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Being translated on 1 Cor 15:1-11

This Sunday, I'm going to be deliver the Bible talk at the monthly combined service of our English and Arabic congregations. I'll be speaking in English, of course - and it'll be simultaneously translated into Arabic, for people to listen on headphones, UN style. The person translating will need a full text in front of them, from which to translate as I go.
I'm going to speak on 1 Cor 15:1-11. My points will be:
  1. This is the gospel that Paul proclaimed to the Corinthians, and that they took hold of firmly ("believed", "received", "took their stand").
  2. We also must firmly take hold of this gospel. Real faith is a confident standing upon the Biblical message of Jesus, crucified and risen.
  3. We must pass this message on: to our children, and to an unbelieving world. The world seeks life in stupid things - wealth, power, career - and in so doing, they live in death, under God's anger. We have the message of real life, based on a Jesus who is really alive. We must tell this life-giving message to the world living in death.
This should be good for disciplined preaching. Because I have to:
  • write a full text of my sermon;
  • prepare it early;
  • focus on one main point;
  • write simple, clear sentences.
You know - all those things we were taught to do for a good talk.
That shouldn't be too hard. I'm not a last minute kinda guy - am I? And it's not as if I'm in the habit of writing long, ponderous, incomprehensible sentences, with a multitude of clauses and subclauses, and a prolific superabundance of polysyllabic vocabulary - am I?
'Nuff procrastinating. Back to the talk.

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