Monday, March 26, 2018

Oh, that's why I feel nourished every Sunday

This falls into the very comprehensive exegetical category of: “how come I never noticed that before?”

We read:
Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, (1 Cor 15 3b-4
That is a concise and perfect proclamation of the Gospel, from Paul to the Corinthians. It's what comes before that I never gave proper attention:
1 Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, 2 by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. 3 For I delivered to you (1 Cor 15:1-3a)
Namely that Paul was preaching the gospel to believers. Believers with troubles—i.e. Christians like the rest of us, but not believers (e.g., the Galatians) who were getting the basic gospel message wrong.

I know I am comforted when I hear the gospel every week in church—but in the depths of my puny brain I think I always pigeon-holed it as for any unbelievers in the room. After all, I know the gospel.

Of course it is for that, for unbelievers—but that mysterious comfort I’m feeling is because, duh, it’s for me too. Not that I have to hear it again in the sense that I’m getting it wrong, but because preaching is a common means of grace and while the gospel is life to the (spiritually) dead, it's spiritual nourishment for the quick.

Even for the dense among us who don't immediately see cause and effect.

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