5 June - 1 Corinthians 15

Today we’re reading 1 Corinthians 15 in the Tattoo Church Reading Plan. Here are a few thoughts:

1. The topic of this chapter is the thing that separates Christianity from every other world religion, the resurrection of Jesus. All religions have a figure they follow or base their faith system on but with Jesus it’s different. Jesus came to serve not to be served, which is not what you would expect with God. Jesus lived a perfect life and willingly let the people he created kill him in the most horrific way in order to create a way for us to get back into a relationship with God. Then to top it all off, Jesus gave the most convincing proof that he’s God; he rose from the dead after being dead for three days!
2. Paul called this “of first importance,” that Jesus died for our sins and then rose from the grave. Next Jesus appeared to over 500 people at different times to show them he was alive again.   
3. Paul went on to say that if Jesus had not risen from the dead our faith would be worthless. There would be no forgiveness of our sins and Jesus would be proven a fraud. But that’s not what happened and there was proof for his readers. By the way, today there is overwhelming evidence to prove the Bible, the existence of Jesus, his death and his resurrection from the dead. Oh, and many of those evidences are outside of the Bible.
4. Paul closes with encouraging us that we too will have eternal life just as Jesus was raised from the dead. This isn’t the intro to some weird zombie film. Paul is talking about life after death. The Bible teaches us that when we choose to follow Jesus not only does God forgive us of our sins and help us in this life, we also get to spend forever with him in heaven after we die.

Do you believe that Jesus really raised from the dead? Do you believe by just faith or have you investigated the evidence of it? If you have questions about the evidence ask someone on staff at Tattoo Church for help. Do you fear death? One of the coolest things about following Jesus is there is no need to fear death any longer (see verse 56 and 57). If you have any questions please email me at Tommy@tattoochurch.com