My Relationship with the Gospel
Now I would remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you.* (1Co 15:1-2)
1Corinthians 15:1-2 is dense with action-verbs, each describing an aspect of our relationship to the Gospel.
We are reminded of the Gospel.
The Gospel is a word preached to us.
We receive the Gospel.
We stand in the Gospel.
We are being saved by the Gospel.
We hold fast the Gospel.
Each of these actions highlights important reoccurring steps in our spiritual growth.
But before we reflect on them individually, let’s first consider Paul’s assumption: every Christian has an ongoing relationship with the Gospel.
We are being saved by the Gospel as we stand in it and hold it fast, as we receive it when we are reminded of it when it is preached to us. Our relationship with the Gospel is not something that happened in our past that has to do with our future—it’s part of life today.
The Gospel—who Jesus is, what Jesus did, and what that means for us—is given a simple summary here in 1Corinthians 15:3: “Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures.”
What is our relationship with those truths? What is our on-going relationship with them? How are they affecting our lives today, our thoughts, our relationships?
Two questions for reflection:
Which of the actions Paul describes in these verses do you feel you need…
To understand more about?
To grow in?
PRAYER
LORD God, I love the Good News about Jesus. I am so thankful for forgiveness, for new life, for hope. I know I need Your Gospel, more and more in my life. But I don’t always know how I need it, or how to get it. I pray that You would help me to better understand what it means to ___________________ the Gospel, and I ask that You would help me to grow in ______________________ the Gospel. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
*I am excluding the final phrase, “unless you believed in vain.” This phrase is confusing here because it could mean, “you appeared to trust Jesus, but you actually didn’t.” But it could also mean, “you believed something that was never true in the first place.” (NLT) It’s this second understanding of the phrase which seems most accurate, in context. Paul says in v14, “If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.” And Paul immediately in v3 launches into one of the first demonstrations of the historicity of the Resurrection. So “believed in vain” in v2 is not one of the actions toward the Gospel which we are directed to consider. Instead “believing in vain”—that is, the trustworthiness of the Gospel—is the larger issue Paul is dealing with in this chapter.
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