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"I delivered unto you first of all that which I also
received." St Paul, I Corinthians 15.3
St. Paul, in an economical use of words, gives us the core
of what he calls his "received gospel." He does
it in four short precise statements - "that He died;
that He was buried; that He was raised; and that He was seen
......!"
The gospel is the good news of Jesus Christ and Paul heard
it from His disciples who were witnesses to the person and
power of Jesus.
The experience of Paul is that of every Chrisitan for the
Christian faith is passed on person to person, generation
to generation. The place and purpose of the church is to be
the repository for and the transmitter of the gospel. It does
that by public worship, with its prayers, scriptures, sacraments
and songs; its preaching, teaching, and outreach to people
with that message. The gospel is summed up in the statement,
"Christianity is Christ," He is the pivotal person,
the focus of the faith.
Paul's thesis is that everything important in life is available
to people by Him and through Him. He is the God - provided
means by which God shows Himself as a Person to people. Faith
in Him, and commitment to Him, make for an essential relationship
with God, and a proper, beneficial, relationship people with
people.
There is never any need to search for the evidence of the
value of the faith for people are everywhere who find their
lives enhanced and enriched by their faith in Jesus Christ.
It is not only meaningful but integral to their living. It
gives strength to the weak, hope to the fearful and peace
of mind to the perplexed. It is for many the reason for living,
that which makes sense of their lives, to make them live selflessly
for God and people.
The received gospel of Paul was of crucial importance to
him as it is, and has been, to Christians all the time and
everywhere, but the faith can be to some acceptance of its
truth but with little pressure on them to live it out in their
lives. Their inertia accounts for the disinterest of others
in the relevance of the faith to them.
They do not give the impression that the faith matters to
them and so their lives are no persuasion on others to seek
a faith that appears to be of little consequence to those
who claim it. Paul's emphasis was on the death and resurrection
of Jesus. Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, was his constant
theme as it was the main message of the disciples and those
near to Him in the days of His flesh.
The early church had the one subject - Jesus, crucified and
alive again. The church's commission remains the same, to
preach, teach and live out the great fundamentals of the faith.
And the fundamentals include this concentration of St. Paul
- his four thats, the church's mission has four goals:
- to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ;
- to teach and nurture new believers;
- to respond positively to human need;
- to seek to change what is unjust in society.
The programme is clear and the carrying out of it is dependent
on the strength of the believers, individually and collectively
in their commitment to Christ and their certainty that the
good news of Jesus Christ is the best news for human kind
all the time and everywhere.
Canon Dr. S.E. Long
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