Sermon and Worship Resources

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1. Manual Labor Is Not the President of Mexico

Proverbs 6:6-8

Sermon

James Merritt

... work as a curse, which came as a result of the fall of Adam and Eve. Nothing could be farther from the truth. This world is the result of God's work. (Gen. 2:2) God gave Adam the job of tending the Garden of Eden before sin came on the scene ... come back to see you do it again, and tell others that they should see you do what you do.12 Finally, the ant is a finishing worker. The ant literally dies working and so should we. I have searched the Bible and there is one thing I have never found there the ...

2. Body / Ambassador

2 Corinthians 5:11--6:2

Understanding Series

James M. Scott

... friends and of the army who were most hostile to the Jews” (v. 3). The idiom occurs frequently in the writings of Josephus (cf. Ant. 1.166; 7.186; 8.117; 13.35, 85, 195, 288; 14.8, 164, 404; 15.81; 16.267; 17.290; 20.162; ... 4–16; 5:23). Believers are personally united with Christ, who is a corporate figure like Adam and indeed his typological counterpart (cf. 1 Cor. 15:22, 45). Being in Christ (“the last Adam”) causes one to be a new creation. In the “postexilic” time of distress, Nehemiah’s ...

3. Body

2 Corinthians 5:1-10

Understanding Series

James M. Scott

... all its host is but a small dwelling (oikētērion)—how much less this poor Temple!” Earlier in the same context (Ant. 8.107) the temple was described as an “Eternal House” (oikos aiōnios). Likewise in 2 Cor. 5:1–2, the “eternal house (oikian aiōnion) in the heavens” is not necessarily the same as “our dwelling (oikētērion) which is from heaven.” Pate (Adam Christology, pp. 121–23) suggests that the mixed metaphor “clothed with a building” can be explained as the overlap of three ...

4. More Tolerable For Sodom And Gomorrah

Luke 10:1-24

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... God who manifested his will and purpose in history. They all believed that it was virtue that made things work in a democracy. Samuel Adams summed it up in these words: "We may look to armies for our defense, but virtue is our best security. It is not possible ... ", Katie Sherod reflected on a terrible accident, at the National Zoo in Washington last year. "The ants who live in a big glass display case in the Invertebrate House beheaded their queen. "They didn't mean to do this, you understand. "As ...

5. The Sin and Doom of Godless Men

Jude 1:1-16

Understanding Series

Norman Hillyer

... poor they were, he contemptuously dismissed them as being no danger to his empire (Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. 3.19.1; 3.20.6; Josephus, Ant. 20.200). Kept: Christians belong to Jesus Christ and are kept safe for him until he comes to claim his property (cf. 1 Pet ... mentioned in the NT in Luke 3:37 (as an ancestor of Jesus) and in Heb. 11:5 (as a hero of faith). The seventh from Adam is the usual description of Enoch in Jewish writings (1 Enoch 60:8; 93:3; Philo, On the Posterity and Exile of Cain 173; Jubilees 7: ...

6. Boasting

2 Corinthians 11:1-15, 2 Corinthians 11:16-33, 2 Corinthians 12:1-10

Understanding Series

James M. Scott

... thing, to disguise” (cf. T. Reu. 5:6; Philo, On the Eternity of the World 79; On the Embassy to Gaius 80, 346; Josephus, Ant. 7.257; 8.267). In that case, the physical appearance of the opponents may be particularly in view here, just as Paul’s ... par with, and even superior to, Moses) as being foundational to his whole apostolic ministry. Elsewhere in the Corinthian correspondence Paul adamantly claims that his apostleship is based on his vision(s) of Christ: “Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus ...

7. Boasting

2 Corinthians 11:16-33, 2 Corinthians 1:1-11, 2 Corinthians 12:1-10

Understanding Series

James M. Scott

8. Get the Monkey off Your Back

Matthew 22:15-22

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... That there are the actions and attitudes demanded of a being who has been created in the image of God: “God created humankind (“adam”) in his image. In the image of God he created them, male and female.” (Genesis 1:27) That image, that first incarnation ... the shock and forgo the money.” Although initially 64% of the participants claimed they would never electrocute another person, as the ante went up their resolve went down. As the money reward for administering a shock went up, so did the number of ...

9. Cyrus Helps the Exiles to Return

Ezra 1:1-11

Understanding Series

Leslie C. Allen

... a new act of God in the same terms used for an earlier act. Thus Christ is “the last Adam,” head of a new humanity, corresponding to the first Adam (1 Cor. 15:45–49). He is also the “Passover lamb” sacrificed for the church, the counterpart of ... Heb. noun). He was an obvious choice for the Persians to entrust with the responsibility of leading the initial mission. Josephus (Ant. 11.13, 92) identified him with Zerubbabel, but (1) while a number of individuals had double names, one was always Hebrew ...

10. The Temptation of Jesus

Matthew 4:1-11

Understanding Series

Robert H. Mounce

... To discover for himself whether as the Son of God he was able to take care of himself would be an act of defiance against the Father. The first Adam had failed God by disobeying; the second Adam would surrender himself to the will of God in perfect obedience. Gerhardsson suggests that this temptation and the following two correspond to the three ways of loving God ... point: The pterygion (lit., “wing”) of the temple could refer to Herod’s portico, high above the Kidron Valley (Josephus, Ant. 15.11.5).

11. Chapter VII

Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

Frank H. Seilhamer

... the whole range of emotions and commitments that husband and wife feel for, and make to, each other. So when Adam "knew" Eve and she conceived, there was more implied in that act than could happen in a casual sexual binge. ... with it, we end up getting hurt, and hurting others, because of it. Whatever our age, those who misuse this beautiful gift of God always will have to ante-up for it sooner or later. Among the many I have worked with who had to do that was a young girl in her middle teens. About five ...

12. A Theology of Work - Labor Day

Deuteronomy 5:1-33

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... the beginning, we had employment. Good, so far. But the next mention we get of work is only a chapter later; it comes after Adam and Eve have eaten the forbidden fruit and been found out: To the woman [God] said, "I will greatly increase your pangs in ... Imagine it: God has finished creating the skies and seas, and the animals of the fields and forests, and the birds and fishes and ants and bees and cockroaches, and people. Then God says, 'I just don't feel like working today. Believe I will have some fun.' ...

13. Escape from the Island of Spiritual Sloth

Matthew 6:16-18

Sermon

Frank G. Honeycutt

... . But even in the newer translations there are delightful allusions to slothfulness. One of my favorites is from Proverbs: "Go to the ant, you lazybones; consider its ways and be wise ... How long will you lie there, O lazybones? When will you rise from your ... is God?" we might reflect upon God asking a question of us: "Where are you?" It's the old question God asks of a wayward Adam and Eve in the garden. "Where are you? Where have you been? Where are you going?" It's hard to answer God's questions without ...

14. If This Is Your Faith, Tell Me Your Stories

1 Thessalonians 3:6-13

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... lesson we learn by rote. Read a paragraph about unemployment and poverty rates and you might nod off. Hear the story of “The Grasshopper and the Ant,” and you never forget why we all must work for a living. But stories only live on when they are told and re-told. Each ... relative Joseph and Mary brought into this world a new life, a life that had not walked the earth since the days of Adam and Eve in the Garden. There is nothing more miraculous than the story of the Incarnation of the Divine. It is the ...

15. The Law and the Promise

Galatians 3:15-25, Galatians 3:1-14

Understanding Series

L. Ann Jervis

... Press, 1989); and M. D. Hooker, “Beyond the Things That Are Written? St. Paul’s Use of Scripture,” in From Adam to Christ: Essays on Paul (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 139–54. For Paul’s argument about grace and law ... Herod say “we have learned the noblest of our doctrines and the holiest of our laws from the messengers [angels] sent by God” (Ant. 15:136 [Marcus, LCL]). 3:20 Paul’s statement that a mediator by definition cannot represent only one party works on the ...

16. False Teachers and Their Destruction

2 Peter 2:1-22

Understanding Series

Norman Hillyer

... virtue.… But Noah, indignant at their conduct … urged them to come to a better frame of mind and amend their ways” (Josephus, Ant. 1.73–74). “Noah preached repentance, and those that obeyed were saved” (1 Clement 7.6). And seven others (ogdoon): lit. the ... for “seven others.” But there are more possibilities Peter may have in mind. He could mean that Noah was the eighth from Adam along the line of faith represented by the genealogy of Seth and Enoch (Jude 14; cf. Heb. 11:5). Or Peter may be ...

17. Israel’s Ill-Placed Confidence

Amos 5:18-27

Understanding Series

Elizabeth Achtemeier

... provision (Neh. 10:31), and it appears to have been observed in the intertestamental period (see 1 Macc. 6:48–53; Josephus, Ant. 14.202–10). This year seems intended to maintain the fertility of the land and to allow Israel’s economy to “reset,” ... the garden, with one exception, to a comprehensive prohibition and then goes on to contradict God and promise that eating will make Adam and Eve “like God, knowing good and evil” (3:5). While an explicit identity for the serpent is not given at this ...

18. Jonah Flees from the Lord

Jonah 1:1-17

Understanding Series

Elizabeth Achtemeier

... society. But why does Jonah flee? Multiple answers have been given to the question. The ancient historian, Josephus, said Jonah was afraid (Ant., 9.208). Others believe the task was too difficult—after all, Nineveh was five hundred miles away, as the crow flies— ... as he slept through the punishing storm, Jonah is responsible to God. And he cannot escape that responsibility any more than could Adam and Eve, or any person whom the Lord God has created. Human beings, made in the image of God, are related ...

19. Jesus Proclaims Judgment on the Temple and the Nation

Mark 13:1-31

Teach the Text

Grant R. Osborne

... humankind exists on the face of this earth. 3. An end will come to this present evil world. When evil entered the world through Adam, God had two choices: end the world right then or bring fallen humankind back to himself. He chose the latter, but the destruction of ... and both sacrificed a pig on the altar of burnt offering and erected an idol to Zeus in the temple (Josephus, Ant.12.253–254). Jesus sees a second fulfillment in the destruction of the temple, but its meaning is difficult to ascertain. There ...

20. Paul, Phoebe, Patronage, and Spain

Romans 16:1-27

Teach the Text

C. Marvin Pate

... action of the then-emperor Caligula, who decreed that his statue should be placed in the Jerusalem temple (Josephus, Ant. 18.273–76). After Aristobulus’s death (ca. AD 45), his household was absorbed into the household of his ... Deuteronomic in perspective. Thus, the covenant curses of Deuteronomy 28:15–68 inform Genesis 3:15. Just as God cursed the serpent and exiled Adam and Eve from the garden, so God will curse Israel for breaking their covenant and will send them into exile. (We assume here that ...

21. The Glory of the New Covenant

2 Corinthians 3:7-17; 4:1-6

Understanding Series

James M. Scott

... of the contemporary condition of Israel in exile, as indeed Dan. 9:4–19, 2 Chron. 29:9, Ezra 9:7, 1 Esd. 8:74, and Josephus, Ant. 11.133 show. Cf. also Bar. 1:19–20; Rom. 11:8 (citing a combination of Deut. 29:4 and Isa. 29:10; cf. Isa. 6:9 ... interpretation sees the reference to the Lord’s likeness against the background of Gen. 1:26–27 and of Christ as the “Second Adam.” Cf. Hafemann, Paul, Moses, and the History of Israel, p. 424. We have seen evidence, however, that Gen. 1:27 was interpreted in ...

22. Paul's Vision and His Thorn

2 Corinthians 12:1-10

Understanding Series

James M. Scott

... (on par with, and even superior to, Moses) as being foundational to his whole apostolic ministry. Elsewhere in the Corinthian correspondence Paul adamantly claims that his apostleship is based on his vision(s) of Christ: “Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our ... the twelve tribes (Seder ?olam Rabbah 11; b. Qidd. 37a, b; b. Zeba?. 118b; Gen. Rab. 35:3; 98:15; cf. Josephus, Ant. 5.68). Furthermore, Jacob spent fourteen years secluded in the land and studying under Eber (b. Meg. 16b, 17a; Gen. Rab. 68 ...

23. Faith or Observance of the Law

Galatians 3:1-14, Galatians 3:15-25

Understanding Series

L. Ann Jervis