<p>15:10 - see on Acts 23:6.</p><p><i>But by the grace of God</i>- See on :8 <i>Abnormally born</i>. Paul saw himself as a stillborn, self-aborted child who somehow by God's grace had a live birth in his baptism by Ananias.</p><p><i>I am what I am</i>- We are, in the very end, Yahweh manifested to this world, through our imitation of the Lord Jesus. Paul was alluding to the Yahweh Name (as he often does) when he wrote: &ldquo;... by the grace of God <i>I am what I am</i>&rdquo; (1 Cor 15:10). Paul was especially chosen to bear the Name (Acts 9:15). &lsquo;Yahweh&rsquo; means all of three things: I am who I am, I was who I was, and I will be who I will be. It doesn&rsquo;t <i>only </i>mean &lsquo;I will be manifested in the future&rsquo; in a prophetic sense; that manifestation has been ongoing, and most importantly it <i>is</i> going on through us here and now. Paul felt Yahweh&rsquo;s insistent manifestation of the principles of His Name through and in himself and his life&rsquo;s work. We are right now, in who we <i>are</i>, Yahweh&rsquo;s witnesses to Himself unto this world, just as Israel were meant to have been. Thus he felt &ldquo;jealous with the jealousy of God&rdquo; over his converts (2 Cor. 11:2); jealousy is a characteristic of the Yahweh Name, and Paul felt it, in that the Name was being expressed through him and his feelings. His threat that &ldquo;I will not spare&rdquo; (2 Cor. 13:2) is full of allusion to Yahweh&rsquo;s similar final threats to an apostate Israel. &ldquo;As <i>he is</i> another reference to the Name so <i>are we</i> in this world&rdquo; (1 Jn. 4:17). Appreciating this means that our witness is to be more centred around who we essentially <i>are</i> than what we <i>do</i>.&nbsp;The fact God&rsquo;s Name is carried by us, the righteousness of it imputed to us, should lead us to a greater awareness of His grace. Paul alludes to how he carried the Yahweh Name when he says that &ldquo;by the grace of God <i>I am what I am</i>&rdquo; (1 Cor. 15:10). And his response was therefore to labour abundantly. A theme of Malachi is that Israel failed to appreciate God's Name of Yahweh, and <i>therefore</i> they were half-hearted in their service. They gave the minimum to God, they were partial in their generosity, because they despised His Name. The fullness and richness of the Name, of who God is, a God <i>full </i>of grace and truth (Ex. 34:6 RV), should lead us to a fullness of response. For the sake of the Name, believers labour (Rev. 2:13). To know the name of Yahweh is an imperative to serve Him (1 Chron. 28:9). The greatness of the Name should have led to full and costly sacrifices (Mal. 1:6-8,9-11,14; 2:2). Thinking upon the Name led the faithful to pay their tithes and fellowship with each other (Mal. 3:6,10). Giving unto Yahweh the glory due to His Name is articulated through giving sacrifice (Ps. 96:8).</p><p>There is an interplay between God&rsquo;s calling of men, and human participation in that outreach. The case of Paul exemplifies this. Without the vital work of Ananias, he wouldn&rsquo;t have been able- in one sense- to come to Christ. And yet it was God who called Paul. &lsquo;Ananias&rsquo; means &lsquo;the grace of God&rsquo;. And several times Paul alludes to this, saying that &ldquo;By Gk. &lsquo;on account of&rsquo; the grace of God i.e. Ananias I am what I am&rdquo; (1 Cor. 15:10; Gal. 1:15; Eph. 3:8; 1 Tim. 1:14). His conversion was by both God and Ananias. And thus we see the seamless connection in every conversion between God&rsquo;s role, and that of the preacher.</p><p><i>And His grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain- </i>&quot;Bestowed upon&quot; translates the simple word <i>eis</i>, &quot;in&quot;. The gift of grace was internal; after baptism we receive the gift s.w. &quot;grace&quot; of the Spirit, which is essentially an internal influence. But we must let it operate. Paul is setting himself up as an example to the Corinthians, who had likewise received the same gift see chapter 1, but who were not &quot;spiritual&quot; (3:1). Paul is ever concerned that the Corinthians had believed &quot;in vain&quot; (:2), and he holds himself up to them as an example of one who had <i>not </i>believed in vain. </p><p><i>But I laboured more abundantly than all of them. Yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me</i>- As noted above, God's grace worked within Paul's mind. But it so dominated him that it can be put for he himself personally. <i>Sun</i>, &quot;with&quot;, can carry the idea of possession. God's grace possessed him, and brought forth the labour for others which was the outworking of the love poem of chapter 13. Gal. 2:20 and 1 Cor. 15:10 show Paul using the phrase &ldquo;yet not I but....&rdquo; to differentiate between his natural and spiritual self. Perhaps he does the same in the only other occurrence of the phrase, in 1 Cor 7:10: &ldquo;And unto the married I command, yet not I the natural Paul, but the Lord the man Christ Jesus in the spiritual Paul, Let not the wife depart from her husband&rdquo;.</p><p>He surely isn&rsquo;t boasting that he was worked and preached harder than others. Rather Paul sees a direct connection between the grace of forgiveness that so abounded to him to a greater level than to others, and his likewise abounding preaching work. He speaks as if a man called &lsquo;The grace of God&rsquo; did the work, not him. So close&nbsp;was and is the connection between receipt of grace and labour in the Gospel (he makes the same connection in Eph. 3:8). Note that in the context of 1 Cor. 15, Paul is demonstrating the reality of the Lord&rsquo;s resurrection. Because of it, he received grace and therefore he preached it.</p><p>When Paul speaks of how he laboured more abundantly than all, he seems to be making one of is many allusions back to incidents in the Gospels, this time to Lk. 7:47, where the Lord comments that Mary loved much, because she was forgiven much. It was as if the Lord didn&rsquo;t need to have knowledge of her sins beamed into Him by a bolt of Holy Spirit; He perceived from her great love how much she had sinned and been forgiven. Paul really felt that Mary was his example, his pattern. And so should we feel. The much love which she had for her Lord was, in Paul&rsquo;s case, articulated through preaching Him.</p>