The Book Of 1st Corinthians With Jennie Allen: A Video Bible StudySample

Find Purpose in Jesus

Paul clearly expects the church to act differently than the world around it. Because we follow Christ, we should behave more like him and less like the ungodly. In today’s passage, Paul reminds the Corinthians not so much what to do, but why their Jesus-like behavior matters in the long run. He focuses on the foundation of our faith—the Resurrection of Jesus.

Why does he spend so much time (fifty-eight verses) talking about the Resurrection? Remember, in chapter 1 he explained how God’s wisdom confounds the world’s wisdom. In the ensuing chapters, he corrected the church’s understanding of sexuality, conflict management, marriage, religious rites, service, and worship. But what does all that godly behavior matter if everything we do is finished when we die? Some were teaching against the idea of resurrection, and Paul was out to correct that teaching.

With both Jews and Gentiles in the Corinthian church, different views of the afterlife conflicted with one another. Some of the Jews followed the Sadducees, who denied bodily resurrection. But many other Jews did believe in it. Likewise, the Greek believers came from varying tradition that focused on the spirit or soul as the “true” person that, once separated from the body at death, returned to its source. Immortality lay precisely in getting rid of the body.

Paul says no. We are indeed going to be raised bodily when the Lord returns. He breaks it down for them (15:12–14):

• He and the apostles teach Christ crucified and resurrected.
• If there is no resurrection from the dead for us, then Jesus was not resurrected either.
• And if Christ was not raised, then what are we doing here? Our faith has no foundation.
• But Christ was indeed raised bodily from the grave. How do we know? We have a multitude of witnesses (15:5–8) who could confirm seeing the living Jesus in person after he died.

Why is Jesus’s bodily resurrection so crucial? Why not settle for a spiritual version of it (as some even today do)? Because in his death and resurrection, Jesus demonstrated his power over sin and death, emerging from the grave victorious over the enemy and inviting us to join him. He is the first-fruit of the dead (15:20); we will follow in turn. The Resurrection provides ultimate hope that death is not the worst thing that can happen to us, that this life is not in vain, that we have eternal purpose.

Because he rose from the grave, we have an eternal future that begins now. We are empowered by his Spirit and filled with his love. God calls us to live differently— in our actions, words, and attitudes. We can know that our “labor in the Lord is not in vain” (15:58).

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