KATA MATTHAION (According to Matthew)

Redeemer Presbyterian Church
PROLEGOMENA: Sunday, March 4, 2007



This week in the magazine section of the New York Times, there was an interesting article entitled, “Why Do We Believe?” Now of course I can’t speak in depth about the article at this time, but I’d like to share with you one interesting fact it highlighted.

One reason the article gave that supported the propensity of humans to have faith in a god as opposed to the rest of the animal kingdom is, “[humans have]…the capacity to impose a narrative…on whatever [we] encounter.” Or to put it another way, and in my own words, humans are storied creatures. Which seems to imply that without stories or without narratives, we’d have trouble making sense of the world.

Now, the stories we tell each other to make sense of reality don’t have to be long, arduous or complex to do the job. They can, instead, be short and pithy, just like the one Paul tells the church in Corinth in just one sentence. He says, “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve...and this is what you believed.”

You see, if Paul were around to read the New York Times article, he would have undoubtedly agreed with the New York Times quote. And that’s why he told the Corinthian church the story that he told them in the way that he told them. Because he also understood that without stories, life simply wouldn’t make much sense. So, are you ready to hear more this morning about the story Paul summed up in one sentence? Welcome to worship!