Teaching
We gather around the scriptures to learn the unfolding story of God.
Death Defeated - 1 Cor 15:50-58
The Christian hope is that our future resurrection will not just change our outward appearance; it will change the world around us and the inner reality of who we are and what we are. The ordering of our disordered desires. And that change is beginning even now.
Empty Cemeteries, New Bodies– 1 Corinthians 15:12-22, 35-49
The Christian faith is often reduced to “I will go to heaven when I die.” But this summary is more gnostic than Christian. It assumes that the material world must be escaped. The Christian hope, as Paul tells it, is embodied. Somehow our God will empty cemeteries and give us new bodies.
Can I Get a Witness – 1 Corinthians 15:5-11
In so many ways, followers of Jesus can be made to feel like our faith is unreasonable, clinging to faith in an event despite the obvious, clear, and overwhelming evidence against the Resurrection. But our faith isn’t unreasonable. It isn’t a blind leap into nonsensical belief. Trust in the bodily resurrection of Jesus is reasonable. Jesus appeared to many: disciples, family, skeptics, and outspoken opponents. These witnesses were so convinced by their encounter with the risen Jesus that many were unwilling to recant that belief even as they were executed for it.
According to the Scriptures – 1 Corinthians 15:3-4
Too often we settle for badly summarized Gospels; formulas that are less than compelling. Paul articulates the Gospel as the climax of the long story of Israel, the beautiful and compelling story of God’s activity to save the world.