So does the blog post title give you a hint about what this week’s sermons were about?
One of the many great promises in the Bible is found in Paul’s second letter to the church in Corinth where he writes, “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” (2 Corinthians 5:17 NRSV) This is a great promise but it is one that I think I didn’t exactly misunderstand but didn’t grasp all that was there. I always looked at that text as a one-time kind of thing that once you moved into that relationship with God through Christ you were made new . . . and then grew old from that point so to speak.
Today’s sermons approach “new” in this text from the same perspective that I try to approach “salvation”; namely that it isn’t just a one time thing but an ongoing thing. As I have mentioned more than once from the pulpit, we should think of salvation as we have been saved, we are being saved and we will be saved and I think this text falls into this same kind of thing. We were, are, and will be made new.
Anyway, a better understanding of new-ness that I would be delighted to hear you respond to in any way.
Knox Presbyterian Still new
St. Mark’s Presbyterian Say goodbye to the old
The observant among you will notice that there are two different sermon titles. It is too long to explain why but let me know if you listen to both if you think each sermon fits its title.
Blessings,
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