The Load-Bearing Wall

In 2019, a couple in Charlotte, North Carolina, hired a contractor to open up their cramped kitchen. They wanted the wall between the kitchen and living room removed to create a bright, modern space. The contractor warned them: that wall was load-bearing. Remove it, and the second floor wouldn't just sag — it would eventually collapse. Every beam, every joist, every room upstairs depended on that single wall holding firm beneath them.

They didn't believe him. They hired someone cheaper who swung the sledgehammer without hesitation. Within three weeks, cracks spider-webbed across the ceiling. Doors upstairs wouldn't close. The whole structure began to shift and groan. An engineer later confirmed what the first contractor had said — that one wall held everything together.

Paul makes the same argument about the resurrection. He tells the Corinthians that Christ's rising from the dead isn't one belief among many — something you can remove while keeping the rest of the faith intact. It is the load-bearing wall. Pull it out, and preaching becomes empty. Faith collapses into futility. The dead in Christ are simply gone. Believers become, as Paul puts it, the most pitiable people on earth.

But then comes that thunderous declaration: "But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep." The wall holds. The structure stands. And because He lives, everything above it — forgiveness, hope, eternal life — remains firmly in place.