1 Corinthians 15:1-11

¹ Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. ² By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. ³ For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, ⁴ that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, ⁵ and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. ⁶ After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. ⁷ Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, ⁸ and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.

Paul changes his topic here from the previous passage on the gifts of the Holy Spirit, to the resurrection of the dead. He reminds the Corinthian church that he had preached a resurrected Christ, that after Christ’s death on the third day he rose again and appeared to many witnesses, including Paul himself on the Damascus road on the way to Emmaeus. Paul removes any notion that after death there would be nothing else and proves this by Christ’s very own resurrection and those that are witnesses to this event.  

 ⁹ For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. ¹⁰ But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. ¹¹ Whether, then, it is I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.

Paul, who is known well for speaking about the grace of God shown to him, again reminds the Corinthian church of God’s grace, giving God the glory for all the works of his hands. That everything he and the other apostles achieved, God did it all.

Paul states that God appeared to him last as if he was abnormally born, yet God’s grace was so great that even though Paul was persecuting the Christians at the time, God chose him to preach the gospel to all the Gentiles, and not to mention majority of the letters/books in the New Testament were written by Paul.

Filed under: 1 Corinthians, Apostle Paul, Bible study, Christianity, corinthians, God, Jesus, New Testament, Scripture