4/12/09 Epistle

RCL reading for Sunday, April 12, 2009:
Excerpt from The New Revised Standard Version
via Oremus (http://bible.oremus.org)

1 Corinthians 15:1-11

1 Now I should remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I proclaimed to you, which you in turn received, in which also you stand,
2 through which also you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you—unless you have come to believe in vain.
3 For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures,
4 and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures,
5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.
6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died.
7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.
8 Last of all, as to someone untimely born, he appeared also to me.
9 For I am the least of the apostles, unfit 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 towards me has not been in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them—though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.
11 Whether then it was I or they, so we proclaim and so you have come to believe.

STUDY GUIDE

What does the passage tell us about God?
What does the passage tell us about human beings and the relationship between people?
What does the passage say about the relationship between God and human beings?
How does the passage call us to change?

adapted from “Theological Bible Study,” from In Dialogue with Scripture: An Episcopal Guide to Studying the Bible, ed. Linda L. Grenz (Episcopal Church Center, 1993), p. 96.