1 Corinthians 15:14-15

And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised.

From Background Notes [BN] for May 2nd & 3rd written by Pastor Bob Brown:

The statements are largely negative, since Paul addresses the question from a “What if?” perspective: “What if Christ has not been raised? Then what?”

The whole argument of this section grows out of a certain point of view, prevalent in Paul’s day and in ours, namely, “Dead people don’t rise.” N. T. Wright, in his monumental work on the resurrection, thoroughly researched ancient texts from secular and religious writers, before and after the time of Jesus. The results of that effort comprise nearly two hundred pages in Part One of his book. Wright uncovered the widespread belief that, once dead, human beings do not come back to life in new bodies, nor would that be a desirable thing. Instead, ancient religions and philosophies, if they accepted life after death at all, viewed after death existence as largely one of shadows without substance. Efforts to describe what the “other world” looked like tended toward elaborate accounts of gods and mortals and fatalism.  [BN,2]

Join us this week in Study, Worship, Praise and Celebration at Chicago First Church of the Nazarene:

* Saturday 6:00pm
* Sunday 8:30am, 10am (FX) and 11:15am