Romans 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the Gospel (good news) of Christ, for it is God’s power working unto salvation [for deliverance from eternal death] to everyone who believes with a personal trust and a confident surrender and firm reliance, to the Jew first and also to the Greek, Why might someone be ashamed of the gospel of Christ? On the surface, the gospel seems like a strange message, it is about a Jewish carpenter and teacher who was put to death on a cross by Pontius Pilate, Roman governor of Judea in A.D. 26-36. The message says this man Jesus was raised from the dead and is now lord -the kurios. This title was used of God in the Greek Bible and was applied to the emperor by some Romans. Paul himself wrote that this message seemed foolish to Gentiles and was a stumbling block to Jews 1 Corinthians 1:23 We preach Christ (the Messiah) crucified, [preaching which] to the Jews is a scandal and an offensive stumbling block [that springs a snare or trap], and to the Gentiles it is absurd and utterly unphilosophical nonsense. Crucifixion was shameful. A crucified Messiah was a contradiction terms to the Jew. A crucified Jew seemed like foolishness to the Romans, who despised Jews in general. Paul had no confidence in his rhetorical skills to overcome the human objections to the message, but he knew the power of the spirit to change the lives of people as they heard the good news about Jesus death and resurrection. People are saved by faith, but faith is not the cause of faith of salvation. The cause of salvation is the grace of God, the will of God and the spirit’s power working through the message. Jam 2 (NKJV) ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¹⁹ You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble! ²⁰ But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead? This is an answer to mistaken assertion that belief in God by itself is sufficient for salvation. Demons believe but it is impossible for them to be saved. Saving faith entails more than mere knowledge. It includes trust and obedience, for faith without works dead. 1Pet 3 (NKJV) ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¹⁹ by whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison, ²⁰ who formerly were disobedient, when once the Divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water. The statement that Christ preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly were disobedient is extremely difficult to interpret. According to one plausible view , the spirit’s are the souls of people who died in the great flood (Gen 6-7) the preaching was done by the pre-incarnate ( The pre-existence of Christ asserts the existence of Christ prior to his incarnation as Jesus) Christ through Noah’s preaching to his disobedient contemporaries, while Noah made preparations for the flood. Peter could refer to Noah contemporaries as the spirits in prison” because when he wrote this letter they had been long dead, were incorporeal spirits (composed of matter; having no material existence), and were under confinement awaiting God’s final judgement. Another view is that Christ after His death and resurrection made a proclamation of victory over the demonnic spirits. In this view the “spirits” are evil angels.