Daily Devotional for Small Group Discussion: Unsweet T

by Matt Laney | published on Apr 8, 2024

Discussion Questions 

  1. How does the tone on 1 Corinthians 15:12-14 strike you? Does the Apostle Paul’s writing sound blunt? adamant? frustrated? passionate? 
  1. Reflect back to Easter Sunday and the story of resurrection. Would you describe the resurrection as a nice story or an impossible story, a sweet event or a jarring event? 
  1. How does God test and expand your faith with radical new possibilities? 

Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised, and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith is in vain! – 1 Corinthians 15:12-14 (NRSV) 

I’ve lived in the south for thirteen years where sugary niceness is as prevalent as sweet tea, even when folk are throwing shade. It’s taken a minute for my ears, calloused from decades of unsparing bluntness in the northeast, to detect when someone down here is upset.   

“I wonder if anyone might feel ill at ease with this decision,” down south translates as “That’s effing batsh*t crazy! What the hell are you thinking?” up north.  

Paul was clearly not a southerner. He lays down his views about the resurrection, unfiltered and unsweet, like a New Yorker barking at someone who’s blocking the subway door. For Paul, everything hinges on the resurrection. It’s impossible to miss his point: get on board with the resurrection or get off the Jesus train.  

Even this northeast writer bristles at Paul’s acridity, but I will give him this: I might dial back my own doubts about the resurrection and my desire to give it a rational explanation. The fact that resurrection is unbelievable is the effing point.  

Prayer
Resurrecting One, thank you for blowing open the tomb of my limited thinking … again and again.

Matt LaneyAbout the Author
Matt Laney is the Senior Pastor of Virginia Highland Church UCC in Atlanta, GA and the author of Pride Wars, a fantasy series published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for Young Readers. The first two books, The Spinner Prince and The Four Guardians are available now.