1 Corinthians 15:9-11 (NIV
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. 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. Whether, then, it is I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.
Paul breaks into his argument to share his heart. He is an apostle, to be sure, sent out by the direct command of the risen Jesus himself. But even after years of faithful work for the Master, he still feels unworthy of the calling that he has received.
Paul knows very well that at the time Jesus confronted and saved him, he was an active persecutor of the church, on his way to Damascus to drag any believers he found back to Jerusalem for trial and execution (Acts 9:1-19). If he deserved anything from Jesus at all, it was instant annihilation!
But Jesus had shown him infinite grace and mercy, and had wiped away his sins, transformed his heart, and filled him with the Holy Spirit. And from that moment forward, Paul lived to serve the Lord who had showed him that completely unmerited grace and mercy.
It was because of his gratefulness and thankfulness that Paul had given himself so thoroughly and passionately to the work of the Kingdom, making Jesus and His work the centerpiece of his entire life. This work had taken him multiplied thousands of miles into parts of the known world he had never anticipated going, risking all and suffering much to accomplish the mission God had given him to do.
As Paul turns his attention back to the subject at hand, the resurrection, he briefly notes that the gospel he is preaching, and the resurrection of Jesus that lies behind it, is exactly the same as all the other apostles believe in and preached. It is not some “personal truth” that he is sharing, but the clear facts, as attested to by all the eyewitnesses and all the apostles.
Father, it is interesting that in these days, when objective truth is undervalued, and its existence even doubted altogether, that Paul’s testimony, not just of his personal experience, but of the objective truth of Jesus’ death and resurrection comes so powerfully to us. Subjective truth and experience can be doubted, argued, and ultimately rejected as “true for you, but not for me”. But objective truth that is attested to by so many eyewitnesses cannot be so easily dismissed. It must be known that if we reject it, we are rejecting what is absolutely true, and thus choosing to believe what is false instead. Thank you, Lord, for Paul’s clear testimony, as well as the testimony of so many others, that helps us to know the actual truth of what we believe. Amen.