The people to whom Paul was speaking had in their possession the Holy Scriptures of their day, for us, that would have been the Old Testament since much of the New Testament had not even been written, much less canonized. And in the Old Testament Scriptures, as Paul so aptly identifies, Christ is clearly identified as the Messiah. Yet, even when confronted plainly with the truth, a life altering response is not forthcoming from the crowd.
I meet few people who do not embrace a belief that the Bible is sacred and from God. I meet few people who do not embrace a belief that Jesus is divine, lived a perfect life, died for our sins, rose from the dead, and will one day judge us to determine our eternity. Yet, I meet many people, as with Paul's day, whose beliefs do not alter their existence.
What of the Bible do we believe? How have those beliefs changed our lives? Paul speaks plainly in his second letter to the church of Corinth when he wrote in the fifth chapter, the seventeenth verse, "Therefore, if any person is in Christ, they are a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come."
If you believe, what old things for you have passed away, what new things have come...and may it be that the passing away of the old and the coming of the new never cease as long as we have breath! May that which we declare to believe forever define us as we live!
Pastor Fred
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