5th Sunday - Second Reading - 1 Corinthians 15:1–11 - By the grace of God I am what I am

1. 1 Corinthians 15:1-11
By the grace of God I am what I am
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viewing. Catholic Lectionary. (2009). Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software.

2. 1 Now I am reminding
you, brothers, of the
gospel I preached to
you, which you indeed
received and in which
you also stand.
2 Through it you are also being saved, if you hold
fast to the word I preached to you, unless you
believed in vain.
3 For I handed on to you as of first importance
what I also received: that Christ died for our
sins in accordance with the scriptures;
4 that he was buried; that he was raised on the
third day in accordance with the scriptures;
5 that he appeared to Kephas, then to the Twelve.
6 After that, he appeared to more than five
hundred brothers at once, most of whom are
still living, though some have fallen asleep.

3. 7 After that he appeared
to James, then to all
the apostles.
8 Last of all, as to one born abnormally, he
appeared to me.
9 For I am the least of the apostles, not fit 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 has not been ineffective.
Indeed, I have toiled harder than all of them;
not I, however, but the grace of God (that is)
with me.
11 Therefore, whether it be I or they, so we
preach and so you believed.

4. The Greek city of
Corinth was a wild
city that legally
offered any type of
entertainment one
could imagine.
The Greeks did not believe in the resurrection of the
dead.
When Paul had preached in Athens and told of Christ’s
Resurrection, some of his listeners actually laughed at
him (Acts 17:32).
Corinth was also the center of the Epicurean philosophy,
which said that, man should eat, drink, and be merry
because there is no eternity.
If you don’t believe in eternity how can you believe in the
resurrection of the dead.
The Epicurean philosophy offers no hope, nothing
beyond life.
In today’s reading we see Paul answer the question, “Are
the dead raised?”

5. He provides three
proofs that Jesus did
indeed raise from the
dead.
First, a dead Savior
can’t save anyone
because had the Savior remained dead then death
would have conquered the Savior.
If you believe in the Gospel, if you live the
Gospel, then you must believe in the
Resurrection.
Without the Resurrection of Jesus, without his
return, without hundreds of people bearing
witness to the Resurrection, you could not
logically have faith in your potential salvation
or eternal life.
Second, When Paul wrote “according to the
Scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:3) he was referring to
the Old Testament Scriptures.

6. The sacrificial system
outlined in the Old
Testament pointed to
the sacrifice of
Christ.
The annual Day of Atonement rituals show a
substitute victim for the sins of the people
(Lev. 16) and prophecies like Isaiah 53 point
to the coming Savior.
Turning to Zechariah 9:9 and following through
to chapter 11 we find Christ’s Passion, 30
pieces of silver etc.
Keep in mind that Zechariah wrote these
prophetic chapters around 480 B.C.
Paul’s third argument for the Resurrection points
to the witnesses who saw Christ after his
Resurrection (Acts 1:22; 2:32; 3:15; 5:32).

7. Perhaps the most
unlikely witness to
the Resurrection was
Paul himself.
Paul was an unbeliever,
convinced that Jesus was dead, and then made a
radical religious conversion on the road to
Damascus.
Clearly, the Old Testament tells of a sacrificial
Savior, it predicts Jesus entry into Jerusalem,
his sufferings and Passion at the hands of the
religious leaders and his Resurrection from the
dead.
The non-believing Greek might have laughed at
Paul’s original account of the Resurrection but
no one could disprove his three logical and
provable proofs.