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 2176 to 2200 of 2699 results

2176. The Birth of John

Luke 1:67-80, Luke 1:57-66

Teach the Text

R.T. France

... the way for God’s coming, and that is now made more explicit: he is to prepare the way of the Lord. Later Christians came to speak of Jesus as “the Lord,” but for Zechariah, the title could refer only to God himself. Thus the impression grows stronger that when Jesus comes, God himself is visiting his people. 1:78 the rising sun. The KJV rendering “the dayspring from on high hath visited us” leads some to think that “dayspring” is a title for the coming Messiah, and indeed the Greek word ...

2177. The Boy Jesus in the Temple

Luke 2:41-52

Teach the Text

R.T. France

... biography left by the silence of the canonical accounts. See the sidebar for some of its contents. Those who have read John Wyndham’s science-fiction novel The Midwich Cuckoos will recognize the genre. The resultant portrait is impressive rather than attractive: Infancy Gospel of Thomas has been irreverently described as the “Gospel of the Superbrat.” By contrast, Luke’s one brief glimpse into Jesus’s childhood is reassuringly “normal,” despite the theological tension outlined above. Consider ...

2178. Sabbath in Capernaum

Luke 4:38-44, Luke 4:31-37

Teach the Text

R.T. France

... though his words in Nazareth presuppose that he has also been healing (4:23). Now, by setting out the events of a typical day in Capernaum, Luke fills out the picture. The resultant portrait of an authoritative exorcist and healer as well as an impressive teacher will provide the backdrop for the whole of the following account of Jesus’s ministry in Galilee. This section thus continues the general account of the Galilean ministry that began in 4:14–15 but has been interrupted by the striking episode at ...

2179. Feasting and Fasting

Luke 5:33-39, Luke 5:27-32

Teach the Text

R.T. France

... by scribes and Pharisees against Jesus in 5:21 is now further developed in two scenes in which he is criticized first for mixing with people regarded as irreligious and second for not imposing a proper disciplinary regime on his disciples. The impression thus grows stronger that Jesus’s whole approach to religion is fundamentally different from that of the scribes and Pharisees, and the Sabbath controversies in 6:1–11 will underline this difference. This theme will lead up to his eventual confrontation ...

2180. Power over Illness and Death

Luke 7:11-17, Luke 7:1-10

Teach the Text

R.T. France

... population of surrounding regions such as Phoenicia and Syria. The centurion thus represented the Roman-supported government of an unpopular Hellenistic ruler. His good relations with the local Jewish community (7:3–5) are an important counterbalance to the general impression of an oppressive Roman occupation of Palestine. In Acts 10 Luke will tell of another centurion with strong Jewish sympathies. Nain is located some twenty-five miles from Capernaum, in the plain of Jezreel south of Mount Tabor and ...

2181. An Encounter across the Lake

Luke 8:26-39, Luke 8:22-25

Teach the Text

R.T. France

... and divine protection can carry us through. One dramatic way to teach this passage is to encourage listeners to imagine themselves in the situation of the disciples, with Jesus asleep in the boat, and to follow through their changing emotions and impressions. How would they have reacted to the challenge “Where is your faith?” What answer may already be implied in their rhetorical question, “Who is this?” especially if they were familiar with Psalm 107? 2. The demon-possessed man. The theme in ...

2182. Negative Responses to Jesus

Luke 11:33-36, Luke 11:29-32, Luke 11:14-28

Teach the Text

R.T. France

... and dispossess him. Jesus is far greater than any prophets or kings who have come before, bringing the light that we now must shine to the world. Understanding the Text There have been indications throughout Jesus’s ministry in Galilee that not everyone is favorably impressed by him. Now the opposition is focused in two specific lines of attack (11:15–16). The first concerns his deliverance of those who were demon-possessed, a major theme of Luke’s account of Jesus’s ministry so far (see 4:31–37 ...

2183. Table Talk

Luke 14:1-14

Teach the Text

R.T. France

... 1990–95) features Patricia Routledge as Hyacinth Bucket (pronounced pretentiously “Bouquet”). In the absolute antithesis of this principle, Hyacinth is a working-class woman who has married a middle-class man, Richard, and becomes a hopeless snob, forever trying to impress her neighbors with money, always putting on airs, and also unwittingly making it very clear that she is not of the social standing that she pretends to be. Even watching one humorous episode of this series would render many examples ...

2184. Affluence and the Afterlife

Luke 16:19-31

Teach the Text

R.T. France

... heaven and hell. There is no second chance of salvation after death. Judgment is based on our response to God’s will as set out in the Scriptures. Like the other great judgment scene in Matthew 25:31–46, this parable may leave the impression that judgment is based solely on how we have treated other people. The gospel of salvation through the atoning death of Christ must be supplied from elsewhere in the New Testament. Teaching the Text This parable raises both ethical and theological issues that can ...

2185. Challenge and Counterchallenge

Luke 20:9-19, Luke 20:1-8

Teach the Text

R.T. France

... will go on to refuse a straight answer to their question) in fact implies a bold claim. John also had no formal authorization, but his ministry (here referred to by its most memorable feature, John’s innovative rite of baptism) had made a profound impression. If John’s mission had been from God, so was that of Jesus (whom John had described as “more powerful” than himself [3:16]). Even if the Jerusalem authorities did not know of the connection between John and Jesus that Luke has established in ...

2186. Jesus Takes the Initiative

Luke 21:5-38, Luke 21:1-4, Luke 20:41-47

Teach the Text

R.T. France

... hardly be that he believes it to be untrue, since Luke has so carefully established it in the Gospel so far. More likely he regards it as inadequate: he is more than just another David; he is David’s lord. Perhaps too the title risks giving the impression that his mission is a political one, as David’s was, and so misleading popular expectation of what he had come to do. But the motivation for the question is left tantalizingly unexplained. 20:46 Beware of the teachers of the law. This verse is an ...

2187. The Death of Jesus

Luke 23:44-49, Luke 23:26-43

Teach the Text

R.T. France

... , 46). When teaching through Luke (or another Gospel), it is important to maintain the integrity of the author’s narrative by focusing on the sayings that appear here, rather than introducing others that may distract from each Gospel’s theological purpose. What impression of the death of Jesus do these three sayings convey? Notice that the three in Luke (23:34, 43, 46) all pick up themes that have been important throughout his Gospel. Illustrating the Text Though he does not ignore Christ’s suffering ...

2188. At the Tomb

Luke 24:1-12, Luke 23:50-56

Teach the Text

R.T. France

... remember the hope of what we have been promised. Christian Living: Looking to Jesus, by Virginia Stem Owens. Writing about the failure of Christ’s followers, men and women, to recognize the event of the resurrection, Owens reflects, I’m impressed with the gospel’s psychological realism. The movement from despair to hope never appears to happen automatically or instantaneously. Emotional time progresses at a slower pace than our synapses carry simple visual stimuli. Just as it takes a while to absorb ...

2189. The Risen Jesus Revealed

Luke 24:13-35

Teach the Text

R.T. France

... Jesus himself came up and walked along with them. While there are features of the risen Jesus in the Gospel accounts that differ from normal human experience (notably the ability to appear and disappear suddenly, even through closed doors), the principal impression is of a human body sufficiently unchanged (though restored after the horror of crucifixion) to be perceived as a normal human being (cf. John 20:15; 21:4). 24:16 they were kept from recognizing him. Compare Luke’s strong statements about ...

2190. The Story of Israel Now and Later

Romans 2:1-16

Teach the Text

C. Marvin Pate

... reality, Paul hopes, will drive the sinner into the arms of God’s grace and mercy in Jesus Christ (see Rom. 3:21–4:25). Theological Insights A number of insights meet us in Romans 2:1–11. First, profession without practice does not impress God. Neither does it convince those who observe the lifestyles of religious people. If we profess to be believers, we must back up that profession with how we live; otherwise we rightly earn for ourselves the name “hypocrite.” Second, it is comforting to know ...

2191. The Whole World Is under the Curses of the Covenant

Romans 3:9-20

Teach the Text

C. Marvin Pate

... and the Introspective Conscience of the West,” a new interpretation of Paul’s view of the law began to emerge: before and after becoming a Christian Paul maintained a positive view of the Torah. It was only Lutheran exegesis that gave the false impression that Paul had a negative view of the law. Three scholars in particular followed Stendahl’s path of interpretation of Paul, and the New Perspective on Paul was born. I list those three scholars in table 1, which consists of their respective slogans ...

2192. The Story of Abraham versus the Story of Israel

Romans 4:1-25

Teach the Text

C. Marvin Pate

... –8:16 discusses sanctification, as we will see later). Fourth, except for the sin of rejecting Christ, there is no sin that God cannot forgive through Christ, not even adultery and murder, as David testifies to in Psalm 32:1–2. Teaching the Text Two sermon ideas impress me from Romans 4:1–8. “No One’s Debtor” (based on 4:1–5) could make the powerful, but elusive, point that salvation is based not on human works, but solely on the grace of God received by faith. Surveys have been taken in which ...

2193. New Dominion as a Blessing of the New Covenant: Dead to Sin

Romans 6:1-14

Teach the Text

C. Marvin Pate

... –13: “Count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God!” “Do not let sin reign” in your present life! “Do not offer” your body to sin! “But rather offer yourselves to God!” Uttering these commands in that way gives the impression that the audience is in boot camp. This can be reinforced by listing the militaristic images in verses 12–14: “be lord over,” “reign,” “instruments of righteousness,” “obedience.” The effect of pronouncing these commands and military images with the ...

2194. The Christian’s New Dominion: Dedicated to Righteousness

Romans 6:15-23

Teach the Text

C. Marvin Pate

... If I am correct on this point, then 6:23 does indeed form an inclusio with 6:15: law leads to sin, which brings death, but grace leads to righteousness, which brings eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.9 Theological Insights Three theological insights impress me when reading Romans 6:15–23. First, as Jesus said, “No one can serve two masters” (Matt. 6:24). Paul agrees, for all humans serve one of two lords: sin or righteousness. Anticipation of the outcome of those two dominions—sin brings death ...

2195. The Holy Spirit and the Blessings of the New Covenant

Romans 8:1-17

Teach the Text

C. Marvin Pate

... into the bell tower and wrapped herself around the clapper to keeping it from striking the bell. She refused to let go in spite of the injuries she was incurring. When she finally climbed down to the place of execution, Cromwell, deeply impressed by such heroic and sacrificial love, commuted the sentence. The story is immortalized in a poem called “Curfew Will Not Ring Tonight,” by Rose Hartwick Thorpe, which illustrates vividly Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, which likewise keeps us from judgment.7 ...

2196. Israel and the Present Curses and the Past Blessings of the Covenant

Romans 9:1-29

Teach the Text

C. Marvin Pate

... relationship between Romans 9–11 and Romans 1–8? The scholarly consensus is that Romans 9–11 forms an integral part of Paul’s argument in Romans in two ways. Had Paul left his argument with Romans 8, he would have given the distinct impression that God was finished with Israel, as indeed he was finished with the old covenant. But if God were finished with Israel, what then of the Old Testament promises to restore Israel in the end time? Furthermore, if God abandoned his Old Testament people, could ...

2197. Christian Maturity

1 Corinthians 3:1-23

Teach the Text

Preben Vang

... . They will be held accountable to God, their patron, for how and what they plant and water. 3:9 we are co-workers in God’s service. Paul’s use of the genitive construction, literally “co-workers of God,” could give the impression that Paul intended to suggest that he and Apollos were co-workers with God. However, it is far more likely that he considered them co-workers with one another, both serving God. “Co-workers of God” is a possessive genitive highlighting their relationship ...

2198. Marriage, Sexual Intimacy, and Spiritual Devotion

1 Corinthians 7:1-40

Teach the Text

Preben Vang

... the Text 1. If singleness can be difficult to maneuver in today’s world in general, it can at times be even more difficult in Christian circles. The strong emphasis on the Christian family in most evangelical churches gives the clear impression that singleness is undesirable and should be considered an unfortunate, temporary situation. Many Christian ministries to singles are designed to help singles connect with other singles of the opposite sex in a way that can lead to a successful marriage. Single ...

2199. Personal Rights and Christian Testimony

1 Corinthians 9:1-27

Teach the Text

Preben Vang

... to his list. First, he refers to the cultic practices of Corinth. The priests handling the sacred things (ta hiera), including the meat discussed in chapter 8, rightfully eat from the sacrifices and benefit from the offerings. Second, in an impressive display of rhetorical skill, Paul tops his list with a command of Jesus. The Corinthians who stubbornly hold on to their rights ought to consider Paul, who—beyond all the examples he has just given, including common Corinthian practices and scriptural ...

2200. The New Heaven and New Earth

Revelation 21:1-27

Teach the Text

J. Scott Duvall

... 60, 65), and the new-temple vision of Ezekiel (40–48) to describe the new creation. The Old Testament promises find their fulfillment in Revelation 21–22. Whereas many Christians conceive of the eternal state in nonliteral, nonphysical categories and impressions, this passage and the broader biblical witness stress a transformed physical universe having some continuity with the present creation. It’s not just “going to heaven when you die”; rather, it’s having a resurrection body fit for life in ...

Showing results