Well boosted by a fresh dose of resurrection hope coming out of Easter Sunday

we are talking about death on the podcast this week. We are free to speak openly about dying in hopeful ways that the world cannot

speak of. Free to say that what is sewn into the soil does not come to life unless it dies. In that resurrection hope

we started the week with the story of V Raymond Edmon, a preacher who died in the pulpit

and the event from Pastor John's very formative years at Wheaton College,

and one he almost never talks about, but he did on Monday.

And today we read about death in the Navigator's Bible reading plan.

It comes up in the context of Paul talking

about division and jealousy in the church in Paul's words in 1st

Corinthians 3 verses 1 to 23 and there Paul gives us this amazing motivation for not getting jealous in this life.

And that motive is the gift of death. He says death is ours and that leads to many emails over the years

asking what in the world Paul means here that death is a gift to us

specifically here in 1st Corinthians 3.22. How

Pastor John would you explain the divine gift of death here in this context?

Well I love this text. First Corinthians 3, 21 to 23. I mean, it's, Tony, it's very hard for me to talk

about this without raising my voice, with exuberance, and I will try to restrain myself,

but hundreds of realities are thrilling in the Bible. This one is off the charts unspeakably amazing. So let me read it for our

friends so they know what we're talking about. Let no one boast in men.

This is First Corinthians 3, 21 to 23.

Let no one boast in men.

For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollus or Cepus or the world or life or death or the present or the future, all are yours, and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's.

So Paul is trying to get the Corinthians to stop boasting in human beings.

...