Good morning. It’s Sunday, February 2nd, aka National Supermarket Employee Day.

🥳 Congratulations on starting today with God, and thank you for letting us be a part of it.

📖 Verse Of The Day

— 1 Corinthians 15:29

🧠 Devotional

Have you ever heard the saying, “You can’t say one thing and live another”?

Or even, “Make it make sense”?

Well, that’s basically what Paul is saying in this verse:

1 Corinthians 15:29 (NIV)

“Now if there is no resurrection, what will those do who are baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized for them?”

And to understand what’s going on here, let’s look at the verse before and after for context.

1 Corinthians 15:28 (NIV) says

“When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.”

Earlier in the chapter, Paul says death is the last enemy to be destroyed. So when he talks about everything being under God, that includes death. If death is destroyed, resurrection must be real.

1 Corinthians 15:30 (NIV) says

“And as for us, why do we endanger ourselves every hour?”

Here Paul points to his own life. He and the other apostles are constantly risking their lives for preaching resurrection. If resurrection isn’t true, that suffering would make no sense.

When Paul brings up people being baptized for the dead, he’s making a basic point. If the dead aren’t raised, then why are you doing something that assumes they will be? That only makes sense if resurrection is real.

Paul’s goal is to show the contradiction. He’s clearly on the side that resurrection is true. He believes Jesus rose, and that believers will rise too. So denying resurrection just doesn’t add up.

It’s kind of like saying you’re vegetarian while eating hamburgers. You can say it all you want, but your actions speak louder than words.

If we can learn one thing from this situation, it’s this: when you say one thing, also live it.