Why would any of you consider it incredible that God raises the dead?
Parallel translations
- WEB Why is it judged incredible with you, if God does raise the dead?
- KJV Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?
- NKJV Why should it be thought incredible by you that God raises the dead?
- NASB Why is it considered incredible among you people if God raises the dead?
- NLT Why does it seem incredible to any of you that God can raise the dead?
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Paul asks why it should be thought incredible that God raises the dead. He confronts the audience with the reasonableness of resurrection for those who believe in God.
Overview
Paul presses the heart of the matter: if God is the living Creator, raising the dead is no impossibility. The question challenges his hearers, and especially the resurrection-denying Sadducees among the Jews, to reckon with God's power. It points to the resurrection of Jesus, the concrete demonstration that God indeed raises the dead and the ground of Christian hope.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 13
- 1 Cor 15:12–20But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?
- Acts 17:31–32For He has set a day when He will judge the world with justice by the Man He has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising Him from the dead.”
- Acts 4:2greatly disturbed that they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead.
- Acts 10:40–42God raised Him up on the third day and caused Him to be seen—
- Luke 18:27But Jesus said, “What is impossible with man is possible with God.”
- Phil 3:21who, by the power that enables Him to subject all things to Himself, will transform our lowly bodies to be like His glorious body.
- Acts 25:19They only had some contentions with him regarding their own religion and a certain Jesus who had died, but whom Paul affirmed to be alive.
- John 5:28–29Do not be amazed at this, for the hour is coming when all who are in their graves will hear His voice
- Acts 13:30–31But God raised Him from the dead,
- Gen 18:14Is anything too difficult for the LORD? At the appointed time I will return to you—in about a year—and Sarah will have a son.”
- Acts 23:6Then Paul, knowing that some of them were Sadducees and others Pharisees, called out in the Sanhedrin, “Brothers, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee. It is because of my hope in the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial.”
- Matt 22:29–32Jesus answered, “You are mistaken because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God.
- Luke 1:37For no word from God will ever fail.”
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Acts is the risen Christ continuing his work by the Spirit through the church, as the apostles preach that there is salvation in no other name under heaven.
How Acts 26:8 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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