Verse: 1 Corinthians 15:1-8
“Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.”
Devotion
Paul begins chapter 15 with a reminder of the importance of the gospel and resurrection, and how it is fundamental for everything that we believe. He acknowledges in verse two that our faith is useless if we deny that the resurrection occurred. Jesus dying on the cross for our sins, and rising again three days later is the reason for what we believe. Paul is simply acknowledging that if you deny that the resurrection happened— your profession of faith has nothing to stand on.
Paul doesn’t stop there. After Paul acknowledges the death and resurrection of Jesus did occur, he backs up this claim with legitimate evidence. After those three days in the tomb, Jesus appeared to over 500 people— the majority of whom were still alive when Paul wrote this letter. Paul says if you don’t believe me, you can have your pick of who you want to talk to since there are OVER 500 people that had a first hand account of what happened.
The point Paul gets at here is that we cannot cherry-pick what we want to believe from the word and what we don’t want to. It may be easy for us presently to read something that we aren’t totally sure about, and to just leave it at that. Paul here is saying that isn’t good enough— if you aren’t sure about something; do your research!! Don’t just let the unknown eat away at you, look at what evidence is out there! It’s not in the Bible by mistake, so dig in further to gain a better understanding! Seek out evidence, look at commentaries on it, seek out other believers to learn their thoughts! Whatever you do, don’t become content with just idling by. Continue digging deeper beyond the words on the page!
Prayer:
Dear Heavenly Father, Thank you for all that you are doing in our lives. Thank you for giving us the ability to freely read your word, and to openly discuss it with others. Lord I ask that you challenge us this week. Help us to carve out time to dig deeper into your word. Help us to have those hard conversations with other believers if there is something that we are unsure of. Help us to ultimately seek you out in everything we do. In your heavenly name I pray, Amen.
Author: Justin Artymenko
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