Greetings,
When I took my first religion course, from Prof. Crain at Western Maryland College, the text book was Understanding the Old Testament by Bernhard W. Anderson. More than 15 years later when I took an Old Testament course at Wesley Seminary, the text was Anderson’s (Third Edition). I have been reading Anderson ever since. In his Rediscovering the Bible, Anderson writes a wonderful comment on the Resurrection (the emphases are mine):
Early Christians did not go out into the world preaching an ethical code, or a system of philosophy, or a utopian gospel of social improvement. Those who think that the essence of Christianity in the New Testament period was the Sermon on the Mount, or the doctrine of the “Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man,” have the evidence of critical, historical scholarship against them. The Church was established on the Resurrection faith, summed up in the creedal affirmation: Jesus is Lord. This is not to deny the importance of the Fatherhood of God or the Sermon on the Mount. We are merely demanding that these matters be placed within their proper context of faith if one is to do justice to the New Testament. Christianity is not just the belief in one God; Christians worship the God who raised Christ from the dead (see Romans 4:24; I Peter 1:21; and so on). Christianity is not just a noble ethic; ethical motivation arises from the fact that men are “raised together with Christ” in order that they may “walk in newness of life” (Col. 3:1; Rom. 6:4). Christianity is the religion of the Resurrection. Herein lies its distinctiveness and power.
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This is the power of Christianity. Jesus is Lord. Christ is Risen. Christ is Risen, Indeed! Everything we do, everything we are flows from this.
Yours & His,
DED
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