OUR FATHER WHOSE GRACE MAKES ROOM FOR US TO LABOUR IN HIS KINGDOM

The Aposte Paul, in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 verses 1 -  11, urges the Corinthian believers to hold fast to the gospel that he had brought to them because if they fell way it, their original belief would have all been in vain.

Paul summarized the sequence of events that form the tenets of the gospel and these important tenets were attested to by many people.

1. Christ dies for our sins according to the scripture
2. Christ was buried
3. Christ rose again on the third day
4. The risen Christ was seen by 
1. Cephas (The Apostle Peter)
2. All the twelve apostles together
3. Five hundred at once (most were still alive as the time of Paulˋs writing)
4. James the Apostle
5. The twelve apostles again
6. Seen by Paul

1 Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, 2 by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.

3 For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve. 6 After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep. 7 After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles. 8 Then last of all He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time.

9 For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. 11 Therefore, whether it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.

Paul, acknowledging that he started off as an enemy of the church of God, writes that he was given grace to believe and that he, by that same grace laboured abundantly for te sake of the gospel.

Amen.

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