Signs of Grace

We might easily skip over this chapter, and others like it at the end of Paul's letters, feeling that it is irrelevant and full of trivial details. However, the chapter shows us that all the teaching of this letter has been grounded in real life. He does not speak from a theologian's ivory tower but to real people he knows and loves and with whom he shares the glorious hope of the resurrection. The chapter is, in a way, a fleshing out of his call to 'be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labour is not in vain.' (15:58). It also highlights the greatest theme of the book: love, which always has the final word.'