Aug 11, 2022
Mat. 5:17 “Do not think that I have come to do away with the Law of Moses and the teachings of the prophets. I have not come to do away with them, but to make their teachings come true.
JEREMIAH 42-43:
I
have always found it fascinating what Jeremiah experienced in the
aftermath of the fall of Judah's kingdom to the king of Babylon. It
is interesting to me that he was led away in chains along with
everyone else captured. But the king of Babylon had heard of him
and left instructions about him. And it is a shame what happened to
Gedaliah. Evidently, Jeremiah was not around at that point to warn
him.
PROVERBS 7:
The
father instructing his son continues from yesterday’s reading. This
is one of the most colorful chapters in God’s Word. If you haven’t
read this before, prepare yourself to be shocked!
1CORINTHIANS 15b:
Yesterday we read the first part of this famous
Resurrection Chapter. The first part displays Paul's rigorous logic
about the fact of Christ’s resurrection. The second part deals with
the kind of body we will have after the Resurrection. All of this
chapter holds wonderful promises for us.
Let’s consider a few verses we will reread today dealing with being baptized for deceased people: We do not find evidence that the practice was widespread or that it continued. Constable’s Notes for this section (lumina.bible.org) cites information that there was a pre-Christian mystery religion in the area of Corinth that practiced proxy baptism on behalf of dead relatives. Some early Corinthian Christians may have carried this practice over into their new faith, or Paul may simply have been using this local pagan religious practice as an example in order to say, “What is the point of doing that if the dead will not be raised to life?” Paul does not mention this practice in order to encourage it but to strengthen his point: The resurrection of all believers is a promise that follows logically from Christ’s resurrection.
GNT Translation notes:
1Cor. 15:1 And now I want to
remind you, my friends, of the Good News which I preached to you,
which you received, and on which [you stand//your faith stands
firm].
2
GNT That is the gospel, the message that I preached to you. You are
saved by the gospel if you hold firmly to it—unless [unless you
think now that it was useless to believe it in the first place.//it
was for nothing that you believed]. NLT 2 It is this Good News that
saves you if you continue to believe the message I told you[. 1)
Otherwise, it was useless that you became believers in the first
place! //2) —unless, of course, you believed something that was
never true in the first place.//3) unless you never believed it in
the first place.]
[This is a difficult place to interpret what
Paul meant, and I think at least 3 possibilities deserve
consideration, and all seem to me to be equally
possible.]
21
For just as death came by means of a man, [(Adam,)] in the same way
the rising from death comes by means of a man[,
([Christ])].
32
If I have, as it were, fought “wild beasts” here in Ephesus simply
from human motives, what have I gained? [0//But] if the dead are
not raised to life, then, as the saying goes, “Let us eat and
drink, for tomorrow we will die.”
29
Now, what about those people who are baptized for the dead? What do
they hope to accomplish? If it is true, as some claim, that the
dead are not raised to life, why are [these people bothering to
be//those people being] baptized for the dead?
33
Do not be fooled. [As the saying goes,] “Bad companions ruin good
character.
55
[As the Scripture says,] “Where, Death, is your victory? Where,
Death, is your power to hurt?”