Tag: 1 Corinthians

staccato exhortations in e.g. 2 Cor.13:11; 1 Thess.5:15-22. For 16:21, see Gal.6:11. Verses 13-14 introduce the final run, and contain five exhortations. For convenience, we can reduce them to three.

1. Be watchful.
   • Scripture tells us to be watchful on a number of accounts:
   1. the devil – 1 Pet.5:8.
   2. temptation

deals with the gospel motives of Paul and the question of guidance.

1. We plan, God over-rules.
   • Prov.16:9. See 15:5-6. He plans to get to Corinth via Macedonia (northern Greece) but it does not work out – 2 Cor.1:15-17.
   • 15:7. Paul has a plan, but it is with the proviso

• flows on from 15:58; like Matt.6:20. The collection came about because of a famine in the world, which was especially severe in Judea
• Acts 11:27-30; Gal.2:10; note 2 Cor.8-9. The Corinthians had specifically raised this issue – hence ‘now concerning’ in 16:1; see e.g. 7:1; later he refers to

Paul has been writing of the resurrection body – 15:44; and of the final resurrection victory – 15:52, 57. One might then have expected something like Revelation 4:1.

1. How to live now.
   • 15:58. Note the ‘therefore’. He is addressing ‘my beloved brothers’.
   1. Be steadfast and immovable. J. Gresham Machen

When G. K. Chesterton’s sister, Beatrice, died at the age of eight, her grief-stricken father turned her picture to the wall, got rid of all her possessions, and forbade the mention of her name. The Christian faith does not guarantee us tomorrow, but it does guarantee us eternity in …

Paul imagines someone arguing with him – 15:35-36a. Acts 26:8.

1. There are illustrations of resurrection in nature.
   1. 15:36-38; John 12:24. There is both continuity and discontinuity between the seed and the plant, the body here and the resurrection body.
   2. 15:39. If God can make different kinds of flesh here

15:12-19 centres on belief; 15:29-34 on ethics. With the resurrection of Christ, there is endless hope; without Him there is a hopeless end.

1. Why be baptized for the dead?
   • 15:29. A difficult verse!
   1. Calvin says it refers to catechumens on the point of death who requested baptism.
   2. some try

Paul Barnett calls this ‘a short history of Death’.

1. Christ is the firstfruits.
   • 15:23. Alfred Lord Tennyson: Behold, we know not anything. Not so. Charles Hodge: ‘the resurrection of Christ is a pledge and proof of the resurrection of his people’.
2. Those who belong to Christ will be raised

Jaroslav Pelikan: ‘If Christ is risen, nothing else matters. And if Christ is not risen – nothing else matters.’

1. Death in Adam.
   • 15:20-22. This is how death came into the world – Gen.2:17; 3:17-19. This is not by imitation, but incorporation. If we had been there, we would all