[Uucf-bible] UUCF Online Bible Study for end of Epiphany, Lent, Eastertide---beginning now

[John Tindal]

RevRonRobinson at aol.com wrote:

>1 Corinthians  15:12-20
>12Now if  Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you 
>say there is  no resurrection of the dead? 13If there is  no resurrection of 
>the dead, then Christ has not been raised; 14and if Christ  has not been raised, 
>then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has  been in vain. 15We 
>are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we  testified of God that 
>he raised Christ—whom he did not raise if it is true that  the dead are not 
>raised. 16For if the  dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. 17If 
>Christ has  not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your 
>sins. 18Then those also who have died in Christ have perished. 19If for this 
>life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of  all people most to be pitied. 20But 
>in fact  Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who 
>have died. 
> 
>Where are the places in the texts that resonated with you, that drew  you in, 
>that puzzle you?
> 
>Ron Robinson
>

Hi all,

The readings for this Sunday really resonated with me. Paul's thoughts 
on the resurrection of Christ were especially meaningful. Below are some 
quotes that may be of interest to those on this list..

“We cannot read Paul without coming away with a powerful sense that for 
this Jewish learned man, this pupil of Gamaliel, God was somehow 
powerfully present in Christ. There was in Paul a real sense that the 
story of the resurrection meant that Jesus had been lifted by God into 
the realm of the divine, that Jesus was now somehow one with God, and 
that no one could ever understand this Jesus apart from the God who had 
been revealed in him.” [/A New Christianity for a New World/, by John 
Shelby Spong, page 89]
 
“The idea of the resurrection of the dead did not originate with Jesus 
or the early church. It originated in the Apocalyptic eschatology of 
late Judaism. Jesus’ ministry took place in the midst of a hot debate 
already going on between the Pharisees who affirmed it and the Sadducees 
who rejected it. But the first Christians did not hope for resurrection 
of the dead because Jesus and they agreed with the arguments of the 
Pharisees. Nor did they hope for it because they preferred it to 
speculations and theories about the immortality of the soul. *They hoped 
for it because they believed that it had happened: a dead man actually 
lived again!* *Not just a man (so that the event could be considered a 
freak exception to the rule that dead people stay dead), but one in whom 
they believed God’s plan for the future of _all_ human beings was 
revealed.* Because God raised Jesus from the dead we may be sure that 
God will do the same for everyone.
 
“The key to understanding hope for bodily resurrection lies in the fact 
that for the biblical writers ‘body,’ or ‘flesh,’ is a synonym for 
‘human being.’ Resurrection of the body means resurrection of a person. 
To hope for it is to hope that my human self, the person that ‘I’ am, 
will live again. I will not be someone or something different from who 
and what I am now. I will be myself. The same holds true of course, for 
other people.” [/Christian Doctrine/, Shirley C. Guthrie, Jr., page 392]
 
Hosea Ballou, that great Universalist preacher “concluded that all men 
and women would ultimately come into union with the almighty. If God 
wills that everyone come to the truth, and if God can work all things 
according to his will, then it stands to reason that no soul will be 
lost.” [/The Unitarian Universalist Christian/, “Response to Mark 
Harris,” by Carl Scovel, page 21]

The hope of eternal life is one of the great gifts of the Christianity. 
The resurrection of Jesus is the source of that hope. Hosea Ballou 
reminds us that eternal life, in the loving presence of God, is 
available to all.

John Tindal
Sumter, South Carolina