📖WEB · 1 Corinthians 15:11
What does 1 Corinthians 15:11 mean?
"Whether then it is I or they, so we preach, and so you believed."
— 1 Corinthians 15:11 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
and last of all, as to the child born at the wrong time, he appeared to me also.
For I am the least of the apostles, who is not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the assembly of God.
But by the grace of God I am what I am. His grace which was given to me was not futile, but I worked more than all of them; yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.
Whether then it is I or they, so we preach, and so you believed.
Now if Christ is preached, that he has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?
But if there is no resurrection of the dead, neither has Christ been raised.
If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain, and your faith also is in vain.
Explanation
This verse comes at the close of Paul's opening argument in 1 Corinthians 15, the great chapter on the resurrection of Christ and the resurrection of believers. In plain language, Paul is saying that it does not matter whether it was he himself who preached the gospel to the Corinthians, or whether it was Peter, James, the other apostles, or any of the other eyewitnesses he has just listed — the message they all proclaimed was identical, and it was that unified message the Corinthians believed when they first came to faith.
To understand this fully, it helps to see the flow of the passage. In verses 3 through 8, Paul recites what he calls the gospel he "received" and "delivered" — that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, was buried, was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and appeared to Peter, to the Twelve, to more than five hundred believers at once, to James, to all the apostles, and finally to Paul himself. This is widely recognized as one of the earliest creedal summaries of the gospel in the New Testament, likely passed down to Paul from the earliest Jerusalem church within just a few years of the resurrection. Verse 11
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