10/9 at The Gathering
Blake Coffee and Tony Diamond each taught from 1 Corinthians 15 on Sunday, October 9. The videos and listening guides from both those lessons, followed by the scripture, are below.
Core Lesson (Tony Diamond)
In Search of the Perfect Body
I Corinthians 15:3-20, 35-44, 50-57
No video today–the lesson was largely delivered with group discussion
Core Listening Guide
I. Seeing is believing
Paul goes to great lengths to remind the Corinthians that he, the apostles and 500 others saw the resurrected Christ. This was his proof that he has seen Christ’s resurrection.
What have you seen that you might not have otherwise believed?
II. Believing is seeing
But the Corinthians did not SEE Christ resurrected. They were challenged to understand that faith alone in the risen Christ would resurrect them. Paul’s logic in the scripture leaves them & us no option but to believe in resurrection or to give up on the Gospel.
How do you feel about belief based on the fear of loss?
III. Spiritual, immortal bodies
Being reborn means living in spirit. No death or illness. Being imperishable, immortal. Living with Christ.
What does the promise of being with Christ in eternity mean to us today?
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Venture Lesson (Blake Coffee)
The Truth About Resurrection
1 Corinthians 15
Venture Listening Guide
Understanding Christ’s resurrection as an historical fact, an event the changed everything in the spiritual realms, is an essential promise of the Christian faith.
Christ’s own resurrection signals much more than just His own power over death; it demonstrates the fate of all His followers.
There is a connection between the physical body you have now and the physical body you will have for eternity; they are the same, but different.
For the persecuted church, the promise of victory over death is the ultimate encouragement, the supreme motivation for staying steadfast to the work of ministry.
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1 Corinthians 15:3-20; 1 Corinthians 15:35-44; 1 Corinthians 15:50-57 (New International Version)
1 Corinthians 15:3-20
3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8 and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.
9 For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. 11 Whether, then, it is I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.
The Resurrection of the Dead
12 But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. 15 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. 16 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. 19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.
20 But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
1 Corinthians 15:35-44
The Resurrection Body
35 But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?” 36 How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37 When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. 38 But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. 39 Not all flesh is the same: People have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. 40 There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. 41 The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor.
42 So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 43 it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.
If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.
1 Corinthians 15:50-57
50 I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— 52 in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53 For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. 54 When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
55 “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?”
56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
