“The scale of the reversal cannot be exaggerated: when Jesus stands before Pilate for the last time, beaten, derided, robed in purple and crowned with thorns, he must seem from the vantage of all the noble wisdom of the empire and the age... merely absurd. ... But in the light of the resurrection, from the perspective of Christianity’s inverted order of vision, the mockery now redounds upon all kings and emperors, whose finery and symbols of status are revealed to be nothing more than rags and brambles beside the majesty of God’s Son, beside this servile shape in which God displays his infinite power to be where he will be; all the rulers of the earth cannot begin to surpass in grandeur this beauty of the God who ventures forth to make even the dust his glory.”

—David Bentley Hart

1 Corinthians 15:50-58

“Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell’st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.”

—John Donne

1 Corinthians 15:12-34

“[1 Corinthians 15] brings to a climax the theme of grace as God’s sovereign free gift through the cross to which ’the dead’ contribute no special ‘knowledge’ or ‘experience,’ but do indeed undergo transformation of life and lifestyle through ‘God, who gives life to the dead’ (Rom. 4:17) on the basis of promise.”

—Anthony Thiselton

1 Corinthians 15:1–11

God’s Kingdom: “a sphere of rulership, in which his will is done in the fallen world as it is in the sinless heavens; in which cruelty and disorder and the distortion caused by sin are supplanted by love, order and righteousness. Loving obedience to God produces much more than individual goodness, respectability and the alleviation of suffering. It builds the kingdom of heaven.”

—Richard Lovelace, Renewal as a Way of Life

1 Corinthians 14:26-40

“All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the LORD blows on it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.”

—Isaiah

1 Corinthians 14:13-25

“The Church’s one foundation
Is Jesus Christ her Lord;
She is his new creation,
By water and the word;
From Heav’n he came and sought her
To be his holy bride;
With his own blood he bought her,
And for her life he died.”

—Samuel Stone

1 Corinthians 14:1-12

“It is love who mixed the mortar
And it’s love who stacked these stones
And it’s love who made the stage here
Although it looks like we’re alone
In this scene, set in shadows,
Like the night is here to stay
There is evil cast around us
But it’s love that wrote the play
For in this darkness love can show the way”

—David Wilcox, “Love Will Show the Way”

1 Corinthians 13:8-13

“The blood, the soil, the faith
These words you can’t forget
Your vow, your holy place
O love, aren’t you tired yet?”

—Leonard Cohen

1 Corinthians 13:4-8a

“Love is not an idea for Paul, not even a ‘motivating factor’ for behavior. It is behavior. To love is to act; anything short of action is not love at all.”

—Gordon Fee, Commentary on 1 Corinthians

1 Corinthians 13:1-3

“When God sets out to embrace the enemy, the result is the cross. On the cross the dancing circle of self-giving and mutually indwelling divine persons opens up for the enemy; in the agony of the passion the movement stops for a brief moment and a fissure appears so that sinful humanity can join in. We, the others—we, the enemies—are embraced by the divine persons who love us with the same love with which they love each other and therefore make space within their own eternal embrace.”

—Miroslav Volf

Luke 6:46-49