Yesterday Paul recited the creed he received. Today he draws out what happens if its last clause is false — and he does it without a single hedge, which is what makes the passage extraordinary.
What happens
"If Messiah is preached as raised from the dead, how can some among you say there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then neither has Messiah been raised. And if Messiah has not been raised, then empty too is our preaching; empty, too, your faith. Then we are also false witnesses to Theos… your faith is vain; you are still in your sins. Then those who have fallen asleep in Messiah have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Messiah, we are the most pitiable people of all. But now Messiah has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep."
What to notice
The argument runs the conditional all the way to the bottom and refuses every available exit. Paul could have said the resurrection is a symbol, or that the preaching would still be morally valuable, or that the ethics survive the metaphysics. He says instead that the preaching is kenon — empty, hollow, a container with nothing in it — and that the apostles are pseudomartyres, perjurers. Not mistaken. Perjured, testifying against Theos about something he did not do. Then the sentence that has troubled and consoled readers ever since: eleeinoteroi pantōn anthrōpōn esmen, we are the most pitiable of all human beings — a remarkable thing for a founder to put in writing, and only sayable by someone who thinks the question is settled by an event rather than by the usefulness of believing it. Then the turn, in two words: nyni de, but now.Aparchē, firstfruits, is a farming and temple term — the first sheaf of the harvest, brought to the sanctuary before the rest could be eaten (Leviticus 23:10–11). The first sheaf makes the whole harvest usable; and the first sheaf means the harvest has started. Not a sample — an opening instalment.
A plea from someone under accusation asking for a hearing — "hear, Yahweh, a just suit" — and confident enough of the case to invite the examination.
The selected verses
Psalm 17:1."Hear, Yahweh, a just suit; attend to my outcry; hearken to my prayer from lips without deceit." Psalm 17:6–7."I call upon you, for you will answer me, Theos; incline your ear to me; hear my word. Show your wondrous hesed, Rescuer of those who take refuge at your right hand." Psalm 17:8, 15."Hide me in the shadow of your wings… But I in justice shall behold your face; on waking, I shall be content in your presence."
What to notice
Psalm 17:8 contains one of the loveliest phrases in Hebrew: ishon bat ayin — "the little man of the daughter of the eye," which is the pupil. It is called that because looking closely into someone's eye shows you a tiny image of yourself standing in it. "Keep me as the apple of your eye" is a request to be the small figure reflected there. And Psalm 17:15 is why this psalm is here today: be-haqitz asbe'ah temunatekha — "on awaking, I shall be satisfied with your form." Haqitz is the ordinary verb for waking from sleep, and Hebrew uses sleep for death often enough that the line has been read as a resurrection hope since antiquity. Paul, in the reading just heard, twice calls the Christian dead "those who have fallen asleep."
Three verses of summary, placed between the anointing at Simon's house and the parable of the sower. They contain no teaching, no miracle and no dialogue, and they are among the most historically informative sentences in the gospel.
What happens
"Jesus journeyed from one town and village to another, preaching and proclaiming the good news of the reign of Theos. Accompanying him were the Twelve and some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out; Joanna, the wife of Herod's steward Chuza; Susanna; and many others who provided for them out of their resources."
What to notice
Diēkonoun autois ek tōn hyparchontōn autais — they were providing for them out of their own possessions. The verb is imperfect: not a single donation but an ongoing arrangement. And it is diakoneō, the same verb Luke used of Simon's mother-in-law rising from her fever (Luke 4:39), and which he will put in Jesus's mouth at the last supper. An itinerant movement has to eat; Luke is the only evangelist who tells us how this one did, and his answer is women, with their own money, by name. Joanna is the surprising one — her husband Chuza is Herod's epitropos, an estate or financial officer in the household of Herod Antipas, the man who beheaded John. The mission is partly financed from inside the court of the tetrarch who killed the Baptist, and Luke has Joanna at the tomb on Easter morning (Luke 24:10), one of the few named figures at both ends of the gospel. Note finally what Luke does not do: one verse after the anointing story he introduces Mary Magdalene as a new person with a different history. Luke plainly did not think they were the same woman.
How They Fit Together
A claim with no fallback, and people who funded it anyway
Actual money, by named people, on an ongoing basis
Paul's argument today is often admired for its nerve and less often noticed for its structure, which is that of a man refusing to take out insurance. Every softer option was available. He could have said the resurrection language expresses something true about renewal; he could have said the community and its ethics justify themselves. He forecloses all of it in one sentence: if for this life only we have hoped, we are the most pitiable of all people. There is no fallback position in this chapter — either the tomb was empty or the whole thing is a wasted life, and he says so in a letter to people who might well have preferred the softer version.
And then Luke, in three verses of throat-clearing before a parable, shows what that looks like when it stops being an argument. Some women who had been cured were following him around and paying the bills out of their own possessions — an open-ended commitment, with no stated end date, made by people who had something to lose. Joanna in particular: married into the household of Herod Antipas, financing an itinerant preacher from Nazareth. Nobody makes that arrangement as a hedge.
The two readings meet exactly at Paul's aparchē. If the resurrection is firstfruits, it is the beginning of something rather than an isolated marvel — the first sheaf implies a field. Which means the women's money is not a sentimental gesture toward a dying cause but an early investment in a harvest, and Paul's willingness to be pitied is not stoicism but confidence about a sequence.
Psalm 17 supplies the posture that connects them. It is a legal plea: hear a just suit… from lips without deceit. The psalmist is not asking to be excused; he is asking to be examined, which is what Paul does when he invites the Corinthians to check with the five hundred witnesses. And the psalm's last line is the one the whole day rests on. Not I shall be vindicated, and not I shall be comfortable — be-haqitz, when I wake, I shall be satisfied with your face. Everything is deferred to a moment of waking, and the psalm is content to leave it there.
A Question to Sit With
Paul refuses the fallback. He will not say the story is valuable regardless, or meaningful as a symbol, or good for the community — he says that if it did not happen he is a perjurer and the most pitiable man alive. I notice how much of my own believing is quietly insured: held in a form that would still pay out something if the central claim turned out to be false. What in my life would look foolish, and not merely unfashionable, if the resurrection did not happen — and if the honest answer is "not much," what does that tell me?