file: /pub/resources/text/Our.Daily.Bread: db940930.txt
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OUR DAILY BREAD                            Friday, Sept. 30, 1994
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READ: 1 Corinthians 15:50-58

"A NEW EDITION"

"The trumpet will sound, and the dead
will be raised incorruptible, and we
shall be changed."

- 1 Cor. 15:52

Is death the absolute end of human existence? Not according to Ben 
Franklin. While scholars differ as to what he believed, there is 
no dispute that he believed firmly in the resurrection of the 
body. This epitaph he composed for himself:

The body of
B. Franklin, printer,
(like the cover of an old book,
its contents torn out and
stripped of its lettering and gilding)
lies here, food for worms.
But the work shall not be lost;
for it will (as he believed)
appear once more,
in a new and more elegant edition,
revised and corrected
by the Author.


Franklin's epitaph is a picturesque restatement of Paul's 
affirmation in Phillipians 3:20-21 that the risen Lord will 
transform our corruptible bodies, making them like His own 
glorious body.

What a comfort this truth is when a fellow believer whom we love 
dies! What a comfort it is for ourselves as we move on moment by 
moment toward death! But this comfort can be ours only if we 
believe the good news of the atoning death of Christ on the cross 
with its victorius sequel of the empty tomb.

-- Vernon C. Grounds

Soar we now where Christ has led,
Following our exalted Head;
Made like Him, like Him we rise --
Ours the cross, the grave, the skies.


THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
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The resurrection assures what Calvary secures. 

THE BIBLE IN ONE YEAR: Esther 1-3

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