Day 338: Death Defeated (2024)
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The Revised Standard Version, 2nd Catholic Edition.

I'm using the Great Adventure Bible from Ascension. If you want to download your own Bible in a year reading plan, you can visit ascensionpress.com slash Bible in a year. You can also subscribe to this podcast and receive daily episodes and daily updates. This day is day 338. We're reading Acts chapter 17, 1 Corinthians chapter 15, and Proverbs chapter 28, verses 16 through 18. The Acts of the Apostles, chapter 17. The uproar in Thessalonica.

Now, when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. And Paul went in, as was his custom. And for three weeks he argued with them from the scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead and saying, This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ.

and some of them were persuaded and joined paul and silas as did a great many of the devout greeks and not a few of the leading women but the jews were jealous and taking some wicked fellows of the rabble they gathered a crowd set the city in an uproar and attacked the house of jason seeking to bring them out to the people

And when they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brethren before the city authorities, crying, These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also, and Jason has received them, and they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus. And the people and the city authorities were disturbed when they heard this, and when they had taken security from Jason and the rest, they let them go. Paul and Silas in Berowia

The brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Beruah. And when they arrived, they went into the Jewish synagogue. Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with all eagerness, examining the scriptures daily to see if these things were so. Many of them therefore believed, with not a few Greek women of high standing as well as men. But when the Jews of Thessalonica learned that the word of God was proclaimed by Paul at Beruah also, they came there too, stirring up and inciting the crowds.

Then the brethren immediately sent Paul off on his way to the sea, but Silas and Timothy remained there. Those who conducted Paul brought him as far as Athens, and receiving a command for Silas and Timothy to come to him as soon as possible, they departed. Paul in Athens. Now, while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. So he argued in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who chanced to be there.

Some also of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers met him, and some said, what would this babbler say?

Others said, He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities, because he preached Jesus and the resurrection. And they took hold of him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, May we know what this new teaching is which you present? For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know, therefore, what these things mean. Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new. So Paul, standing in the middle of the Areopagus, said,

Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, To an unknown God. What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by man, nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all men life and breath and everything.

And he made from one every nation of men to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their habitation, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel after him and find him. Yet he is not far from each one of us, for in him we live and move and have our being, as even some of your poets have said, for we are indeed his offspring.

Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold or silver or stone, a representation by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked. But now he commands all men everywhere to repent because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed. And of this he has given assurance to all men by raising him from the dead.

Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, but others said, We will hear you again about this. So Paul went out from among them. But some men joined him and believed, among them Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them. The First Letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians, Chapter 15. The Resurrection of Christ.

Now I would remind you, brethren, in what terms I preached to you the gospel, which you received, in which you stand, by which you are saved, if you hold it fast, unless you believed in vain.

For I delivered to you, as of first importance, what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Kepha, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.

Verse 1.

Now, if Christ is preached as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised. If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We 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. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised.

If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied. But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.

For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order. Christ the firstfruits, then that is coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For God has put all things in subjection under his feet.

But when it says, all things are put in subjection under him, it is plain that he is accepted who put all things under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things under him, that God may be everything to everyone. Otherwise, what do people mean by being baptized on behalf of the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized on their behalf?

Why am I in peril every hour? I protest, brethren, by my pride in you, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord. I die every day. What do I gain if, humanly speaking, I have fought with beasts at Ephesus? If the dead are not raised, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. Do not be deceived. Bad company ruins good morals. Come to your right mind and sin no more. For some have no knowledge of God. I say this to your shame. The resurrection of the body.

But someone will ask, how are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come? You foolish man, what you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body which is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. For not all flesh is alike. But there is one kind for men, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish.

There are celestial bodies and there are terrestrial bodies, but the glory of the celestial is one and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun and another glory of the moon and another glory of the stars, for star differs from star in glory.

So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable. What is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor. It is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness. It is raised in power. It is sown a physical body. It is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, the first man Adam became a living soul. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.

But it is not the spiritual which is first, but the physical, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust. The second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust. And as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. I tell you this, brethren, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.

behold i tell you a mystery we shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet for the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised imperishable and we shall all be changed for this perishable nature must put on the imperishable and this mortal nature must put on immortality

When the perishable puts on the imperishable and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. Oh, death, where is your victory? Oh, death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. The book of Proverbs chapter 28 verses 16 through 18. A ruler who lacks understanding is a cruel oppressor, but he who hates unjust gain will prolong his days. If a man is burdened with the blood of another, let him be a fugitive until death. Let no one help him.

He who walks in integrity will be delivered, but he who is perverse in his ways will fall into a pit. Father in heaven, we give you praise and glory. We thank you so much. Thank you for your word and thank you for making us into your children. Lord God, you are our dad. And in Jesus Christ, your son, our brother, you have conquered death.

And so we're able to say with St. Paul, we're able to say with all Christians who have gone before us, death, where is your victory? Death, where is your sting? Lord God, we do mourn, but we do not mourn like the rest. Every one of us is touched by suffering. Every one of our lives is touched by grief. Every part of our lives in some way is touched by loss. Yes, Lord, we weep. And yes, Lord, we cry. But we do not weep. We do not cry. We do not grieve like the rest. We do not weep in vain because we have not believed in vain. You have conquered death.

And that we will rise, we know this to be true. You have revealed it. You've declared it. You have proven it. You've demonstrated it. You've given it to us. And so, Lord God, we accept this. We accept the resurrection of the dead. We accept the new life that you offered to us through our baptism, through the grace that comes to us now by the Holy Spirit. And we say yes. Help us to grieve well. Help us to weep well. Help us to experience loss well. Be with us in our grief, Lord God.

and be with us at the hour of our death. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. Okay, so...

Acts of the Apostles, chapter 17. We have an uproar in Thessalonica and what happens, this is, isn't it remarkable? We keep saying this, but the fact that the apostles, as they have fruit, as their proclamation of Jesus bears fruit, there's always this oppression that happens to them. But that oppression does not discourage them. And this is so necessary for us to be reminded of every single day because we're reading about our brothers and sisters right now. Like in the Old Testament,

We're reading about our forefathers in so many ways. And yes, maybe that is what's happening in the Acts of the Apostles as well. But there's also an element where we're reading about the age of the church. We're living in the age of the church. And so what the apostles experienced, what the disciples of Jesus experienced, what the

we must expect as well. Not only the sufferings and persecutions, but also the blessings, also the fruit. So one of those pieces of fruit, pieces of fruit, one of those parts of, yeah, one of the pieces of fruit here is in Thessalonica. What did they say? They dragged Jason out and

Again, before the city authorities crying out something, they're going to, they're going to persecute the church, but they're also saying these words that are so powerful. They said this, they said, these men who have turned the world upside down have come here. Also, they've turned the world upside down, you know, in our battle. And it's, it's a battle. It's a spiritual battle, right? It's a battle of ideas as well.

But our battle is with the culture in so many ways, right? We live in the midst of a culture of death, in the midst of a culture of meaninglessness. We live in the midst of a culture that's seeking pleasure constantly, but no one's truly happy. And so we have a battle with this culture. Again, it's not a battle of physical violence at all in any way, shape, or form. It is a battle of ideas. It's a battle of spirit, the spirit of the world versus the spirit of God. It is a spiritual battle, right, between principalities and powers. And our call as Christians is to live in such a way that we

What they would say about us is what they said about Jason and Paul and the other disciples. They have turned the world upside down.

Am I living in such a way that if people saw how I lived, they would say, you are living upside down. You're living backwards. You're living so differently than the rest of us. That's why you're so joyful. That's why you're so different. That's why you take care of people who need to be taken care of. And yet what is the great desire of so many Christians is I just want to fit in. I just want to be like everyone else. The truth is, if I'm like everyone else, then I'm not like Jesus. If I'm like everyone else, then I'm not living like a saint anymore.

If I'm living like everyone else, there is no turning the world upside down if you're just looking like the rest of the world. And so I'm letting this word convict me. And I just want to share it with you all because the more and more I look like the world, the less and less God can really use me to turn the world upside down. And he wants to, and he wants to use you as well. Here's Paul. He goes on to Athens, right? And

In Athens, we already heard the story. He goes to Areopagus, which is, you know, Mars Hill. Aries, Mars, right? The same God, just by different languages, Greek versus Latin, right?

I love this. This is very interesting. People go to the Areopagus because they wanted to hear new ideas. Now, all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new. And so here's Paul. He's got some new information. Talks about Jesus. Talks about the resurrection of the body. Now, this is one of the reasons why those at the Areopagus ridiculed or mocked him is because they would believe that human beings, you're not your body. They would believe human beings, no, you're just a spirit and the body is your cage.

And when St. Paul talks about the resurrection of the body, that would go directly against Greek thought, which is remarkable because in 1 Corinthians 15, we have this massive proclamation of St. Paul saying that the resurrection is real, that you, I mean, essentially, this is one of the things we believe. You are your body. You are your soul. That what a human being is, is body-soul combined, right? Body-soul duality. It's a, you're an embodied soul or you're an ensouled body. And this is so important for us.

Because just like St. Paul had to proclaim to the church in Corinth, and just like St. Paul had to proclaim to the church in, or the people in Athens, you are your body. And the body you have is actually your body. The body you have is the right body.

How is that countercultural? It was countercultural when St. Paul first said it. It's countercultural when the church first declared it. And apparently now in our day, it is once again countercultural, but it is the truth. As St. Paul goes on to say, he says, if Christ has not been raised from the dead, then our faith is in vain. You know, there were, there was a movement in Christianity in the last, I don't know, 50 to 150 years where

that actually said, well, Jesus only was raised from the dead in their hearts, in the hearts of the disciples. You know, he didn't really physically rise from the dead. And it wouldn't even matter if he didn't physically rise from the dead. I would still be a Christian. Well, that is going directly against what St. Paul declares today. He says in chapter 15, verse 17, if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile. I said, I think I said when I read it, I said futile because that's even more powerful, right? If Christ had not been raised, has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.

But in verse 20, in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

One of the realities, of course, it says here that the last enemy to be destroyed is death. And at the end of this chapter, chapter 15, we have that incredibly beautiful, beautiful proclamation that says, behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, meaning that God's going to come at some point. Not everyone is going to die, but we shall all be changed in a moment in twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet for the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised imperishable and we shall be changed.

For this perishable nature must put on the imperishable. But then he goes on to say that everyone's going to be able to cry out, death is swallowed up in victory. Oh, death, where is your victory? Oh, death, where is your sting? Here's Jesus, who's the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. So what Jesus' resurrected body looked like is what our bodies will share in.

So Jesus had a physical body, right? A physical body that could be touched, a physical body that would eat food, physical body that could be one place and then be in another place. It had this alacrity, had this movement. It could pass through walls. It could do all these incredible things. And St. Paul, one of the things he's saying is that all those things that were true about Jesus's resurrected body will be true about your resurrected body.

And the recreation, the redemption, the resurrection of the world in so many ways. Because that is the Christian belief is that heaven is not just a spiritual place. Heaven is going to be all of creation renewed and redeemed. So your physical body resurrected from the dead will need a physical place to abide.

And that is this mystery that eye has not seen and ear has not heard and has not entered into the imagination, the mind of man, what God has prepared for those who love him, which means what God has prepared for you. God will raise your body from the dead.

Hopefully it is to glory because that's clear in scripture as well. Everyone will be raised some to everlasting shame and horror. That's in book of Daniel and some others to be an everlasting sign of God's glory to glorify God in your body for the rest of eternity. Ah, it's so good. Isn't that incredible? Oh my gosh. What a gift we have been given in Jesus. We no longer need to fear death. We no longer need to grieve like the rest. We do grieve because we love people.

And when they're taken from us, then it's proper to weep. It's proper to grieve. But we don't grieve like those who have no hope. We grieve as those who know that death is not the end. That's why death no longer has the sting that it used to have. Ah, my gosh, you guys, what a gift. I'm praying for you. I'm praying that one day, if we don't meet in this life, that we're able to meet literally face-to-face in the resurrected flesh, in God's presence in heaven.

So, I am praying for you. Please pray for me. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.