SCRIPTURE ANNOUNCEMENT & INTRODUCTION
We said this morning the pursuit of holiness demands an all-out, 100% effort, fueled by the power of the cross and the resurrection, the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit, who has given us new hearts and…
SCRIPTURE ANNOUNCEMENT & INTRODUCTION
We’ve been away from 1 Thessalonians for a few weeks, but now we’re picking it back up at the beginning of chapter four. I made a change after the bulletin was printed, so rather than looking at vv.9-12 th…
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The famous chapter 18, one of the few well-known texts in Ezekiel, is sandwiched between oracles that pronounce as inevitable the judgment of Judah and Jerusalem. Lest those prophecies to be taken to mean that there is no hope for the individual Isra…
“Jesus has just calmed a storm at sea; he now meets a man with an equally violent storm inside him. We will see that as in the first case so in the second the power of Jesus prevails.…” [Edwards, 153] It is an interesting illustration of Mark’s inter…
We spoke last time from Proverbs 5 of the “wisdom” required to maintain sexual purity as an adolescent and unmarried young adult. The wise father instructed his son to remember the power and prevalence of sexual temptation, the destructive consequenc…
Remember, we are in a section of three chapters, each containing an allegory. We considered the first two – Jerusalem as a useless vine and Jerusalem as an unfaithful wife – last time. This final allegory comes close to being a fable, a story in whic…
After a lengthy section recording the Lord’s teaching about the kingdom of God, we return to the narrative. Now follow some striking episodes in which the Lord demonstrated divine power and witnesses of his actions were called to a decision about him…
We mentioned last time that one brutal consequence of the Fall, and one highlighted in the Genesis narrative itself, is that the sexual life of mankind – intended to be an instrument of love and fruitfulness – became a source of shame. Sins of every …
We have noticed in our studies so far that the opening section of Ezekiel – the first 24 chapters dealing with impending judgment on Israel and Jerusalem – while betraying no obvious principle of organization perhaps other than chronological, occasio…
We are in the midst of Mark’s report of the Lord’s teaching one day by the Sea of Galilee. The Lord spoke that day about the kingdom of God, the saving reign of the invisible God as it has been manifest in the world and especially in Jesus Christ, th…
We left the man and woman, naked and unashamed, delighting in one another, the man worshipping his wife, bathing her heart in words of praise and celebration. A man has the power to leave his wife much of the time walking six inches off the ground if…
Having considered the false prophets (the clergy in our parlance) in the previous chapter, the Lord’s next communication to Ezekiel addresses the elders and the people themselves. The elders are always in the Old Testament the assembly, the congregat…
After the interpolation of the previous paragraph – a prolepsis in which Mark jumps ahead to the Lord’s interpretation of the parable of the sower given to his disciples at some later date – he returns in v. 21 to the teaching that Jesus was giving t…
We spent our time last week on Genesis 2:18 and its statement that God made woman a helper suitable or corresponding to the man. That is, we said, men and women, equally bearers of the divine image, are nevertheless different from one another, diff…
It has been some weeks since we broke off our studies in Ezekiel, so let me briefly summarize our progress so far. We are in the middle of the long opening section of Ezekiel, the first of three distinct sections, this one comprising the first twenty…
Mark devotes much less of his space to summaries of Jesus’ teaching than do Matthew or Luke. Mark is almost entirely narrative with just a saying of the Lord reported here and there. But there are two exceptions to this rule and chapter 4 is the firs…
We began our examination of the biblical material on the sexual life of mankind last time at Genesis 1:26-27 with the summary statement of God’s creation of man as male and female. We suggested that there were three fundamental facts about human life…
Please turn with me to Daniel Chapter 11. We’ll be reading verses 2-35. We are to view Chapters 10, 11 and 12 as a unit; they comprise his seventh and final vision. Chapter 10 is a prelude of sorts to the message of the visi…
Mark’s Gospel contains a number of examples of the literary technique referred to nowadays as “interpolation” or “sandwiching.” The author introduces a theme or the beginning of a story which is then suspended while another related theme or story is …
I have changed the title of the class from “A Biblical Theology of Sex” to “The Biblical Theology and Ethics of Sex.” The first title would cover the ground well enough – in its larger sense “theology” includes ethics – but I wanted to emphasize the …
By now you’ve become familiar with the basic historical setting for this letter. Paul and Silas and Timothy had preached the gospel in Thessalonica around AD 49 or 50, and a new church was formed – comprised of a few Jews, a large number of God-feari…
The first two paragraphs we will read this morning are, in effect, summary statements. What Mark has reported Jesus doing, he continued to do, healing the sick and driving demons out of the possessed. And, after reading in the first several chapters …
The text before us this evening is 1 Thessalonians chapter three, verses 6-10. I was originally planning for us to finish the chapter tonight, but there are several ideas here I wanted us to look at more closely, so we’ll take verses 6-10 this evenin…
Text Comment
v.2
It is, apparently, the synagogue in Capernaum once again, the same place where some weeks before and also on a Sabbath he had driven an evil spirit out of a man. In any case, the Pharisees were already off…
Our text is 1 Thessalonians chapter 2 and verse 17 up through chapter 3, verse 13. We’re going to take two weeks on this section, looking up through chapter 3, verse 5 this evening, and then verses 6-13 next Lord’s Day evening.
Remember that Paul,…
Just last Lord’s Day I preached my farewell sermon to my congregation in Rochester; and here I am, back in the pulpit already!
I concluded my ministry at Trinity Presbyterian Church with a selective series on the Book of Revelation: a fascinat…
We continue in our series on Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians, and we come to chapter two, verses 13-16. In the opening 12 verses of this chapter we saw Paul’s deep conviction that he had been entrusted with this sacred stewardship to preach …
We are in the middle of a series of short narratives describing conflict between the Lord Jesus and the religious leadership. They have complained about his arrogating to himself the authority to forgive sins – his power to work miracles notwithstand…
SCRIPTURE ANNOUNCEMENT & INTRODUCTION
We continue in our series on Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians. We come to chapter 2, and the first 12 verses.
Remember that Paul, Silas and Timothy had taken the gospel to this city about 15-20…
Text Comment
As we said last time, in regard to the exchange between Jesus and the teachers of the law in the previous paragraph, this series of short paragraphs in chapter 2 record successive incidents that reveal a growing rift between Jesus a…
SCRIPTURE ANNOUNCEMENT & INTRODUCTION
The Scripture reading is First Thessalonians chapter one. This is the first in a series of six evening sermons on Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians, which will probably take us to the end of chapter…
SCRIPTURE ANNOUNCEMENT & INTRO
The passage before us is John chapter 21, the final section, verses 15 through 25…
We said a few weeks ago that verses 1 through 14 of this chapter were primarily intended to reveal Jesus – who Jesus is an…
Reading one oracle or prophecy of judgment after another in this opening section of Ezekiel – twenty-four chapters on the impending judgment of Jerusalem and Israel – we are taking the opportunity to construct a biblical doctrine of divine judgment. …
Text Comment
We read at the end of chapter 1 that Jesus had to remain in the lonely places because of the clamor of the crowds that were following him and, especially to forestall a confrontation with the authorities should it be widely proclaim…
It has been a month now since our last study in Ezekiel and so it will help if I remind you where we are. We have been making our way through a lengthy series of oracles or prophecies of divine judgment. The repetition in this first section of the bo…
After a month away, we return to the Gospel of Mark and take up our reading at 1:29. Remember, the Lord has just driven an evil spirit out of a man in the synagogue in Capernaum, amazing the people with his authority. We are now to be given several a…
Please turn with me to Daniel 10. This is the introduction to the seventh and final vision that Daniel records for us. We are to view chapters 10, 11 and 12 as a unit. Chapter 10 is a prelude to the vision. Chapter 11 is the vision of the great war o…
Our text is from the Gospel of John, chapter 21, and the first 14 verses. This is a text that sometimes gets overlooked or treated as merely background material to the conversation between Jesus and Peter in verses 15ff. But this text has a lot to sa…
Read: Ephesians 2:1-10
I want this Easter evening to think with you about the resurrection of the Lord Jesus as a part of our salvation. The question is: what role does the resurrection play in our salvation? We know what the cross achieved. Chr…
The Apostle John, from whose Gospel we have read this morning, was interested in how and why people come to believe in Jesus Christ and commit their lives to him. John was, as we say, an evangelist. As he tells his readers, in the last verse we read,…
Text Comment
v.13
“raised and lifted up” is several times in Isaiah a description of Yahweh himself. The Servant of the Lord is the Lord!
v.15
In the imagery of the Bible to sprinkle the nat…
On the first day of the Feast of Passover, Jesus left the quiet of Bethany, a small village two miles east of Jerusalem, and made his way toward the city. According to his rather strange instructions, a donkey colt was brought to him and he proceeded…
Remember now, we are making our way through a lengthy series of oracles or prophecies of divine judgment. The repetition in this first section of the book – the first 24 chapters all concern the Lord’s impending judgment of Israel and Judah – is prov…
In the remainder of chapter 1 we are going to be given a representative sampling of the Lord’s ministry. We have in short order, an exorcism, the driving out of a demon, scenes of Jesus healing the sick, and of his preaching and teaching. It is preci…
We know from the Gospel of John that after the Lord’s baptism and temptation he remained for a time in Judea and engaged in a ministry that overlapped with that of John the Baptist. Upon John’s imprisonment, however, Jesus returned to Galilee and it …
Remember, we are in a long section of oracles or prophecies of judgment pronounced by the Lord against Jerusalem and the Jews remaining there, but preached for the benefit of the exiles already living in Babylon. These oracles of judgment are providi…
Last Lord’s Day morning we commented on the first eight verses of the Gospel. We will read them again this morning because they set the stage for the dramatic introduction of Gospel’s principal character in v. 9. We pointed out last time that the fir…
We have begun to consider Ezekiel’s prophecies of judgment against Jerusalem and Judah, the subject of the first 24 chapters of the book. We spoke last time, from chapters 4 and 5, of the reality of divine judgment, of God’s wrath as an inescapable f…
As we read the opening paragraph – or most of it, for it extends to v. 13 – be aware that it serves as a prologue to the Gospel. One of the indications of this is the use of certain important terms that figure prominently here, but not in the remaind…