In Corinthians Paul goes into depth teaching us that if Christ isn’t raised from the dead all that we do pertaining to our faith is useless and in vain.
yep
Originally Posted by IZH27
He reminded those believers that he had made it his purpose to know/teach nothing other than Christ and Christ crucified when he spent time with them. Unfortunately, that message isn’t taught in modern Christian churches. In my mind this is another if not the primary issue which would lead to correcting all of the other problems in the church were it preached.
yep
To me, the approach should be that the faith is tethered to the event…like it was for the earliest Christians…that launched the movement (Jesus’ ekklesia) that brought us the Bible. To me, an approach that argues from and anchors to the event of the resurrection rather than to the authority of the Bible makes much more sense, and is much more effective; it’s what the earliest Christians did.
I think driving that fact home is important to not only reaching the next generation of Jesus’ followers, but re-reaching the current generation of Jesus’ followers as well.
In general I agree with the sentiment of your stance. I think that we vary on the importance and place of scripture a bit and the church but definitely find unity at the centrality of the resurrection.
I was listening to a couple “Lutrans” discussing the ideas of transcendence and condescendence . I’ve heard this subject covered in sermons before, but always in the context of God’s transcendence and condescendence.
There’s really only two religions in the world, Christianity and religions of works or law. Works or law based religions are transcendent perverting that concept as man try to rise up to God through something that he does. Perversions are seen in Christianity where ascendancy of the spirit is emphasized. Pietism and Gnosticism come to mind.
From beginning to end, scripture gives countless examples of God coming to man and doing for man what is needed without the help of man. God does this though presence and means in the person of Christ.
A real God-man on a specific day on a particular hill shed particular Jewish blood for specific sin and was buried in a particular tomb and rose with witnesses.
Christ and Christ crucified is what Paul told the Corinthians had been his purpose when he was with them. He taught a specific truth without which everything that they did in faith was useless.
Today people “witness about or “share” the Gospel” by telling people anecdotal stories about what’s happened in their life to make it better. That claim of a subjective experience of personal transcendence is never seen. These claims that are made are not seen in evidence and make no difference in what is see in the life of the person claiming change when compared to a good moral person who makes no such transcendent claim.
That perverted view is contrasted to condescendence where Christ comes to man in presence and means as a historical figure that did specific things for a specific purpose to achieve a specific outcome.
I don’t mean to sound preachy or teachy. Im just trying to capture the general idea that I’m getting from the conversation I referenced. I’d never applied those concepts to man but it just makes sense when I look around. I guess that I said all of that to set up the comment that getting back to Christ Crucified and away from all of the spiritualism and mysticism and self awareness would probably go a long way in making the Christian religion meaningful and important to our young people.
