1Cor 15:9-11 - His power, Your Pot

9-11 For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy 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. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. 11 Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.

Christ’s resurrection appearance to Paul was post-ascension. It was "out of time" with the others. He does not regard this as making him more special, but less. And he certainly regards himself as less worthy on account of his persecution of believers prior to his conversion. Note how he refers to them, though, as the church of God. Like all sin, he sees his rage against Christians as having been primarily rage against God Himself. That is because whoever does anything (good or evil) to the least of Christ’s little ones does it unto Him. All sin is ultimately committed against God. This is why David, having wronged both Bathsheba and Uriah said, "Against You and You only have I sinned." {Ps 51:4}

This again is the gospel. Believers are so united with Christ by His completed work that the Lord Himself identifies with them all individually and collectively as if they were His very own person. This is the fullest, eternal, heavenly manifestation of that command to "love your neighbour as yourself." Grace is shown to all men, and God requires all offenses and all blood at their hands - but His love for His Own shines with a fierceness and a brilliance that cannot be matched - for Christ’s sake, because we are One with Him in His death and resurrection.

Is Paul really the least of the Apostles? Is he truly unworthy to be called such? In the light of Jesus Christ such questions are redundant. They are the itchings of the flesh that troubled James and John's mother (if not the men themselves) {Mt 20:20-21} . Paul understands that a larger candle and a smaller one standing in the light of the sun are equally insignificant of themselves. What stands out and what gets all the focus is the sun itself. Christ is the sun.

This is because Paul understands grace. Grace allowed him to be a persecutor of the church without destroying him. Grace saved him. Grace is sanctifying him as he speaks and teaches and evangelizes and admonishes and exhorts others. He is working out his own salvation with fear and trembling but he quickly agrees with the thought that it is God at work in him to will and to do of His good pleasure.

Don’t you just love it? Paul works like a madman for the kingdom yet attributes it all to the working of God’s grace in him. It is not seen as a partnership in which God has done His bit, and so now Paul must respond with his own contribution. No! It is all of grace. Paul is driven to do what he does, and he is called and equipped to do it; he is responsible to God for it - but he always regards it all as ultimately possible and effectual only and solely due to the grace of God in Jesus Christ actively at work in him. That is true freedom. Freedom from ego, freedom from fear of failure, freedom from pride, freedom from self ... I could go on and on...

Do you see the mindset of the true servant of God here? It doesn’t ultimately matter which of God’s legitimate instruments was used as means to evoke faith in the Corinthians - the other (some thought "real") apostles or Paul himself. He didn’t care. What mattered was that they came under the preaching of the gospel by the hearing of which faith comes - and they believed. The same saving grace that was in operation in Paul’s own life came to those who believed through the preaching of the gospel that he has just re-outlined to them. And he rejoiced in that.