Christ died and God raised him up to live again
1 My Christian friends, I want you to remember the good news that I taught to you. You received it from me and you continue to trust it as a true message. 2 Because of that good news, God will save you. But you must continue to trust the message that I told you. If you do not, you have believed it for nothing.
3 I received the good news from Christ, and I told that message to you. I told you the most important things:
Christ died as a sacrifice for our sins. The Bible already said how that would happen. 4 People buried his dead body. On the third day after that, God raised him up to live again. The Bible speaks about that too.
5 After that, Christ appeared to Peter. Later, he appeared to his 12 disciples. 6 And after that, he appeared to more than 500 believers at the same time. Most of those 500 people are still alive, but some of them have died. 7 Then Christ appeared to James. Later he appeared to all the apostles.
8 After all these people had seen him, Christ also appeared to me. I was like someone who was born at the wrong time. 9 Among all the apostles, I am the least important. I caused a lot of trouble for God's church. So I do not deserve for people to call me an apostle. 10 But God was very kind to me. He helped me to become a different person. And because God has been so kind to me, the result has been great. I have worked harder than all the other apostles. But I could not do that work myself. No, I could only do it because God is kind and he helped me. 11 So, all of us apostles teach the same good news about Christ. That is the message that you have believed. It does not matter which of us told it to you, whether it was me or someone else.
