is bitterly disappointed and frustrated. Even the most promising of his contemporaries are quite bad. The sins of the people have caught up with them. Society has turned against itself; the situation has degenerated into chaos. Even the closest human relationships (wife, child, parents) are ...
One Volume
Gary M. Burge
... . When he sets out to judge, there is no place of safety or refuge for the sinner, but for those who trust in him there is peace and security. (Psalm 46 is especially appropriate in this context.) To trust in anything or anyone else can only bring bitter disappointment and loss. The NIV’s “he cares for” (literally “knows” in Ps. 1:6) attempts to express that special concern God has for his own. For God’s enemy there is only the prospect of sudden and overwhelming defeat described in terms of an ...
1578. Moab and Ammon
Zephaniah 2:8-11
One Volume
Gary M. Burge
Though the Israelites were related to the Moabites and Ammonites through Lot, a nephew of Abraham, their relations had always been bitter (cf. Num. 22:2–24:25; Deut. 23:3–6; Judg. 3:12–30; 1 Samuel 11; 2 Sam. 8:2; 10:1–19). The policy of Moab and Ammon was to ridicule Judah by scoffing at her precarious situation. When Judah needed political and military support against the Assyrians, ...
1579. Jesus on Trial
Matthew 26:57-68, Matthew 26:69-75, Matthew 27:1-10
One Volume
Gary M. Burge
... recognize Peter as one who was with Jesus, either by sight or by his Galilean accent. Peter in all three instances denies any association with Jesus. After his third denial, the rooster crows. Peter remembers Jesus’s pointed prediction and weeps bitterly (26:34, 75). All twelve disciples have deserted Jesus. After the brief interlude of Peter’s denial, Matthew continues narrating Jesus’s trial, with the Sanhedrin turning him over to Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea (27:1–2), presumably to ...
One Volume
Gary M. Burge
... antagonism to Israel. The home of the infamous Jezebel of 1 Kings (16:31–32), as well as a staging ground for attacks on Israel during the Maccabean revolt (1 Maccabees 5:14–15), Tyre, in the words of the Jewish historian Josephus, was “a notoriously bitter enemy” of Israel (Against Apion 1.13). Mark does not specify why Jesus goes to Tyre, although he says that Jesus hopes to evade detection (7:24). It is not difficult to imagine that Jesus quit Galilee to escape the intrigues of the Pharisees (3:6 ...
One Volume
Gary M. Burge
... customary position of feasting in the ancient world, and while Jesus is reclining with the disciples at Passover, he solemnly announces, “One of you will betray me” (14:18). The announcement of betrayal in a context of sacred feasting and intimacy is bitterly ironic. “One who is eating with me” (14:18), “who dips bread into the bowl with me” (14:20), does not limit the field of suspects but expands it to include all the disciples. Jesus’s unsettling announcement provokes soul-searching—and ...
One Volume
Gary M. Burge
... the word in Greek (lēstēs) sometimes referring to an adherent of the Zealot movement. The reference to the fulfillment of Scriptures in 14:49 must recall Isaiah 53:12: he “was numbered with the transgressors.” “Then everyone deserted him and fled” is Mark’s bitter climax to the arrest. All have drunk the cup (14:23), all have pledged to die with him (14:31)—and all flee! The young man who flees the mayhem of the arrest is sometimes thought to be Mark himself, author of the Gospel. We have no ...
One Volume
Gary M. Burge
... association with Jesus—to which he explodes in a volley of abuse and denial (14:71). Peter cannot bring himself to mention the name of Jesus, but he cannot forestall the cockcrow heralding the shattering truth of his denial. Mark concludes the abandonment of Jesus in chapter 14 on the bitter note of weeping (14:72).
1584. Jesus' Burial
Mark 15:42-47
One Volume
Gary M. Burge
... probably (although not certainly) Jesus’s family members mentioned in 6:3. The names of these and the reference to “many other women” (15:41) indicate that Jesus was followed by more than the Twelve apostles. Ironically, women unmentioned before now remain to the bitter end at the cross. True, they stand at a “distance,” but the distance of the women is better than the absence of the apostles. Into the report of the women’s trepidation at the cross Mark inserts the story of Joseph of Arimathea ...
One Volume
Gary M. Burge
... precede the end (21:12). They will be prosecuted by civil and religious authorities. But their defense will produce an opportunity to testify about the gospel, and they will receive the necessary words with which to defend themselves. The persecution may be bitter, perhaps even involving betrayal by family members and death. They must steel themselves to face implacable hostility (21:17). To say “not a hair of your head will perish” (21:18) seems to contradict verse 16, where Jesus asserts that some ...
One Volume
Gary M. Burge
... ; (2) the Passover liturgy was recited, the second cup was drunk, and a part of the Hallel (Psalms 113–18) was sung; (3) the meal was celebrated, a blessing was pronounced over the unleavened bread, the lamb was eaten with the unleavened bread and bitter herbs, and the third cup was drunk after the meal; (4) the rest of the Hallel psalms were sung. (There is disagreement over whether there was a fourth cup.) Jesus expresses his intense desire to partake of the Passover with the disciples (22:15). Some ...
One Volume
Gary M. Burge
... from the abandonment of God to the wrongs done to the neighbor, citing a series of eight pronouncements against enemies of biblical authors. In verses 13–14 he cites Psalms 5:9, 140:3, and 10:7 for sins of human speech—deadly deceit, poison, cursing, and bitterness. In verses 15–18 he cites Isaiah 59:7–8 (Prov. 1:16), Isaiah 59:8, and Psalm 36:1 for sins of human conduct—murder, destruction, strife, and rejection of God. In 3:19–20 Paul concludes his indictment of sinners. Verse 19 confirms that ...
One Volume
Gary M. Burge
... whole group (4:29). Fifth and finally, in this new life of Christlikeness believers must forgive one another in imitation of God’s having forgiven them in Christ (4:31–32). Forgiveness springs from kindness and compassion and has nothing to do with bitterness, anger (4:26), or malicious and vindictive cruelty. Cattiness and a vengeful spirit have no place in God’s new family. Attending to these injunctions prevents grieving God’s Holy Spirit (4:30). This does not mean that the Spirit becomes sad at ...
One Volume
Gary M. Burge
... in the Church: The heart of this section, and in many ways the heart of the whole letter, is 4:4–10, with its radical call for repentance from flirtation with the world. The worldliness plaguing the Christians to whom James writes has taken the form of a bitter jealousy and has led to quarrels (3:13–4:3) and harmful, critical speech (3:1–12; 4:11–12). 3:1–12 · The concern James has already shown about sins of speech (1:19, 26) is given full exposure in this paragraph. He introduces his topic by ...
One Volume
Gary M. Burge
... all too common among James’s readers. The first paragraph approaches the problem by contrasting two kinds of wisdom. There is, on the one hand, the “wisdom” that is “earthly, unspiritual, demonic” (3:15). It is characterized by “bitter envy” and “selfish ambition” (3:14). The word “envy” could also be translated “jealousy” and probably connotes here the prideful spirit of competition for favor and honor that so often disturbs our churches. “Selfish ambition” translates a single ...
One Volume
Gary M. Burge
4:1-3 · Continuing his analysis of the quarrels that have broken out among his readers, James now traces the source of these bitter disputes to evil “desires.” Sin, James has reminded us, comes from within, from our “own evil desire” (1:14); so too the specific sin of quarrelsomeness. These desires are fighting within us, waging “war against your soul,” as Peter puts it (1 Pet. 2:11), and this fighting within also ...
Sermon
Maxie Dunnam
... Christ to shut the door on that painful experience of divorce that tore your family apart? What about the untimely death of a loved one? You feel cheated. The loss is still painful, and the emptiness still gnaws at your gut. You find yourself questioning God. Bitterness puts knots in your stomach, and makes life taste sour. There’s another kind of pain here this morning for which there needs to be healing—against which Christ would like to shut the door. It’s the pain of what I call lost time. It ...
Sermon
Robert Leslie Holmes
... encounters in all scripture but it does not tie into Ash Wednesday ashes. Finally, we have two references to penance and ashes from Jeremiah's prophecy: "O my poor people, put on sackcloth, and roll in ashes; make mourning as for an only child, most bitter lamentation: for suddenly the destroyer will come upon us" (Jeremiah 6:26). "Wail, you shepherds, and cry out; roll in ashes, you lords of the flock, for the days of your slaughter have come -- and your dispersions, and you shall fall like a choice vessel ...
Sermon
Robert Leslie Holmes
... the healing power of Christ simply because we're afraid to expect too much? Do you believe that Jesus Christ still has the power to heal a broken body, a broken heart, a broken dream, a broken relationship? Do you need Christ's healing touch for your bitterness, depression, grief, or fear? Do you need to be healed of cynicism? Do you need to know his power to overcome sin, lust, or addictions? Hear these words again through the ears of your heart: The Christ we follow is still the same, With blessings that ...
Sermon
Robert Leslie Holmes
... in the Bible that has a good place for unbelief or despair in life. What I just said about doubt is true for all our lives! Unbelief, lack of faith, and despair never make us better. This doubt never makes a home better. It can make it bitter for all who live there. It never makes a church, business, or educational program better. Search the world over and you'll never find any great lasting thing that was born out of unbelief, faithlessness, and unwillingness to trust. Don't you know that when Thomas heard ...
Sermon
King Duncan
... that sent Jesus to death row for people just like Bill. Nobody had ever told Bill about Jesus before. “He'd been sitting on death row for years. He turned his life over to Jesus, and it changed him so much--changed the darkness and bitterness and hatred inside him so much,” says John Ortberg, “that other people began to be drawn to him. People started meeting Jesus through this guy on death row. He became known as ‘The Peacemaker.’ His cell block was the safest place in the penitentiary because ...
1597. Come Clean
Joel 2:1-2, 12-17
Sermon
Charley Reeb
... because for some, the painful reality is the jealousy, resentment, and anger that is eating away at their souls bit by bit. For others, it is the destructive habits that wear them down to complete helplessness. Still, for many, it is the lonely and bitter life of living only for themselves. In short, returning to God with all of our heart may mean returning to God with a deteriorated heart. The contemporary theologian Frederick Buechner gives us insight into the destructive nature of sin when he writes: The ...
1598. Dying To Live
Isaiah 43:16-21
Sermon
Charley Reeb
... death, which is sin, must die in order for the source of life, who is God, to live within us. Just as Christ died to redeem the world, so we must die to our sins in Christ in order to become a new creation. It is difficult to swallow such bitter-tasting truth. We live in a world that likes to be inclusive. We don’t like to give up what we want in order to have what we need. After all, who says you cannot have your cake and eat it too? But bondage cannot co-exist with freedom, especially ...
1599. A Vexing Vision
Acts 9:1-6 (7-20)
Sermon
Charley Reeb
... to tear down the walls of injustice and build a pathway to peace. We have been given hands to tear down the walls of suffering and build a pathway to joy. Most of all, we have been given the Holy Spirit to tear down the walls of bitterness and brokenness and build a pathway to wholeness. So what are we waiting for? We have work to do. 1. Song written by Jack Norworth. 2. Lee Strobel, “Meet the Jesus I Know” (Preaching Today, tape 211). 3. Philip Yancey, What’s So Amazing About Grace? (Grand Rapids ...
Sermon
Charley Reeb
... scar into a star. We can’t control the fact that bad things will happen to us. They just do, and one day we will find out why. But the one thing we can control is how we respond to the bad things that happen to us. We can get bitter or better! We can stay angry at life and at God and never move on, or we can give our pain to God and allow him to do something beautiful with it. If we choose what God can do through our pain, we will be able to say with confidence ...
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