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Our Heavenly Dwelling
Read 2 Corinthians 5:1–4. What is Paul telling us here? What hope is again presented? How does clothing imagery fit in?
As long as we are in this world, in this body, in this “house,” we are going to “groan” (from a word that means also “to sigh deeply”). Who hasn’t groaned while in our “earthly dwelling,” which is our present body? Look at the chapter that comes before (1 Corinthians 4), talking of the woe that followers of Jesus have encountered in this existence. It’s after this recitation that Paul goes into the texts for today.
Sure, we groan, we suffer, and we die, but that’s not the whole story. We have the promise of being clothed in “our heavenly dwelling.”
What two metaphors, or images, does Paul use in these verses to depict our present situation and the hope that awaits us?
In some ancient writings, the idea of being clothed was seen as similar to being inside a house. Both are external to us, and both present a certain amount of protection and covering (in Paul’s time, the name of the garment worn by the poorer class came from a word that meant “little house”). Whatever the reasons, Paul uses different images to contrast two basic ideas—a temporal earthly dwelling in contrast to an eternal heavenly one; being naked in contrast to being clothed; and mortality (the certainty of death) in contrast to life, eternal life in Christ. In the end, these metaphors all are talking about the same thing: the hope that we have, at Christ’s return, of being clothed or housed in immortal bodies. In other words, these texts are another way of expressing the promise of eternal life that we have in Jesus.
Think about death, about the apparent finality of it. Without hope of something beyond it, what hope is there for any of us? Dwell on all the reasons that we have for our hope that death doesn’t have the final say. Bring your answers to class and discuss them there.
| THURSDAY | June 23 |
Read 2 Corinthians 5:1–4. What is Paul telling us here? What hope is again presented? How does clothing imagery fit in?
As long as we are in this world, in this body, in this “house,” we are going to “groan” (from a word that means also “to sigh deeply”). Who hasn’t groaned while in our “earthly dwelling,” which is our present body? Look at the chapter that comes before (1 Corinthians 4), talking of the woe that followers of Jesus have encountered in this existence. It’s after this recitation that Paul goes into the texts for today.
Sure, we groan, we suffer, and we die, but that’s not the whole story. We have the promise of being clothed in “our heavenly dwelling.”
What two metaphors, or images, does Paul use in these verses to depict our present situation and the hope that awaits us?
In some ancient writings, the idea of being clothed was seen as similar to being inside a house. Both are external to us, and both present a certain amount of protection and covering (in Paul’s time, the name of the garment worn by the poorer class came from a word that meant “little house”). Whatever the reasons, Paul uses different images to contrast two basic ideas—a temporal earthly dwelling in contrast to an eternal heavenly one; being naked in contrast to being clothed; and mortality (the certainty of death) in contrast to life, eternal life in Christ. In the end, these metaphors all are talking about the same thing: the hope that we have, at Christ’s return, of being clothed or housed in immortal bodies. In other words, these texts are another way of expressing the promise of eternal life that we have in Jesus.
Think about death, about the apparent finality of it. Without hope of something beyond it, what hope is there for any of us? Dwell on all the reasons that we have for our hope that death doesn’t have the final say. Bring your answers to class and discuss them there.
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