Therefore I exhort you, be imitators of me

Good morning. Now back to Paul’s description of what is meant by the Gospel: for I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the 12. After that He appeared to more than 500 brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also. The gospel (good news) is: First, He died for our sins. We don’t have to do anything else other than to believe and receive it. That was especially good news for the Jews because they believed they had to do all the sacrifices and to “earn” their salvation. Second, He was buried for three days and nights. He didn’t just pass out and later revived. He was “most sincerely dead“. Third, He did not stay in the grave, He rose again. Him dying for our sins was great, but we could not have lived the Christian life without Him rising from the dead. Fourth He appeared to many different people; the exact ones is not necessarily important; that He did is. Since they saw Him, we can believe their witness that He actually rose from the dead (in that sense it was important, because we know which ones we can believe). He includes some accounts of Jesus’ appearances that are not in the four Gospels. That does not make him wrong. Father thank You that we have heard and received the Good News. Help us to spread it to everyone around us.