• celebrate the risen Saviour (remembering his death, as well)
• renewal of nature
• rebirth of hope
• bunny rabbit and painting hard-boiled eggs
• Easter egg hunts
• for a few folks, an Easter bunny shooting church activity
• sun worship
• vacation from job and school
• chocolate and flowers
• family dinner
• new clothes
• one of their two times of church attendance for the year (not counting funerals & weddings, of course!)
• great shopping and sales in the stores

• pagan goddess of Spring, Eostre - celebrating the end of winter and the birth of Spring at the vernal equinox.  The goddess in a fit of rage, turned a large sacred birth into a rabbit!
• the egg is a pagan symbol of life and immortality, containing the new life that nature returns to the world each Spring.
• lilies are popular because they bloom in the Spring and have trumpet shaped blossoms - possibly like the trumpet that brings in bodily resurrection and immortality in heaven.
• sunrise services are a tradition that Christians claim as to when the ladies visited at 'early dawn' to the tomb of Jesus.
• sunrise to others that worship the sun and its power to bring new life into the world.
• new clothes are a remnant of the early church when people who were baptized during Easter in white robes symbolizing their new life.
• new bonnets come from the old superstition of wearing three new things on Easter Sunday to ensure good luck.

Do we preach and teach a new doctrine from strange gods?
    Acts 17:16-34 (16-20; 30-34) - no just Jesus AND the resurrection!

New Testament

• Hebrews 9:16,17
• Risen Christ / Dispensation of Grace / Tribulation / Millennium / Eternity    (learn more about Christ and how marvelous Grace to us is today!)
• New command to Rightly Divide - II Timothy 2:15 - Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness.

• Great Commission approach - apostles to go out... Matthew 28:16-20; Mark 16:14-20
• Great Commission from Peter - John 21; Acts 2:29-40; 41-47
• Great Commission Jewish writings from James, Peter, John and Jude and preached by Stephen!
• Greater Commission from Paul to Gentiles - Acts 13:46,47 - to the Gentiles to the ends of the earth!

NEW WAY:

• A More Excellent Way - I Corinthians 12:31: But covet earnestly the best gifts: and yet shew I unto you a more excellent way.
• Way of God more perfectly - Acts 18:26: And he began to speak boldly in the synagogue: whom when Aquila and Priscilla had heard, they took him unto them, and expounded unto him the way of God more perfectly.

• Follow Paul - Romans 11:13,14; 15:15,16; I Corinthians  3:10; 4:16; Philippians 3:17; 4:9; I Thessalonians 1:5,6; 4:1,2; II Thessalonians 3:7-9; I Timothy 1:15,16; II Timothy 2:7; 4:16,17.
• Paul is our guide - our apostle - just to us!  Romans 2:10; 9:22,23; 14:19; Galatians 2:20,21; Ephesians 2:10; 4:1; I Corinthians 8:3; I Timothy 5:10; 6:11,18; II Timothy 2:22; 3:12-14; 4:17,18; Titus 2:14; I Thessalonians 4:1-7; 5:15
• Grace - Ephesians 3:1,2: For this cause I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles, If ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to you-ward:
• A walk to please God - I Thessalonians 4:1,2: Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more. For ye know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus.
• The peace of God within the walk, not as a result of the walk! - Philippians 4:9: Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.

• Based on faith - Romans 4:5,6: But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works,
• Old account is settled - II Corinthians 5:17: ...old things are passed away... II Corinthians 5:21: For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Galatians 1:4: Who gave himself for our sins, ...  Galatians 3:13: Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us:...   Romans 8:34: Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.

NEW LIFE:

• Walk in newness of life - Romans 6:4 - Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

New Creature - II Corinthians 5:17  Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
• Life of grace - an unspeakable gift - II Corinthians 9:14c,15:... for the exceeding grace of God in you. Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift.  Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift.
• New joy - beyond happiness
• New peace - beyond earthly peace - not a peace based on making a clean holy walk, but in the process of learning how...
• Walking in the fruit of the Spirit - Galatians 5:22-25 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,  Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.  And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.  If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.  (meaning by the KJB Rightly Divided!)
• Serving in newness of spirit - Romans 7:6 But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter. II Corinthians 3:6 Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.
• Live a life renewed daily -  II Corinthians 4:16 - For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.
• New past - passed away - not important - gone!
• New present - See Paul's gospel from Romans to Philemon!

• In spite of the world falling apart - apostasy - II Thessalonians 2:3  Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; we and while we will be troubled, we don't need to be distressed; while we are perplexed, but we do not have to be in despair; we can be persecuted but we will not be forsaken; we can be cast down, but we won't be destroyed.  II Corinthians 4:8,9.
• a newly designed death - ONLY ONE!  Revelation 20:14: And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.  I Corinthians 15:55,56: O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?  The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.
• New judgment - I Corinthians 3:12-15 vs Revelation 20:11-15!  Also, see Daniel 7:9-11 for which side you are on.  Sins were already judged down here!  Now, the works have yet to be judged!
• We will be with Christ!  II Timothy 2:12: If we suffer, we shall also reign with him: if we deny him, he also will deny us:
• We will 'share' the Jewish inheritance! Ephesians 3:6  That the Gentiles should be fellowheirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel:  Ephesians 2:16: And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby:  Romans 8:17  And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. Galatians 3:29  And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise. Titus 3:7: That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

• We have a new light for our sight - we should be able to see today: Revelation 3:18  I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.  I Corinthians 2:9-12 But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.  But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.  For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.
• and today, that sight is found in the King James 1611 Bible!  I Corinthians 13:10 But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.  It was initially inspired, was purely polished to perfection, and perfectly preserved for us to today!   II Timothy 3:16,17; I Corinthians 13:10; Psalm 12:6,7 and is the light on our path today!  Psalm 119:105 Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.
• That Bible knows all things, all knowledge, is anointed as a Holy Bible and there is to be NOTHING added!  Hebrews 4:12,13!  For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.