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 1901 to 1925 of 3852 results
Sermon
King Duncan
... ring. Then they could determine who the proper heir was. The judge, however, could not distinguish among the three rings. And so he said: "We shall watch and see which son behaves in the most gracious, generous, and kind manner. Then we will know which possesses the original ring." And from that day on, each son lived as if he was the one with the magic ring, and no one could tell which was the most gracious, generous, and kind. Then the teacher, having told this story, said to the woman, "If you wish to ...
1902. Songs of the Season
Luke 1:46-56, Luke 1:39-45
Sermon
J. Ellsworth Kalas
... by selected groups in isolated places. Only at the Christmas season does the majority of the population choose to sing or to listen to the singing of others. Some of the songs which now mark the Christmas and Advent season are poor secularizations of the original Christmas theme. But even as derivations and deviations from the true theme, they carry some measure of the joy of the season. This isn't surprising because Christmas was born in the midst of songs. The Gospel of Luke says it most specifically, but ...
Sermon
J. Ellsworth Kalas
... of God. I must tell myself this, for other people, in those instances when I despair for someone's in humanity and degradation. Whatever that human being may seem at this moment to be, no matter how debased or unlovable he may have become, he is still someone whose original family ties are with God. I dare not give up on any human being; because he or she has the potential, by God's action in Jesus Christ, to rejoin the heavenly family. Nor dare I give up on myself. On those days when I look at myself more ...
Sermon
David J. Kalas
... who manages to bilk some poor, trusting souls out of their life savings. He makes promises, he offers guarantees, and they invest most or all of what they have in his proposal. But then both he and their money suddenly disappear, leaving them devastated. The original scam artist, of course, was known as the most subtle and crafty of all the creatures in the Garden. He, too, made promises and guarantees. Eve believed him, and in the process she and Adam lost virtually everything they had. And still today the ...
Sermon
King Duncan
... to yank baby Jesus back toward the heavens with him. (1) I would like to have been present for that nativity pageant. The idea of the baby Jesus flying through the air would be a memorable experience. Thankfully, there is no flying baby in the original Christmas story. However, there is a leaping one. After the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary to tell her she would bear a son, Mary, presumably excited and scared, goes to visit her cousin, Elizabeth, in the hill country of Judea. This was a treacherous journey ...
1906. The Waster
Luke 15:11-32
Sermon
Frank G. Honeycutt
... jaunty, saucy, debonair Prodigal with a pencil-thin moustache. He wears a hat with enough plumage to take flight while hoisting a large flute of ale, itself over a foot tall. There is a young lady on his lap enjoying the fun while (in the original painting) another lass sans clothing plays a mandolin in the background. A peacock pie on the table suggests the arrogance of the scene. In Rembrandt and the Bible, a note says that the great painter used himself as a model for this particular canvas1, which might ...
Sermon
Elizabeth Achtemeier
... forth in the accompanying New Testament texts, is baptism, the baptism of Jesus in Luke, and the baptism of the Samaritan disciples in Acts. Let us therefore use our Second Isaiah text also in relation to baptism, namely our baptisms. To be sure, the prophet originally directed these words to the Israelite exiles in Babylonian between 550 and 538 B.C., but they are also an excellent description of our relation to God in our baptisms into the church. The words and especially the verbs to note in this text ...
1908. Suffering Servant Song
Isaiah 52:13--53:12
Sermon
Elizabeth Achtemeier
This is the fourth and final Servant Song in Second Isaiah, and because of its content, it has been called the Suffering Servant Song. As with the Servant Song that we dealt with on Passion Sunday, it was originally a prophecy considering an idealized Israel. Second Isaiah set before the exiles in Babylonia the task of giving their life for the sake of the world. Israel was despised and rejected in exile, cursed by all who saw her plight. But there would come a time when God would deliver ...
Sermon
Elizabeth Achtemeier
... is a remarkable story, because it treats rather lightly a dispute that was widespread in the New Testament church, the dispute over conditions to be laid upon Gentile converts to the faith. The apostles and disciples of Jesus, who were the earliest Christians, were originally Jews, and some of them, at least, continued to obey some of the stipulations of Jewish law. For example, Peter, in our text, had not before eaten any animals that were listed in the Torah as unclean (cf. Leviticus ch. 11). In addition ...
Sermon
Frank G. Honeycutt
... never reading the Bible on a regular basis. Spiritual laziness might mean that a person sings "What A Friend We Have In Jesus" but really never spends enough time with Jesus so that a friendship with the man is truly constituted. "Sloth," in the original list of seven deadly sins, describes the state of a Christian who remains in an embryonic, beginning state of discipleship, year after year after year. The leaders of the early church assumed that one's eternal life was a gift from God. They also assumed ...
Sermon
Maxie Dunnam
... in the sea. And the message, the message that went out from that church in Philippi, and the letter that was written to that church by Paul, continues to glow with light and power. I returned to Philippi about three years ago, 10 years after my original visit, and discovered that a handsome chapel had been built out on the spot near the river, where supposedly Lydia was converted. A memorial to the event which marked the beginning of that Christian church. I was please with that, but it was not necessary ...
Sermon
Maxie Dunnam
... in our life. “Then open the gates and the ancient doors,” would come the shout -- and then the response, “That the King of Glory may come in.” Then the procession moved into the Holy City and the great celebration began. That was probably one of the original settings for the psalm. Nothing like that happens now, change has taken place; yet the psalm lives on. It is recited by faithful Jews as the first act of awakening on the first day of each week. It is used by liturgical churches such as the ...
1913. The Prize of the High Calling of God
Hebrews 11:1-40, Philippians 2:12-18
Sermon
Maxie Dunnam
... idea. Religious folks have not missed this communication opportunity. So you have the traditional bumper sticker message: “Honk if you love Jesus”. And the more avant-garde, “In case of the rapture, this car will be empty”. I saw one recently which I think originated by some cynics who questioned a “sloppy agape” theology. It said, “God loves you…the rest of us think your a jerk”. As intrigued as I am, I have never put a bumper sticker on my car. A psychiatrist could have a field day with ...
Sermon
Maxie Dunnam
... . I’m convinced that the most revolutionary plant in the Christian platform for the transformation of individuals and society is grace. I don’t know any member group of the Christian family that has this clearer than we Methodists/Wesleyans. But it didn’t originate with us. It was there from the beginning with Jesus. Paul put it clearly in Romans 5:1: “Therefore, since we’re justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace ...
Sermon
Maxie Dunnam
The original invitation to deliver this Johannaber Lecture included the general instruction that the lecture theme have something to do with spirituality and/or spiritual formation. The more I thought of that in the context of a “ministers week,” the more certain I was that I wanted to focus on leadership – the ...
Sermon
Phil Thrailkill
... which our attempts to make things better often only make them worse. We breathe it in; it becomes part of who we are, and we pass on the accumulated negative effects to all who come after us, including our children. This is what the church means by original sin; it is not something we can escape by trying harder or being better; it is our world. This event from fifty years ago is a picture of the spiritual world into which Jesus came. A malevolent, deadly darkness cloaked the world when the living Word of ...
Sermon
Phil Thrailkill
... the dust. Since the people who encountered Jesus found that he uncovered this level, and they therefore did not stand before him as criminals but as the lost and sought and mourned children of God, they were changed by those eyes. Under that gaze their original destiny revived; it was loved into being.... Therefore they went away changed. God does not love us because we are by nature lovable. But we become lovable because he loves us.”15 Therefore, loving the enemy at two levels, practically and in prayer ...
Sermon
Phil Thrailkill
... own and recycle themselves through each generation in different forms. We may be less primitive than our forebears, but we are not necessarily more morally advanced. We are surely different but not necessarily better in any absolute sense. The Christian doctrine of original sin humbles one generation after the next. We look back on slavery and the treatment of the Indians and say, “How could they?” Our children three or four generations down the corridors of time will do the same with us, though on ...
Sermon
Elizabeth Achtemeier
... of the doctrine, and still today, persons misunderstand or distort the teaching. The doctrine of the Trinity took shape out of the testimony of the scriptures, beginning with their witness to Jesus Christ. Most of the writers of the New Testament were originally Jews who believed in one God. But when the apostles and disciples encountered Jesus of Nazareth and witnessed his life, death, and resurrection, they became convinced that he was fully Immanuel, God with them, the Person of God incarnated in human ...
1920. Panic Room
John 20:19-23
Sermon
King Duncan
... Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990). 6. Ron Mehl, What God Whispers in the Night (Sisters, OR: Multnomah Publishers, 2000), pp. 68-69. 7. Performed by Bette Midler, composed by Amanda McBroom. From the Twentieth Century-Fox motion picture The Rose. Published by Alfred Publishing. [ORIGINAL SERMON] The title of today’s sermon, “Panic Room,” has nothing to do with the IRS forms some of you still have at home, waiting to mail. Surely you have your papers in order. However, it is about fear. In 1947 Vladimir ...
1921. Get Up and Go
Isaiah 60:1-6, Matthew 2:1-12
Sermon
Mark Trotter
... that spiritual discipline, Wesley wrote a service called, "The Renewal of the Covenant." It calls us to remember the promise that God has given to us, and pledge ourselves to live the kind of life that would realize that promise in our own lives. He got the service originally from the Puritans in England and placed it on New Year's Eve. He thought a renewal of the covenant at New Year's Eve, a watch night service, would be the most appropriate place for it. Later it was also used on the first Sunday as an ...
Sermon
Mark Trotter
... . And not fulfillment, necessarily, in doing something that you feel called to do. The goal of the institution is promotion, and advancement. The apotheosis of the individual. We can learn from Moses, from whom God took some of the spirit that he had given originally to Moses, and gave it to seventy others. "They shall bear the burden with you, so that you will not bear it by yourself alone." We can learn from Moses. In fact, business and industry have already learned from Moses. One of the characteristics ...
Sermon
Mark Trotter
... the old, big, downtown "first" churches. The adjective "first" is a very descriptive one, because they were here first. They were the churches that came over here at the time of the colonies. They are, for the most part, British in origin: the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church, the Congregational Church, the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church. The second wave of immigration brought the Lutherans and the Roman Catholics. The mainline churches were the General Motors, and the Ford and Chrysler, the ...
1924. Victory at Sea
Exodus 13:17--14:31
Sermon
Mark Trotter
... . That is the grace that is present in the sacrament of baptism. But what about babies and cleansing? Babies don't need to be cleansed of their sins. There are still some Christians around, however, who believe that the human race is tainted by the curse of Original Sin, and therefore the purpose of baptism is to wash that taint away. I don't believe that, and neither does our tradition, I am happy to say. The understanding of baptism as "the removal of a curse," is to violate a sacrament in order to cure ...
Sermon
King Duncan
... earthquake, but we will certainly experience times when our world will be shaken. Problems in our marriage, perhaps. Dr. William Barker once noted that, since 1688, Lloyd’s of London has underwritten insurance on nearly everything. Lloyd’s was established originally to­ insure losses on ships and cargoes. Through the years, the syndicate has expand­ed to cover nearly every imaginable contingency. Lloyd’s settled claims in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, on the Titanic, and on thousands of less ...
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