Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 1 to 25 of 547 results

Judges 14:1-20

Understanding Series

Cheryl A. Brown

... parents but did not tell them what had happened—why, we are not told. Perhaps it is because as a Nazirite, he should not have been in a vineyard (13:14; cf. Num. 6:3–4), as it would have violated his Nazirite vow. We can say that his parents’ ignorance is crucial for the setting up of the next events (14:8–9). 14:7–9 Samson continued on his journey; he went down and talked with the woman, and she was right in his eyes. The important phrase is repeated (see v. 3), and along with it, the important ...

2. Elihu

Job 32:1--37:24

Understanding Series

Gerald H. Wilson

... ’s last call for Job to acknowledge the wisdom of his words. 36:13–15 The godless (khanepim) are those who despise God. To be “godless” in heart is to make a conscious decision to reject the way of God, rather than to be simply ignorant of God’s expectations. Such persons actively resist the claims of faithful living. Those who knowingly reject God often do so and harbor resentment out of anger. Clearly Elihu is trying to indict Job here for his lack of submission to God’s disciplinary suffering ...

3. Favoritism Forbidden

James 2:1-13, James 2:14-26

Understanding Series

Peter H. Davids

... a person. This is demanded of us as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ. The only basis of the church is faith in a single Lord. Belief and commitment save rich and poor alike, and all pledge allegiance to a Lord whose life and teaching ignored, if not despised, worldly position. Furthermore, this Lord is living, exalted, glorious; he will return to manifest his glory and judge the world. Partiality is a violation of his character and an insult to him; it is therefore a serious sin. 2:2–4 Having ...

4. Moab Revolts

2 Kings 3:1-27

Understanding Series

Iain W. Provan

... to believe that this is right. To argue, on the one hand, that the authors had in mind the wrath of the Moabite god Chemosh—see most recently J. B. Burns, “Why Did the Besieging Army Withdraw? (2 Reg 3:27),” ZAW 102 (1990), pp. 187–94—is to ignore everything we have read up to this point about the LORD alone being God and the “gods” having no real existence. These are truths that will shortly be reinforced by the story of Naaman in 2 Kgs. 5. The LORD has no rivals in heaven, and Chemosh is no ...

5. Korah’s Rebellion

Numbers 16:1-50

Teach the Text

Joe M. Sprinkle

... correctly that God by his word had made Israel “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exod. 19:6). Korah took this statement to mean that the priesthood was much broader than Aaron and his sons. But in order to maintain that view, he had to ignore the subsequent statements by God where he called Aaron and his sons to their special role as priests (e.g., Exod. 27:21; 28:41). Exodus 19:6 must not be understood in contradiction to these subsequent passages. It means that Israel as a nation had a ...

6. Wisdom from the Spirit

1 Corinthians 2:6-16

Understanding Series

Marion L. Soards

... the same statement in the same form in Ascension of Isaiah 11:34, so that it is likely that Paul is not freely paraphrasing, but that he is drawing the lines from the same otherwise unknown source used by the author of Ascension of Isaiah. The NIV translation ignores elements of the Greek and rearranges the sense and the logic of Paul’s quotation. More literally the citation says, Things which an eye did not see and an ear did not hear and on a human heart did not come up— things which God prepared for ...

7. Warnings from Israel's History

1 Corinthians 10:1-13

Understanding Series

Marion L. Soards

... despite the mysterious matters that it raises, the plain sense of the verse is a call to recognize and to trust God. Additional Notes 10:1 Paul often introduces critical items of basic Christian belief and life with the phrase I do not want you to be ignorant. See Rom. 11:25; 1 Cor. 12:1; 2 Cor. 1:8; 1 Thess. 4:13. After this commanding opening the verses that follow in this section display a refined rhetorical character that indicates Paul’s concern and magnifies his basic argument. On the structuring of ...

8. Job's Third Reply to Bildad

Job 26:1--31:40

Understanding Series

Gerald H. Wilson

... book espouses, and if we read Job (book and man) in this way we follow our own issues rather than allowing ourselves to be confronted by those of the book. The unfortunate effect is that we excuse ourselves because of our cultural “superiority” and ignore the message because we do not agree with the messenger. I do not mean that our cultural discomfort with Job’s easy acceptance of his privileged social position is wrong or even inconsequential. This lack of comfort should force us to look further to ...

9. Faith and Deeds

James 2:14-26, James 2:1-13

Understanding Series

Peter H. Davids

10. The Old Testament Ritual Described

Hebrews 9:1-10

Understanding Series

Donald A. Hagner

... Day of Atonement (Lev. 16:2–15; Exod. 30:10). He is never without the blood prescribed by the law, which he offered for himself (the contrast here has already been made in 5:3 and 7:27) and for the sins the people had committed in ignorance. The technical phrase “sins of ignorance” alludes to the fact that only unintentional sinning could be atoned for (see Lev. 4:1, 13, 22, 27; 5:15, 17–19), not that done “with a high hand” (see Num. 15:30; Deut. 17:12). 9:8 The author now draws a lesson from ...

11. The Christian and the World

James 4:1-12

Understanding Series

Peter H. Davids

... 7–11; 18:19–20) and those that introduce waiting (Luke 11:5–13; 18:1–8) or conditions (Matt. 17:20; 1 John 5:14, 16). Some of the problems can be solved by better exegesis, (e.g., Matt. 18:19–20 has a specific context that is often ignored), but difficulties remain. M. Dibelius, James, p. 219, sees the conditional verses as a response to the dashed hopes of an earlier period; but the situation is hardly so simple, for both types are found in the same literature (e.g., James has 1:5–8; 4:3; and 5 ...

12. The Day of the Lord

2 Peter 3:1-18

Understanding Series

Norman Hillyer

... 3:8 Do not forget: lit. “do not let [this] be hidden from you”—as was happening in the case of the scoffing false teachers. They were deliberately allowing the fact of the difference in divine and human viewpoints not to enter their calculations. It was culpable ignorance on their part, as in the matter of the second coming (v. 4). With the Lord a day is like a thousand years was evidently a saying that registered with the apostolic age, for it is quoted in Barnabas 15.4–7. Peter’s words gave rise ...

13. The Last Day of the Feast

John 7:45--8:11, John 8:12-30

Understanding Series

J. Ramsey Michaels

... take away sin. Not until they have lifted up the Son of Man on that cross will they know who Jesus is and realize that he has spoken the very words of God (v. 28). The reference to a future moment of understanding only serves to accent their present ignorance. Who are you? they ask Jesus (v. 25), and they are told that all along from the very beginning of his ministry he has been making himself known, if only they would listen (v. 25). There is much he could say now in condemnation, but Jesus refuses to be ...

14. The Pharisees Investigate the Healing

John 9:13-34

Understanding Series

J. Ramsey Michaels

... themselves by admitting that, as far as Jesus was concerned, we don’t even know where he comes from (v. 29). It was their emphatic way of denying that Jesus was from God (cf. v. 16), but to the man born blind (and to the narrator) it only betrayed their ignorance (cf. 8:14). His last words to them begin on the same note of sarcasm he had used a moment before (v. 30; cf. v. 27) but quickly take a serious turn (vv. 31–33) as he begins to pour out his true convictions. The Pharisees were right: He is ...

15. Adonijah Sets Himself Up as King

1 Kings 1:1-27

Understanding Series

Iain W. Provan

... rights and safety (as well as her own). She plays on David’s sense of honor and compassion. Nathan simply objects to being kept in the dark and excluded (vv. 26–27). He invites David to share in his sense of anger at being marginalized and ignored by the conspirators. In this way the pair hope to avoid the impression of collusion, while at the same time provoking the king into decisive action. They are successful. 1:28–40 The oath is remembered and reinforced by a second swearing (again in secret, to ...

16. Woe to the Obstinate Nation

Isaiah 30:1-33

Understanding Series

John Goldingay

... of nature is a figure for transformation of human life, or at least accompanies it (see 11:6–9). The background of verses 19–26 is not the kind of crisis that the earlier part of the chapter speaks to, but rather a situation where people who ignored the prophets’ messages have experienced God’s attack upon them and God’s withdrawal from them. God now speaks to them of a new experience of grace and mercy and a new future. Presumably these words therefore come from a time later than that of Isaiah ...

17. Realizing the True Nature of Jesus the Christ

Mark 8:27-30

Teach the Text

Grant R. Osborne

... regarding Jesus. The leaders considered Jesus to be a false prophet, although the common people thought that he might indeed be God’s prophet. While people later tried to make Jesus their version of a conquering messiah (Mark 11:9–10), they remained ignorant and in unbelief (John 12:37–41). Worldly minded people will always fail to recognize Jesus; to them he is a great teacher and charismatic figure, but they cannot know him as the suffering Messiah and saving Lord because darkness cannot do anything ...

18. The Sin Offering

Leviticus 4:1--5:13

Teach the Text

Joe M. Sprinkle

... lamb. Interpretive Insights 5:1–6 Three cases illustrate the kind of situation that might require a sin offering. 5:1 If anyone sins because they do not speak up when they hear a public charge to testify. The first case is a sin of omission or ignorance where a person fails to respond to a public charge to testify. An announcement was made in public that anyone who has witnessed a particular crime or who has evidence relevant to a specific case in court is to appear and give testimony about that case ...

19. Elihu Makes His Appearance

Job 32:1--37:24

Teach the Text

Daniel J. Estes

... and commitment to them. The specific purpose of God in any particular action may well be difficult or even impossible for humans to discern. But we can be confident that what God is doing fits into his overall plan. Elihu seems firmly convinced that Job is ignorant of God’s ways, so he urges Job to consider God’s wonders. To consider means to think carefully or to meditate on the significance of what God has done. If Job would ponder the rhetorical questions that Elihu has posed to him, he would realize ...

20. Orderly Worship

1 Corinthians 14:26-40

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... within Corinthian worship as the unrestrained exercise of other kinds of speech and that was associated in this particular congregation with women. Perhaps it was simply the frustrated speech of wives whose soft-spoken questions were ignored by husbands, or the bolder speech of women who ignored their husbands entirely and interrupted to ask questions of the person who was speaking. In any case, Paul’s instruction (14:34) is that such women “should remain silent in the churches.” (The Greek words here ...

21. Clean and Unclean

Mark 7:1-23

Understanding Series

Larry W. Hurtado

... following passages and gives the basis for Jesus’ rejection of the scribal attempt to define religious purity. It additionally prepares the reader for the incident with the gentile woman. Early gentile Christians would have seen in Jesus’ words the basis for their own right to ignore many of the scruples of Judaism while claiming to be obedient to the will of God. 7:14–23 In these verses Jesus returns to the question of ritual purity introduced in 7:1–5 and in effect sets aside the whole idea that ...

22. God's Wrath Against Mankind

Romans 1:18-32

Understanding Series

James R. Edwards

... Ultimately Paul is less interested in how the world knows God than that it has experienced God and is hence without excuse. The guilt of humanity, then, is due not to want of truth, but to the suppression of the truth (v. 18). If guilt were due to ignorance it would be an intellectual problem, but in reality it is a problem of the will, which is sin. The fundamental problem of humanity was not, as the Greeks thought, a problem of reason, but a problem of the will (v. 27). The proper response would have been ...

23. “I Am from Him and He Sent Me”

John 7:25-44

Understanding Series

J. Ramsey Michaels

... . All they hear is you will not find me; and where I am, you cannot come (v. 34); and all they can conclude from this is that perhaps Jesus will go where our people live scattered among the Greeks, and teach the Greeks (v. 35). The suggestion displays their ignorance. They no more understand where he is going than where he came from, and their very failure to arrest him (cf. vv. 45–46) fulfills his prediction that they will look for him but will not find him. There is a touch of irony in the remark about ...

24. David Makes Solomon King

1 Kings 1:28-53

Understanding Series

Iain W. Provan

25. 1 Timothy 1:12-17

1 Timothy 1:12-17

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... and disbelief acted as both the reason for Paul's destructive behavior and his reason for receiving God's mercy. In his classic commentary, John Wesley questions this logic, then clarifies how such ignorance might have worked in Paul's favor. Ignorance, Wesley claims, was no excuse. But it "left him capable of mercy, which he would hardly have been, had he acted contrary to his own conviction" (as quoted in Oden, 41). Verses 15 and 16 work together to demonstrate the vast disparity between the sinless ...

Showing results