1 Corinthians Chapter 15
By Pastor Chris
500
Friends, let me go over the Message with you one final time— this Message that I proclaimed and that you made your own; this Message on which you took your stand and by which your life has been saved. (I’m assuming, now, that your belief was the real thing and not a passing fancy, that you’re in this for good and holding fast.)
The first thing I did was place before you what was placed so emphatically before me: that the Messiah died for our sins, exactly as Scripture tells it; that he was buried; that he was raised from death on the third day, again exactly as Scripture says; that he presented himself alive to Peter, then to his closest followers, and later to more than five hundred of his followers all at the same time, most of them still around (although a few have since died); that he then spent time with James and the rest of those he commissioned to represent him; and that he finally presented himself alive to me. It was fitting that I bring up the rear. I don’t deserve to be included in that inner circle, as you well know, having spent all those early years trying my best to stamp God’s church right out of existence.
1 Corinthians 15:1-9
Here we find Paul’s very brief restatement of both the gospel and the life, death and ressurection of Jesus. The number of people Jesus appeared to after his resurrection is sometimes a bit striking. It was not just His 12 disciples and a few others, it was well over 500 people.
If ever there is proof of a risen Christ it comes in the lives of these 500 who, like Paul states in verse 31, put their lives on the line daily for the risen Messiah. They had nothing worldly to gain from proclaiming the gospel. Their only guarantee was to be persecuted for spreading the hope of Christ. This did not deter them at all instead the hope of being reunited with Jesus in resurrection empowered them to proclaim His message even more boldly.
It is in this spirit that Paul reminds the Corinthians (and us) not give up, to continue to believe these eye witnesses and to throw themselves fully into the work if the Lord.
