ARTICLE 1
THE GOAL OF HUMAN LIFE
As I sat in church this past Easter Sunday, listening to the sermon, the pastor referenced 1 Corinthians 15—certainly a classic passage to pay homage to in a paschal homily. I must confess there are moments in my post-seminary life when, either in my reading or hearing, I lazily allow my mind to gloss over texts of scripture with which I am “familiar.” Thankfully, something disallowed that phenomenon this time. The nineteenth verse of chapter fifteen was brought to the attention of the congregation. It reads, “For if only in this life we have hope in Christ, we should be pitied more than anyone.” (NET). As I have already confessed there are times when I gloss over the meaning of a verse when I think I know what it is saying, and this verse was no exception until yesterday. I had always read this verse as a reference to the truth of the gospel and its relative import; meaning it would say something to the effect of “If the gospel isn’t true, then we Christians are to be pitied” (DRSV: Drew Revised Standard Version). Certainly the statement above, albeit uninspired, is wholly true, however, it never serves us well to put words in Paul’s mouth (or any other biblical author for that matter), and yesterday morning I discovered the fruits of avoiding that exact pitfall.
13