fit for forever

Posted on June 6, 2016 by Jefferson Vann
June 2016 (6)

1 Corinthians 15:39-43

1Co 15:39 Not every organic structure is the same. Human beings have a certain organic structure, domesticated animals have another organic structure, birds have another organic structure, fish have another.
1Co 15:40 There are bodies made for flying in the sky, and bodies made for living on the land, but what makes the sky creatures glorious is one feature, and what makes the land creatures glorious is another.
1Co 15:41 The sun is glorious for one reason, the moon for another, and the stars for another; in fact each star  is glorious in a different way than every other star.
1Co 15:42 That is what the resurrection from the dead ones will be like. The body is planted to rot, but it is raised to be indestructible.
1Co 15:43 It is planted to our embarassment, it is raised to our glory. It is planted without the capacity to endure, it is raised with the ability to live forever.

fit for forever

Paul’s frustration in this section becomes clearer when the language is allowed to speak for itself without the filter of later theological systems. The translators’ tendency to turn this passage into a contrast between “earthly bodies” and “heavenly bodies” reflects a Platonic framework that Paul never uses. His concern is not about location but about kind, purpose, and fitness.

In verse 40, Paul draws attention to the diversity of bodies already present in creation. Some creatures are suited for the sky, others for the land, others for the sea. Each has its own glory, its own splendor, its own design. None of these bodies are inferior; each is fitted to the environment in which it lives. The glory of a bird is not the glory of a lion, and the glory of a fish is not the glory of a horse. Each body is appropriate to its realm.

Paul’s point is that God already demonstrates the ability to craft bodies suited to their intended environment. The Corinthians should have recognized this. They lived in a world filled with creatures whose bodies were marvels of design, each perfectly adapted to its habitat. Paul is not contrasting earth with heaven. He is contrasting this age with the age to come.

The present human body has a glory of its own. It is remarkable, complex, and wonderfully made. But it is suited for a world marked by decay, weakness, and mortality. It is glorious, but it is not built for eternity.

The resurrection body will have a different glory because it will be suited for a different environment: the renewed creation, the age in which death has been abolished. That body will be incorruptible, powerful, and immortal—not because it is “heavenly” in the sense of being non‑physical, but because it is fitted for the everlasting kingdom God is bringing.

Paul’s argument is not about escaping the physical world. It is about receiving a transformed body appropriate to the world where death no longer reigns. The Corinthians had been misled by teachers who assumed resurrection meant reanimating decayed flesh. Paul corrects that misunderstanding by pointing to the diversity of bodies in creation. If God can give each creature the body appropriate to its environment, God can certainly give resurrected believers bodies appropriate to the age to come.

The glory of the resurrection body will be different because it will be eternal, not because it will be “heavenly” in a Platonic sense.

LORD, thank you for the hope of eternal resurrection life.

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seeds and scatterbrains

Posted on June 5, 2016 by Jefferson Vann
June 2016 (5)

1 Corinthians 15:35-38

1Co 15:35 But someone is bound to ask “just how are the dead ones going to be raised? And what sort of body will they come out with?”
1Co 15:36 Scatterbrain! That seed that you are planting is not going to come to life unless it dies first.
1Co 15:37 And what you are planting is not the body that is going to be, but a naked seed; it might be of wheat, or some of the other kinds of grain.
1Co 15:38 But God is giving it a body just like he wants it to have, and he has given each of the seeds its own body.

seeds and scatterbrains

Paul’s choice of the word in verse 36 is sharper than the English “fool” usually conveys. My choice to render it as “scatterbrain” captures the tone well. The term describes someone who draws conclusions without considering all the relevant factors—someone who looks only at what is visible and forgets to account for the unseen work of God. Danker’s definition fits perfectly: a person who “fails to take account of various aspects before drawing a conclusion or adopting a course of action.”

That is exactly what the Corinthians were doing. They were evaluating the resurrection purely on the basis of what they could imagine happening to a corpse. They saw only the impossibility of reanimating dead flesh. They never factored God into the equation. Their reasoning was limited to human capacity, not divine power.

Paul answers their narrow thinking with a simple, everyday illustration—one they had witnessed countless times. A seed is planted “naked,” without the body it will one day possess. It goes into the ground small, unimpressive, and seemingly lifeless. But God gives it a new body, one suited to the life He intends it to have. The transformation from seed to plant is not the seed’s doing. It is God’s doing.

The Corinthians saw this miracle every harvest season. They watched God bring life out of what was buried. They saw Him give new bodies to what had been sown in weakness. Yet when they considered their own future, they failed to apply the very lesson creation teaches. They forgot that the God who raises grain from the soil is the same God who will raise His people from the grave.

Paul’s point is not botanical—it is theological. Resurrection is not about reanimating the old body. It is about God giving a new one, just as He gives every seed a body according to His design. The Corinthians’ problem was not lack of intelligence but lack of imagination shaped by faith. They were thinking like scatterbrains—leaving God out of the calculation.

Paul calls them back to a worldview in which God is the decisive factor. The resurrection is not impossible. It is inevitable, because the God who brings life from the ground has already begun His new creation in Christ.

LORD, help us to stop being so scatterbrained, and trust you with our future.

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listening to the wrong crowd

Posted on June 4, 2016 by Jefferson Vann
June 2016 (4)

1 Corinthians 15:32-34

1Co 15:32 From a human perspective, what have I gained from fighting wild animals at Ephesus? If the dead ones are not raised, we should just eat and drink, because tomorrow we are dying.
1Co 15:33 Do not be led astray! Listening to the wrong crowd corrupts good habits.
1Co 15:34 Sober up as you should, and stop making that mistake, because some are just ignorant of God –to your disgrace.

listening to the wrong crowd

Paul has been building a careful, logical case for the future, bodily resurrection. But at this point in the argument, the tone shifts. The issue is no longer only theological—it is personal. Paul reminds the Corinthians that he puts his life at risk every single day to proclaim the gospel of resurrection life. His ministry is lived on the edge of danger, and he embraces that danger because he believes with absolute certainty that the dead will rise.

And yet, while he is risking everything, some in Corinth are sitting comfortably, treating the resurrection as an optional doctrine, even wondering whether it is necessary at all. Paul calls this what it is: ignorance. These speculative teachers are not only undermining the truth of the gospel—they are also weakening the church’s witness. If the Corinthians listen to the wrong voices, they will lose their confidence in the message they are supposed to proclaim.

Paul’s frustration is understandable. He has poured out his life for the sake of the resurrection. He has suffered, been beaten, imprisoned, and threatened. He has endured all of this because he knows that Christ has been raised and that the resurrection of believers is certain. For people who have never risked anything to sit around and question whether resurrection matters—it is intolerable.

So Paul tells the church plainly: be ashamed for giving your ears to the wrong crowd. These self‑appointed theologians are not helping the church; they are confusing it. They are not strengthening faith; they are eroding it. They are not advancing the gospel; they are silencing it.

Paul’s point is sharp:
If the resurrection is unnecessary, then his suffering is unnecessary.
If the resurrection is unnecessary, then the gospel is unnecessary.
If the resurrection is unnecessary, then the Christian life is unnecessary.

But Paul knows the truth. Christ has been raised. The dead will be raised. And the gospel of resurrection life is worth every danger he faces.

The Corinthians needed to stop listening to voices that made the gospel small and start listening to the apostle who had staked his life on the truth.

LORD, feed us on your truth, and develop in us a distaste for any ignorant talk that might distract us from it, or from sharing it.

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baptism for the dead

Posted on June 3, 2016 by Jefferson Vann
June 2016 (3)

1 Corinthians 15:29-31

1Co 15:29 If this were not so, why do people get baptised for these dead ones? If the dead are not raised at all, why be baptised for them?
1Co 15:30 And why are we putting ourselves in danger every hour?
1Co 15:31 I die every day! That is as certain as my boasting of you– a boast that I make in Christ Jesus our Lord.

baptism for the dead

Paul’s argument in this verse has been twisted into something he never intended. He is not describing a ritual in which living believers get baptized as proxies for their dead relatives. That idea would have been foreign to Jewish practice, foreign to Christian practice, and foreign to Paul’s theology. Instead, Paul is appealing to something he has already mentioned twice in this chapter: the early missionaries who first brought the gospel to Corinth, some of whom had already “fallen asleep in Christ.”

In the earliest churches, baptism was normally performed at the request of the one who led a person to Christ. To be “baptized for someone” meant to be baptized because of that person’s ministry, as the fruit of their labor. It was a way of honoring the one who had brought the gospel. Paul himself uses this language earlier in the letter when he speaks of baptizing people who were the result of his own ministry (1:14–16). Baptism was tied to the evangelist who had won the convert.

So when Paul says, “What will those do who are baptized for the dead?”, he is referring to the converts who were baptized because of the ministry of missionaries who had already died. These missionaries had proclaimed the gospel faithfully, had led people to Christ, and then had fallen asleep in Him. Yet their ministry continued to bear fruit. People were still being baptized “for them”—that is, as the result of their work.

Paul’s point is sharp:
If there is no resurrection, then all those baptisms were pointless.
If the dead will never rise, then those missionaries died for nothing.
If the dead remain dead forever, then the converts they won were baptized for the dead—for people who will never live again.

Paul includes himself in this logic. He constantly risked his life for the gospel. He faced danger, persecution, and death. If there is no resurrection, then his suffering is meaningless. His ministry is wasted. His sacrifices are foolish. He is throwing himself into danger for nothing.

But Paul knows better. He knows that the dead in Christ will rise. He knows that the missionaries who fell asleep will live again. He knows that every baptism performed because of their ministry is a testimony to the resurrection they await. And he knows that his own suffering is not in vain, because the resurrection is real.

Paul’s argument is not about proxy rituals. It is about the futility of ministry if the dead are not raised.
And it is about the certainty of resurrection that makes every act of ministry worth the cost.

LORD, thank you for those who now sleep, awaiting your resurrection. Thank you that they cared enough to lead us to faith, and baptize us. We know it was not for nothing.

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the resurrection in God’s plan

Posted on June 2, 2016 by Jefferson Vann
June 2016 (2)

1 Corinthians 15:26-28

1Co 15:26 The last hostile thing to be eliminated will be death.
1Co 15:27 Because “God has subordinated them all under his feet.” But when it says, “subordinated them all,” it is plain that he who subordinated them all under him is excluded.
1Co 15:28 When they all have been subordinated to him, then the Son himself will also be subordinated to the one who subordinated them all to him, so that God may be all in all.

the resurrection in God’s plan

Paul now ties the resurrection to the very heart of God’s cosmic plan—a plan that stretches from Eden to the end of the age, from the rebellion of Satan to the moment when God will once again be “all in all.” The resurrection is not merely about individual salvation. It is about the restoration of the entire universe to the rule, holiness, and harmony of God.

Since the fall of Satan and the subsequent fall of humanity, God has remained sovereign, but His sovereignty has not been acknowledged or embodied by all creation. His will is not done everywhere. His holiness is not reflected everywhere. His universe contains rebellion, corruption, and death. God is King, but not everything is yet subordinated to His kingship.

Paul explains that God’s plan to rectify this begins with Christ. Christ’s death was the means by which God reconciled those He intends to rescue. Christ’s resurrection was the beginning of the new creation—the first moment in which God’s future broke into the present. And Christ’s return will be the moment when resurrection spreads to all who belong to Him.

But resurrection is not the end of the story. It is the beginning of the final phase.

Christ must reign until every enemy is subdued. Every power, every authority, every force of evil must be brought under His feet. And the last enemy to be destroyed is death itself. Death is not a friend. It is not a doorway. It is not a natural transition. It is an enemy—hostile, intrusive, and opposed to God’s purposes. It must be eliminated.

Only when death is destroyed can the universe be fully restored.

When Christ has subdued every enemy and eradicated death, He will hand the kingdom back to God the Father. The universe, once fractured by rebellion, will be returned whole. Creation, once corrupted, will be purified. Humanity, once enslaved to death, will be alive forever. And in that moment, God will be “all in all” again—His presence filling everything, His will done everywhere, His holiness reflected in all things.

Paul’s argument is clear:
Resurrection is necessary because God’s plan is not merely to save souls but to restore the universe.
Without resurrection, death remains undefeated.
If death remains undefeated, God’s plan remains unfinished.
If God’s plan remains unfinished, God is not yet all in all.

But Christ has been raised.
Christ will return.
Christ will reign.
Christ will destroy death.
And God will be all in all again.

LORD, fulfil your plan. All creation groans in expectation of our complete redemption.

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the return and resurrection

Posted on June 1, 2016 by Jefferson Vann
June 2016 (1)

1 Corinthians 15:23-25

1Co 15:23 But each crop will be harvested in its own order: Christ, the first harvest, then the ones to be harvested by Christ when he makes his appearance.
1Co 15:24 Next the end of the harvest will happen, when he gives back the kingdom to God and Father, when he has eliminated every rule and every authority and power.
1Co 15:25 Because it will be necessary for him to reign until he has put all the hostile ones under his feet.

the return and resurrection

Paul had shown the necessity of the resurrection as it relates to the gospel, and to the person of Christ. Now he shows how the resurrection fits into God’s plan for the return of Christ.

  • Since Christ is the first harvest, his resurrection took place first.
  • When Christ appears again, all those who sleep in him will be raised by him to experience a resurrection like his — unto eternal life.
  • When Christ appears again, he will begin a reign on earth which will eventually eliminate every sort of opposition to the kingdom of God.Paul now shows how the resurrection is not only essential to the gospel and to the identity of Christ, but also to God’s entire plan for Christ’s return and the restoration of creation. The resurrection is not an isolated miracle. It is the first movement in a sequence that will culminate in the renewal of the universe.
  • Christ’s resurrection is the firstfruits—the first harvest. His rising marks the beginning of God’s end‑time work. Because He rose first, the rest of the harvest is guaranteed. His resurrection is not merely proof of life after death; it is the opening act of the final redemption.
  • When Christ appears again, the next stage of the harvest begins. All who “sleep in Him” will be awakened by Him. Their resurrection will be like His—physical, immortal, incorruptible. This is the moment Paul has been pointing toward: the resurrection of the saints at Christ’s return. Not at death. Not in some disembodied state. At His appearing.
  • Then begins the reign. Christ will rule on earth, and His reign will be a reign of conquest—not military conquest, but the conquest of every enemy that opposes God’s kingdom. Every rival power, every rebellious authority, every force of evil will be subdued. The last enemy to be destroyed is death itself. Christ’s reign ends only when all opposition has been eliminated.
  • At the conclusion of this reign, Christ will hand the kingdom back to God the Father. What He returns is not the broken world He received, but a cleansed and liberated creation—set free from sin, death, and every corrupting power. The universe will be restored to the Father as a finished work, purified and made whole.
  • So the sequence is clear:
  • Christ rises first—the firstfruits.
  • At His return, all who belong to Him are raised.
  • He reigns until every enemy is defeated.
  • He hands the restored kingdom back to the Father.
  • Christ begins His return with a rescue of the saints who sleep. He concludes His reign by returning the universe to the Father, fully redeemed.
  • The resurrection is not a side doctrine. It is the engine of God’s entire plan.
  • At the end of this reign, Christ will give back the cleansed kingdom to God and Father.
  • So, Christ begins his return with a rescue of all the saints who are asleep. He concludes his reign by returning the universe to the Father, after it has been set from from sin.

LORD, come and restore us to the life you wanted for us.

Posted in deliverance, kingdom of God, resurrection, second coming | Tagged | 2 Comments

inextricably linked

Posted on May 31, 2016 by Jefferson Vann
May 2016 (31)

1 Corinthians 15:20-22

1Co 15:20 Except Christ has been raised from among the dead ones now — the first to be harvested from among the sleeping ones.
1Co 15:21 Because since death originated through a man, resurrection from the dead ones will also originate through a man.
1Co 15:22 Because just as everyone in Adam is dying, in the same way everyone in Christ will be made alive.

inextricably linked

Paul has already shown that the gospel collapses without the resurrection. Now he goes further and shows that our entire understanding of Christ Himself collapses without it. The resurrection is not an add‑on to the gospel; it is the revelation of who Christ truly is.

Christ was not the first person ever to die. Every human being since Adam has entered the sleep of death. But Christ is the firstfruits—the first to be harvested from among the dead, the first to rise permanently, never to die again. Others in Scripture were raised temporarily, only to die later. Christ alone has been awakened from the sleep of death in a way that inaugurates a new creation. His resurrection is not merely His victory; it is the beginning of our future.

Paul then draws the contrast that frames the entire biblical story. Adam made a choice in Eden—disobedience—and that choice brought death into the human experience. Christ made a choice in Gethsemane—obedience—and that obedience led to life again. Adam’s act spread death to all who are “in Adam.” Christ’s act spreads life to all who are “in Christ.”

This is the dividing line of humanity. Every person is either still in Adam, sharing Adam’s destiny of death, or in Christ, sharing Christ’s destiny of resurrection life. And Paul is explicit: all who are in Christ will be made alive when He returns. Not before. Not at death. At His coming. The resurrection of Christ is the guarantee of the resurrection of His people.

This is why Paul insists that the hope of the gospel is inseparable from the fact of Christ’s resurrection. Remove the resurrection, and the gospel becomes a philosophy. Keep the resurrection, and the gospel remains the announcement of God’s victory over death. The resurrection is not symbolic. It is not optional. It is not peripheral. It is the center of Christian hope, the anchor of Christian faith, and the promise of Christian destiny.

Everything depends on the risen Christ.necessitates the resurrection of believers at his return.

LORD, come again, and rescue us from the sleep of death.

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the gospel without resurrection

Posted on May 30, 2016 by Jefferson Vann
May 2016 (30)

1 Corinthians 15:16-19

1Co 15:16 Because if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised;
1Co 15:17 and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins.
1Co 15:18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have been destroyed.
1Co 15:19 If we have put our hope in Christ for this life only, we should be pitied more than anyone.

the gospel without resurrection

Paul now turns directly to those in Corinth who had abandoned the gospel of resurrection and replaced it with a message that did not require the dead to rise. His response is not gentle. He exposes the internal collapse that happens when resurrection is removed from the Christian message. If there is no future resurrection, then the resurrection of Jesus Himself becomes doubtful. And if Christ has not been raised, the entire structure of salvation falls apart.

Paul walks the Corinthians through the consequences:

  • If there is no resurrection, Christ has not been raised.
  • If Christ has not been raised, the gospel is empty.
  • If the gospel is empty, faith is futile.
  • If faith is futile, sins remain unforgiven.
  • If sins remain unforgiven, the dead in Christ have perished forever.
  • And if all of this is true, Christians are the most pitiable people on earth, because they have staked their lives on a delusion.

Paul is not exaggerating. He is showing that resurrection is not an optional doctrine. It is the hinge on which the entire Christian message turns. Remove it, and everything collapses.

This is where Paul’s argument becomes uncomfortably relevant. Many Christians today hold a theology that does not actually require resurrection. They teach that the soul survives death automatically, departing immediately to heaven or hell. But if the soul is already alive and conscious after death, what need is there for resurrection? What purpose does it serve? Why would God raise the dead if the dead are not really dead?

Some of the Corinthians had asked themselves the same question. Their conclusion was simple: if resurrection is unnecessary, then Paul must have misled them. They began to treat the resurrection as a myth, a symbolic story rather than a historical event. And once the resurrection became symbolic, the gospel itself became symbolic. The Christian hope dissolved into Plato’s philosophy.

Paul answers that drift with a forceful defense of the absolute necessity of a physical resurrection. A gospel without resurrection is not the gospel. A Christ who is not raised cannot save. A faith that does not require resurrection is not Christian faith at all.

Paul’s message is clear:
If death is not reversed, salvation is not accomplished.
If the grave is not emptied, sin is not defeated.
If Christ is not raised, nothing else matters.

Resurrection is not an appendix to the gospel. It is the gospel’s beating heart.resurrection is a false gospel.

LORD, purge us of our pagan theological contamination.

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doctrinal contamination

Posted on May 29, 2016 by Jefferson Vann
May 2016 (29)

1 Corinthians 15:12-15

1Co 15:12 But since Christ is proclaimed, that He has been raised from among the dead ones, how can some among you say that there is no resurrection from among the dead ones?
1Co 15:13 But if there is no resurrection from among the dead ones, then not even Christ has been raised.
1Co 15:14 And if Christ has not been raised, then our time proclaiming was misspent and your faith is misdirected.
1Co 15:15 Also, we are found to be false witnesses about God, because we have testified against God that he raised Christ from the dead, whom he did not raise, if indeed the dead are not raised.

doctrinal contamination

The Corinthians had been shaped from childhood by a worldview in which death was not a problem to be solved. In their culture, influenced heavily by Plato and the broader Greco‑Roman philosophical tradition, the soul was assumed to be naturally immortal. Death was seen as a release, a liberation of the soul from the prison of the body. In such a framework, resurrection was not only unnecessary—it was undesirable. Why would anyone want to return to a body after being freed from it?

Into that environment came Paul, proclaiming a crucified and resurrected Messiah. His message directly contradicted the assumptions the Corinthians had inherited. Yet many of them believed—some because they trusted Paul, some because they had met or heard from eyewitnesses, and some because the Holy Spirit confirmed the truth in their hearts. Their faith was anchored in the risen Christ.

But old assumptions die hard. As time passed, some believers began to notice the tension between the gospel’s teaching of a future resurrection and their inherited belief in the soul’s natural survival after death. The two doctrines do not fit together easily. If the soul automatically survives death, then resurrection becomes redundant. And once resurrection is seen as redundant, it becomes symbolic, then optional, then mythical.

This is exactly what happened in Corinth. Some believers attempted to merge the two systems—just as Augustine would later do on a grander scale. But merging them required redefining resurrection. Instead of a future act of God raising the dead, resurrection became a metaphor for the soul’s ascent or a symbol of spiritual renewal. Once that shift occurred, the literal resurrection of Christ became less central. Eventually, some began to treat it as a mythic story rather than a historical event.

And if the resurrection was a myth, then Paul—the one who had proclaimed it—became suspect. His integrity, his teaching, and even his apostleship were questioned. The Corinthians were not merely doubting a doctrine; they were undermining the very foundation of their faith and the credibility of the one who had brought them the gospel.

Paul’s response in 1 Corinthians 15 is therefore not abstract theology. It is a rescue mission. He is pulling the Corinthians back from a philosophical drift that would dissolve the gospel into the very worldview Christ came to overturn. For Paul, the resurrection is not an optional add‑on. It is the hinge of history, the defeat of death, the promise of future life, and the guarantee that God’s new creation has already begun in Christ.

Without resurrection, the gospel collapses. With resurrection, everything stands.

LORD, purge us of our syncretisms; decontaminate our theology.

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last on the list

Posted on May 28, 2016 by Jefferson Vann
May 2016 (28)

1 Corinthians 15:8-11

1Co 15:8 But last of all, as though to a person born at the wrong time, he was seen by me too.
1Co 15:9 Because I am the least of the missionaries, not worthy to be called a missionary, because I persecuted the church of God.
1Co 15:10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me has not been misspent, but I worked even more than all of them, and not I, but the grace of God with me.
1Co 15:11 Therefore whether it was me or those others, this is the way we proclaimed him, and this is the way you believed him.

last on the list

Paul had listed the witnesses to the resurrection:

  • First, the scriptures which predicted it,
  • Then, the eyewitnesses who proclaimed it,
  • Last on the list was Paul himself, who witnessed the resurrected Christ on the road to Damascus.

Paul deliberately places himself at the end of the list of resurrection witnesses, not because his experience was less real, but because he considered himself the least likely candidate for such grace. He had not walked with Jesus during His earthly ministry. He had not been part of the Twelve. He had not stood among the five hundred. He had not been one of the early missionaries sent out from Jerusalem. In fact, his history placed him in the opposite category—he had persecuted the church and tried to destroy the very movement he now proclaimed.

Because of that past, Paul felt compelled to work harder than any of the others. He had to verify the gospel he preached with extraordinary diligence. He examined the Scriptures, consulted with the apostles, and tested every detail of the message he carried. His ministry was not built on personal credibility but on the sheer mercy of God. Whatever fruit came from his preaching came not from his background or reputation but from the power of the Holy Spirit working through him.

That is why Paul emphasizes grace when he speaks of his labor. He worked tirelessly, but even that work was the result of God’s enabling. His ministry was not proof of his worthiness; it was proof of God’s generosity. The same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead was the Spirit who authenticated Paul’s message in the hearts of those who heard it.

And the same dynamic holds true for believers today. No one can prove the gospel by personal authority or intellectual force. No one can argue another person into resurrection faith. The message we proclaim is beyond our power to validate. Only God can confirm it. Only the Spirit can open hearts, convict consciences, and awaken faith.

Our task, like Paul’s, is faithfulness. Faithful proclamation. Faithful living. Faithful reliance on the God who brings life out of death. The power that persuaded the Corinthians did not come from Paul’s résumé. It came from the risen Christ working through a humbled messenger. That same Christ continues to work through ordinary, unlikely people, proving the truth of the gospel in ways no human effort ever could.

LORD, we offer no excuses. We just commit to proclaiming your gospel, and trusting you to convince those we share it with.

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