In Thessalonica

¹Paul and Silas traveled on through Amphipolis and Apollonia and came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue.

²According to his usual habit Paul went to the synagogue. There during three Sabbaths he held discussions with the people, quoting

³and explaining the Scriptures, and proving from them that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from death. “This Jesus whom I announce to you,” Paul said, “is the Messiah.”

⁴Some of them were convinced and joined Paul and Silas; so did many of the leading women and a large group of Greeks who worshiped God.

⁵But some Jews were jealous and gathered worthless loafers from the streets and formed a mob. They set the whole city in an uproar and attacked the home of a man named Jason, in an attempt to find Paul and Silas and bring them out to the people.

⁶But when they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some other believers before the city authorities and shouted, “These men have caused trouble everywhere! Now they have come to our city,

⁷and Jason has kept them in his house. They are all breaking the laws of the Emperor, saying that there is another king, whose name is Jesus.”

⁸With these words they threw the crowd and the city authorities in an uproar.

⁹The authorities made Jason and the others pay the required amount of money to be released, and then let them go.

In Berea

¹⁰As soon as night came, the believers sent Paul and Silas to Berea. When they arrived, they went to the synagogue.

¹¹The people there were more open-minded than the people in Thessalonica. They listened to the message with great eagerness, and every day they studied the Scriptures to see if what Paul said was really true.

¹²Many of them believed; and many Greek women of high social standing and many Greek men also believed.

¹³But when the Jews in Thessalonica heard that Paul had preached the word of God in Berea also, they came there and started exciting and stirring up the mobs.

¹⁴At once the believers sent Paul away to the coast; but both Silas and Timothy stayed in Berea.

¹⁵The men who were taking Paul went with him as far as Athens and then returned to Berea with instructions from Paul that Silas and Timothy should join him as soon as possible.

In Athens

¹⁶While Paul was waiting in Athens for Silas and Timothy, he was greatly upset when he noticed how full of idols the city was.

¹⁷So he held discussions in the synagogue with the Jews and with the Gentiles who worshiped God, and also in the public square every day with the people who happened to come by.

¹⁸Certain Epicurean and Stoic teachers also debated with him. Some of them asked, “What is this ignorant show-off trying to say?” Others answered, “He seems to be talking about foreign gods.” They said this because Paul was preaching about Jesus and the resurrection.

¹⁹So they took Paul, brought him before the city council, the Areopagus, and said, “We would like to know what this new teaching is that you are talking about.

²⁰Some of the things we hear you say sound strange to us, and we would like to know what they mean.”

²¹(For all the citizens of Athens and the foreigners who lived there liked to spend all their time telling and hearing the latest new thing.)

²²Paul stood up in front of the city council and said, “I see that in every way you Athenians are very religious.

²³For as I walked through your city and looked at the places where you worship, I found an altar on which is written, ‘To an Unknown God.’ That which you worship, then, even though you do not know it, is what I now proclaim to you.

²⁴God, who made the world and everything in it, is Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples made by human hands.

²⁵Nor does he need anything that we can supply by working for him, since it is he himself who gives life and breath and everything else to everyone.

²⁶From one human being he created all races of people and made them live throughout the whole earth. He himself fixed beforehand the exact times and the limits of the places where they would live.

²⁷He did this so that they would look for him, and perhaps find him as they felt around for him. Yet God is actually not far from any one of us;

²⁸as someone has said, ‘In him we live and move and exist.’ It is as some of your poets have said, ‘We too are his children.’

²⁹Since we are God's children, we should not suppose that his nature is anything like an image of gold or silver or stone, shaped by human art and skill.

³⁰God has overlooked the times when people did not know him, but now he commands all of them everywhere to turn away from their evil ways.

³¹For he has fixed a day in which he will judge the whole world with justice by means of a man he has chosen. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising that man from death!”

³²When they heard Paul speak about a raising from death, some of them made fun of him, but others said, “We want to hear you speak about this again.”

³³And so Paul left the meeting.

³⁴Some men joined him and believed, among whom was Dionysius, a member of the council; there was also a woman named Damaris, and some other people.

The Resurrection of Christ

¹And now I want to remind you, my friends, of the Good News which I preached to you, which you received, and on which your faith stands firm.

²That is the gospel, the message that I preached to you. You are saved by the gospel if you hold firmly to it—unless it was for nothing that you believed.

³I passed on to you what I received, which is of the greatest importance: that Christ died for our sins, as written in the Scriptures;

⁴that he was buried and that he was raised to life three days later, as written in the Scriptures;

⁵that he appeared to Peter and then to all twelve apostles.

⁶Then he appeared to more than five hundred of his followers at once, most of whom are still alive, although some have died.

⁷Then he appeared to James, and afterward to all the apostles.

⁸Last of all he appeared also to me—even though I am like someone whose birth was abnormal.

⁹For I am the least of all the apostles—I do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted God's church.

¹⁰But by God's grace I am what I am, and the grace that he gave me was not without effect. On the contrary, I have worked harder than any of the other apostles, although it was not really my own doing, but God's grace working with me.

¹¹So then, whether it came from me or from them, this is what we all preach, and this is what you believe.

Our Resurrection

¹²Now, since our message is that Christ has been raised from death, how can some of you say that the dead will not be raised to life?

¹³If that is true, it means that Christ was not raised;

¹⁴and if Christ has not been raised from death, then we have nothing to preach and you have nothing to believe.

¹⁵More than that, we are shown to be lying about God, because we said that he raised Christ from death—but if it is true that the dead are not raised to life, then he did not raise Christ.

¹⁶For if the dead are not raised, neither has Christ been raised.

¹⁷And if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is a delusion and you are still lost in your sins.

¹⁸It would also mean that the believers in Christ who have died are lost.

¹⁹If our hope in Christ is good for this life only and no more, then we deserve more pity than anyone else in all the world.

²⁰But the truth is that Christ has been raised from death, as the guarantee that those who sleep in death will also be raised.

²¹For just as death came by means of a man, in the same way the rising from death comes by means of a man.

²²For just as all people die because of their union with Adam, in the same way all will be raised to life because of their union with Christ.

²³But each one will be raised in proper order: Christ, first of all; then, at the time of his coming, those who belong to him.

²⁴Then the end will come; Christ will overcome all spiritual rulers, authorities, and powers, and will hand over the Kingdom to God the Father.

²⁵For Christ must rule until God defeats all enemies and puts them under his feet.

²⁶The last enemy to be defeated will be death.

²⁷For the scripture says, “God put all things under his feet.” It is clear, of course, that the words “all things” do not include God himself, who puts all things under Christ.

²⁸But when all things have been placed under Christ's rule, then he himself, the Son, will place himself under God, who placed all things under him; and God will rule completely over all.

²⁹Now, what about those people who are baptized for the dead? What do they hope to accomplish? If it is true, as some claim, that the dead are not raised to life, why are those people being baptized for the dead?

³⁰And as for us—why would we run the risk of danger every hour?

³¹My friends, I face death every day! The pride I have in you, in our life in union with Christ Jesus our Lord, makes me declare this.

³²If I have, as it were, fought “wild beasts” here in Ephesus simply from human motives, what have I gained? But if the dead are not raised to life, then, as the saying goes, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we will die.”

³³Do not be fooled. “Bad companions ruin good character.”

³⁴Come back to your right senses and stop your sinful ways. I declare to your shame that some of you do not know God.

The Resurrection Body

³⁵Someone will ask, “How can the dead be raised to life? What kind of body will they have?”

³⁶You fool! When you plant a seed in the ground, it does not sprout to life unless it dies.

³⁷And what you plant is a bare seed, perhaps a grain of wheat or some other grain, not the full-bodied plant that will later grow up.

³⁸God provides that seed with the body he wishes; he gives each seed its own proper body.

³⁹And the flesh of living beings is not all the same kind of flesh; human beings have one kind of flesh, animals another, birds another, and fish another.

⁴⁰And there are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies; the beauty that belongs to heavenly bodies is different from the beauty that belongs to earthly bodies.

⁴¹The sun has its own beauty, the moon another beauty, and the stars a different beauty; and even among stars there are different kinds of beauty.

⁴²This is how it will be when the dead are raised to life. When the body is buried, it is mortal; when raised, it will be immortal.

⁴³When buried, it is ugly and weak; when raised, it will be beautiful and strong.

⁴⁴When buried, it is a physical body; when raised, it will be a spiritual body. There is, of course, a physical body, so there has to be a spiritual body.

⁴⁵For the scripture says, “The first man, Adam, was created a living being”; but the last Adam is the life-giving Spirit.

⁴⁶It is not the spiritual that comes first, but the physical, and then the spiritual.

⁴⁷The first Adam, made of earth, came from the earth; the second Adam came from heaven.

⁴⁸Those who belong to the earth are like the one who was made of earth; those who are of heaven are like the one who came from heaven.

⁴⁹Just as we wear the likeness of the man made of earth, so we will wear the likeness of the Man from heaven.

⁵⁰What I mean, friends, is that what is made of flesh and blood cannot share in God's Kingdom, and what is mortal cannot possess immortality.

^51-52Listen to this secret truth: we shall not all die, but when the last trumpet sounds, we shall all be changed in an instant, as quickly as the blinking of an eye. For when the trumpet sounds, the dead will be raised, never to die again, and we shall all be changed.

⁵³For what is mortal must be changed into what is immortal; what will die must be changed into what cannot die.

⁵⁴So when this takes place, and the mortal has been changed into the immortal, then the scripture will come true: “Death is destroyed; victory is complete!”

⁵⁵“Where, Death, is your victory? Where, Death, is your power to hurt?”

⁵⁶Death gets its power to hurt from sin, and sin gets its power from the Law.

⁵⁷But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!

⁵⁸So then, my dear friends, stand firm and steady. Keep busy always in your work for the Lord, since you know that nothing you do in the Lord's service is ever useless.

¹⁶A ruler without good sense will be a cruel tyrant. One who hates dishonesty will rule a long time.

¹⁷Someone guilty of murder is digging his own grave as fast as he can. Don't try to stop him.

¹⁸Be honest and you will be safe. If you are dishonest, you will suddenly fall.