⁸ All who are acceptable because of their faith simply say, “The message is as near as your mouth or your heart.” And this is the same message we preach about faith. ⁹ So you will be saved, if you honestly say, “Jesus is Lord,” and if you believe with all your heart that God raised him from death. ¹⁰ God will accept you and save you, if you truly believe this and tell it to others.

^11 (A) The Scriptures say no one who has faith will be disappointed, ¹² no matter if that person is a Jew or a Gentile. There is only one Lord, and he is generous to everyone who asks for his help. ^13 (B) All who call out to the Lord will be saved.

¹⁴ How can people have faith in the Lord and ask him to save them, if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear, unless someone tells them? ^15 (C) And how can anyone tell them without being sent by the Lord? The Scriptures say it is a beautiful sight to see even the feet of someone coming to preach the good news. ^16 (D) Yet not everyone has believed the message. For example, the prophet Isaiah asked, “Lord, has anyone believed what we said?”

¹⁷ No one can have faith without hearing the message about Christ.

Bringing People to God

¹¹ We know what it means to respect the Lord, and we encourage everyone to turn to him. God himself knows what we are like, and I hope you also know what kind of people we are. ¹² We are not trying once more to brag about ourselves. But we want you to be proud of us, when you are with those who are not sincere and brag about what others think of them.

¹³ If we seem out of our minds, it is between God and us. But if we are in our right minds, it is for your good. ¹⁴ We are ruled by Christ's love for us. We are certain that if one person died for everyone else, then all of us have died. ¹⁵ And Christ did die for all of us. He died so we would no longer live for ourselves, but for the one who died and was raised to life for us.

¹⁶ We are careful not to judge people by what they seem to be, though we once judged Christ in this way. ¹⁷ Anyone who belongs to Christ is a new person. The past is forgotten, and everything is new. ¹⁸ God has done it all! He sent Christ to make peace between himself and us, and he has given us the work of making peace between himself and others.

¹⁹ What we mean is that God was in Christ, offering peace and forgiveness to the people of this world. And he has given us the work of sharing his message about peace. ²⁰ We were sent to speak for Christ, and God is begging you to listen to our message. We speak for Christ and sincerely ask you to make peace with God. ²¹ Christ never sinned! But God treated him as a sinner, so Christ could make us acceptable to God.