Sermon and Worship Resources

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2 Chronicles 14:2-15

Understanding Series

Louis C. Jonker

... regarded by the Persians (and Greeks) as the southern extreme of the known world. Furthermore, excavations in Nubia indicate that the Persian invasions never managed to take complete control of this remote part of the world. Although the evidence from classical writers is scanty (and biased), people in the Persian province of Yehud may have known this reputation of the Cushites, perhaps through the Elephantine Jewish community on the southern border of Egypt with Nubia. Could one perhaps imagine that these ...

2. Love

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

Understanding Series

Marion L. Soards

... that follow, there are primarily a series of words from the NIV that are first given in their Gk. lexical form and then explained briefly in an effort to provide more than a superficial acquaintance with the elements of the substance of Paul’s thought. The classic study of love, which has undergone much refinement through criticism, is A. Nygren’s Agape and Eros (rev. ed.; London: S.P.C.K., 1953). More recently, J. G. Sigountos (“The Genre of 1 Corinthians 13,” NTS 40 [1994], pp. 246–60) shows how ...

3. Acts 17: 22-31

Acts 17:16-34

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... or social status, education or ethnicity, in the Divine’s judgment of the world (v.31). The one God who created the whole world will also judge all creation together. The underlying oneness of humanity is further demonstrated by Paul’s use of classical texts to suggest a common spiritual yearning (or “groping”) towards a divine connection. Paul cites two sources: first a fragment from a poem attributed to Epimenides the Cretan (c.600 BCE—-“But thou are not dead; thou livest and move and have our ...

4. Ruth and Boaz on the Threshing Floor

Ruth 3:1-18

Understanding Series

Michael S. Moore

... and do to them whatever you wish. But to this man, don’t do such a disgraceful thing.” But the men would not listen to him. So the man took his concubine and sent her outside to them. (Judg. 19:23–25) This is a classic case of good intentions substituting for leadership. First, the Gibeahite tries to address a lust-driven mob as “my friends” (lit. my brothers, akhay), attempting to converse civilly with a group the narrator himself calls the “sons of Belial” (19:22). Then, after begging them ...

5. Leaders and Prophets Rebuked

Micah 3:1-12

Understanding Series

Elizabeth Achtemeier

... that is, God will show no mercy or favor toward them (contrast to Num. 6:25–26). And of course, if God be against us, who can be for us? False Prophets and True Prophet (3:5-8): 3:5–8 In many passages in the writings of the classical prophets, we find condemnations of false prophets in Israel, who led the people astray by their preaching (see Jer. 23:9–22; Ezek. 13:1–16). Sometimes the message of such false prophets was in direct contradiction to what the true prophet was proclaiming (see 1 Kgs. 22 ...

6. Ephesians 3:14-21

Ephesians 3:14-21

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... last returns to the prayer he began back in 1:16-17, thus definitively closing the first praise and proclamation portion of this epistle before the exhortative remainder of the letter (chapters 4-6). This portion of Ephesians could easily be compared to a classic Cecil B. DeMille movie an earthquake, followed by a flood, capped off by a volcanic eruption and a tornado. The writer begins a litany of prayer requests: that we be "strengthened with might through his Spirit" (v.16), that we know Christ dwelling ...

7. Paul Sails for Rome

Acts 27:1-12

Understanding Series

David J. Williams

... recent examination of the area suggests that there has been a change in the coastline since Luke wrote Acts. The western bay was once better protected, but earthquake disturbance has altered the topography, covering an inlet that faced northwest in classical times. A southwesterly facing inlet still remains and, given that the winter winds are from the northeast and the east, either of these inlets would have offered reasonable shelter for the ship. However, the very wind from which they sought protection ...

8. Thanksgiving for the Thessalonians' Faith

1 Thessalonians 1:1-10

Understanding Series

David J. Williams

... 2 Thess. 2:11). See further Leon Morris, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956); R. V. G. Tasker, “Wrath,” NBD, p. 1341, and H. C. Hahn, “Anger, Wrath,” NIDNTT, vol. 1, pp. 105–13. Additional Notes 1:5 Our gospel (euangelion): In classical literature this word designated the reward given for good news. Its later transference to the good news itself belongs to the NT and early Christian literature. Even in the LXX its only definite occurrence (2 Sam. 4:10) carries the ...

9. Paul's Ministry in Thessalonica

1 Thessalonians 2:1-16

Understanding Series

David J. Williams

... that it had already manifested itself, in the strict sense of the verb, in anticipation of the eschatological judgment? Or was he speaking prophetically of the wrath that was yet to be revealed from heaven (Rom. 1:18)? And if the former, what had happened? The classic case (as we suppose) of a historical anticipation of the judgment is the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 (see Mark 13), and assuming that this is in view here, some have held these verses to be a later interpolation (1 Thessalonians was written ...

10. Living to Please God

1 Thessalonians 4:1-12

Understanding Series

David J. Williams

... i.e., “walking”). But there was no room for complacency. The urgency of the appeal is verified by the doubling of the verbs (cf. 3:2, “to strengthen and encourage”): We ask you and urge you … to do this more and more (cf. 4:10). Erōtaō, used in classical Greek only of asking a question, acquired by this time the additional sense of making a request (cf. 5:12; 2 Thess. 2:1). But “request” is too weak a term, and so the other is added parakaleō, see disc. on 3:2). Added also is the phrase, in ...

11. Samson and Delilah

Judges 16:1-22

Understanding Series

Cheryl A. Brown

... which had been a major source of his weakness and led to his downfall (cf. Matt. 5:28–29). The final words (v. 22) of this episode are tantalizing. They begin again with the word but, this time not “but God,” rather but the hair. Yet another classic example of “It ain’t over till it’s over.” The Philistines thought they had subdued Samson when they clamped the bronze shackles on his hands and feet. But they failed to notice that his hair, sign of the Lord’s presence and empowering, began to ...

12. A Prophecy Against Babylon

Isaiah 13:1--14:23

Understanding Series

John Goldingay

... and be bought and sold by them. It is a theological impossibility. 14:3–23 At last the links are explicit: Babylon’s downfall means Israel’s relief and restoration. On the way to that, it means the downfall of the king of Babylon. How is the classic beginning for an expression of horror, whether the horror is combined with grief or with satisfaction. The poem is a funeral dirge sung for a king who is at present very much alive. It parallels Amos’s funeral dirge for Israel in Amos 5:2, sung when ...

13. True and False Discipleship

Luke 6:46-49, Luke 6:43-45, Luke 6:37-42

Teach the Text

R.T. France

... teaching, this saying may also apply particularly to those who set themselves up as teachers of others when it is they themselves who need to be taught—the blind leading the blind. 6:42 You hypocrite. It is not a long step from the classical Greek sense of “hypocrite” as an “actor” to our use of the word to indicate deliberate deceit, pretending to be what you are not. But the term is used frequently in Matthew for religious leaders whose distorted understanding leads them to miss the point ...

14. The Story of Israel Now and Later

Romans 2:1-16

Teach the Text

C. Marvin Pate

... truth. Judgment day, on which the works of each individual will be judged, is coming. Literature: The Inferno, by Dante Alighieri. To show the power of judgment, it might be good to find a pictorial illustration of Dante’s Inferno, such as Gustave Doré’s classic engravings illustrating the nine circles of hell. Dante’s poem begins on the night before Good Friday in the year 1300. Dante is lost in a dark wood (often interpreted as sin) and is unable to find the right way to salvation (symbolized by ...

15. The Spirit and the Glory of the Age to Come and the New Covenant

Romans 8:28-39, Romans 8:18-27

Teach the Text

C. Marvin Pate

... intimately associates such realities with the new covenant: “God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God” (21:3). Such a classic formulation of the covenant is not far removed from the doctrine of the indwelling of the Spirit, who provides certain hope for the glorious resurrection and new creation. 8:26–27 the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans . . . in accordance with ...

16. Paul, Phoebe, Patronage, and Spain

Romans 16:1-27

Teach the Text

C. Marvin Pate

... :7 may shed light on that subject, as we will see later. 4. In 16:1 Paul uses the word “church” for the first time in Romans. The New Testament word for “church” is ekklēsia, which means “gathering, congregation, assembly.” In classical Greek the term was used almost exclusively for political gatherings. In particular, in Athens the word signified the assembling of the citizens for the purpose of conducting the affairs of the city. Moreover, ekklēsia referred only to the actual meeting, not to ...

17. Job Destroys the Friends’ Major Argument

Job 21:1-34

Teach the Text

Daniel J. Estes

... that the wicked sometimes prosper and the righteous sometimes suffer adversity in God’s world. Even though they raise deep and troubling questions, in their larger contexts they all point in the direction of God’s sovereign, but at times inscrutable, will. The classic example of this disconnect between one’s personal character and how one is treated is the death of Christ, in which the sinless Son of God suffered crucifixion at the hands of evil men, all within the predetermined plan of God (Acts 2 ...

18. “In God I Trust and Am Not Afraid. What Can Mere Mortals Do to Me?”

Psalm 56:1-13

Teach the Text

C. Hassell Bullock

... Gerhardt sums up the sense of this metaphor in one of his hymns: Thou count’st how oft’n a Christian weeps, And where his grief may lie; No silent tear can be too small, Thou tak’st and lay’st it by.19 Even the world knows Classic Sermon: Stanislav Svec was a Baptist preacher in Czechoslovakia, and in one of his sermons (“Abide with Us!”), he tells about being incarcerated in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II: “During the last war, I was taken along with a number of my school-chums ...

19. God Subjugates Judah under Babylon

Daniel 1:1-21

Teach the Text

Ronald W. Pierce

... giver of wisdom to the faithful. Film: The Wizard of Oz. The beautiful Hebrew poem of Proverbs 1:1–7 defines the book’s purpose and reveals the important principle of serving God by employing the wisdom that is readily available. In the classic film The Wizard of Oz(1939), Dorothy is accidentally transported from her home in Kansas to the magical Land of Oz, where she encounters many fantastical characters, like the Cowardly Lion, the Wizard, and Glinda the Good Witch. While a little girl from Kansas ...

20. Terror on Every Side

Jeremiah 20:1-6, Jeremiah 20:7-18

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... ’s vengeance. Praise within a lament is a standard component; one-third of all the psalms are classified as laments, and all but one (Psalm 88) contain praise. In contrast to other laments, this one is not followed by a response from God. The classical statement of cursing in 20:14–18 likely describes another occasion; otherwise its link with verse 13 presents a schizophrenic prophet. Or, this may be not Jeremiah’s curse, but a standard outcry made by people caught in calamity. Cursing the day of one ...

21. Love

Romans 12:9-21

Understanding Series

James R. Edwards

... maintains that the criterion for truth necessitates the establishing of the falsity of its opposite, would appear to corroborate Paul’s idea here. “If there is nothing which an assertion denies then there is nothing which it asserts either.” See John Hick, ed., Classical and Contemporary Readings in the Philosophy of Religion, 2d ed. (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1970), p. 466. 12:10–13 For the Benedictine Rule and its many echoes of Rom. 12:9–21, see The Rule of St. Benedict, ed ...

22. On Divisions in the Church

1 Corinthians 3:1-23

Understanding Series

Marion L. Soards

... degree of precision may be seen in that his metaphor shifts to the level of a cliché at the end of 3:15: only as one escaping through the flames. See Conzelmann (1 Corinthians, p. 77 n. 85) for a list of parallels in both biblical and classical literature. Conzelmann (1 Corinthians, p. 77) summarized the significance of these two verses: “This is the reverse side of the fact that works do not bring about salvation. But we remain responsible for our works before God (2 Cor 5:11); for the life of believers ...

23. Food Sacrificed to Idols

1 Corinthians 8:1-13

Understanding Series

Marion L. Soards

... be good. (Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary [Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1987], p. 278) At the turn of the third millennium, however, conscience is understood in a remarkably introspective way. This understanding presents a problem for classical scholars, historical theologians, biblical scholars, and historians of psychology. Such interpreters of antiquity agree that ancients were not introspective in the sense that moderns (or post-moderns) are. K. Stendahl makes and explains this point ...

24. Punishments for Sin

Leviticus 20:1-27

Understanding Series

W. H. Bellinger, Jr.

... engaging in necromancy is found in verse 6. Holiness demands loyalty to the one true God and the cult of Yahweh (v. 7). 20:8–21 This section treats issues arising in the context of the family, mostly matters of sexual relationships. It begins with a classic exhortation in the style of the Holiness Code, to keep my decrees and to live by them, walk or follow after them, for these decrees come from Israel’s God, Yahweh. Then verse 9 follows with a prohibition in the tradition of the Decalogue. Anyone who ...

25. Zophar

Job 11:1-20

Understanding Series

Gerald H. Wilson

... he offers even that hope, Zophar has much to say in opposition to Job. Call to Refute Job 11:2 Zophar’s attack focuses at first on the multitude of Job’s words that are unanswered. Job is a talker whose words should be discounted. In classic wisdom teaching, the sage is the one who speaks few words, choosing them carefully and using them to good effect. The hot-headed fool speaks voluminously without thinking, and he often gets into trouble as a result: “When words are many, sin is not absent, but ...

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