“But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.” (CSB – Read the chapter)
What is it that has made you what you are today? Who we are is a complex web of many different factors. Some of it has come by the intentional effort of someone else trying to shape us into one thing or another. Some of it has come by a set of circumstances over which we had no control. Some of it has come by things that we have pursued ourselves. Paul identifies a fourth factor here, and this should be the big one.
Yesterday was Easter Sunday. Resurrection Sunday! We celebrate the resurrection of Jesus from the dead in style at First Baptist Oakboro. I wish you could have been there with us. Using the words of the apostle Paul to the believers in ancient Corinth as our guide, we spent some time reflecting on just why the resurrection is such a big deal. Also, this is running earlier today than it usually does and is in place of the usual Morning Musing. This will be the only post this week. It’s Spring Break in our house and we are enjoying some time away. See you next Monday!
The Resurrection Changes Everything
So, I love Monty Python. That may tell some of you more about me than you wanted to know. Meanwhile, others of you are thinking, “Who’s Monty Python?” Monty Python was a British sketch comedy troupe popular in the 1970s. The most famous member is comedian John Cleese, who has since had a pretty good film career in a whole variety of movies. In addition to several different TV series, they also released a handful of movies. The most well-known of these was Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Personally, I’ve watched that one enough times that it’s not very much fun to watch it with me because I say most of the lines right along with the actors all while laughing hysterically. You can borrow my copy if I’ve gotten you curious. In any event, one of their most famous sketches is called “The Spanish Inquisition.” Let me play a little clip of this for you.
“Then he appeared to over five hundred brothers and sisters at one time; most of them are still alive, but some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.” (CSB – Read the chapter)
Why make such a big deal about the resurrection? Isn’t it enough to simply believe it happened and not worry so much about whether it was a real, historical event? I mean, in a world of modern understandings of life and death, defending the supernatural is no mean feat. Couldn’t we get by simply focusing on the powerful idea of the resurrection? Ever wondered anything like this? Let’s talk about it.
“But because sexual immorality is so common, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman should have sexual relations with her own husband.” (CSB – Read the chapter)
This past Friday we started talking about sex. So far we have concluded two things. The first is that this is something we should be talking about. As followers of Jesus and given the state of our culture, we’ve got to be having a positive and productive conversation about how we should approach this touchy subject. The second thing was this: Sex is good and we should be enjoying it…but only in its proper context. It is a gift from God and like any other gift from God, if we use it as He intended, we will enjoy its rich fruits to their absolute fullest. The last question we asked was what we should be doing about this. Let’s talk about that now.
“But because sexual immorality is so common, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman should have sexual relations with her own husband.” (CSB – Read the chapter)
Where we left things this morning was with a question: What do the Scriptures say about sex? As we had said a little earlier, quite a bit. Let’s start broadly and then get a little more detailed from there.
The Nexus 