Introduction

I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength, that he considered me trustworthy, appointing me to his service. Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief. The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.

Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life. Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

So, a little icebreaker to start out here. (This is the kind of thing you can do in a small church.) I’m going to give the title of an autobiography, and you tell me who the author is. Some of these might be known because they are famous, some because the title gives it away, some I just thought were funny.

The Diary of a Young Girl (Anne Frank)
Don’t Hassel the Hoff (David Hasselhoff)
Long Walk to Freedom (Nelson Mandela)
Becoming (Michelle Obama)
I Can’t Wait Until Tomorrow, Cause I Get Better Looking Every Day (Joe Namath)

The passage today is autobiographical, but Paul’s a little less flattering about himself than Mr. Namath. He calls himself “the worst of sinners” (which might have been the title of his autobiography), as well as “a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man”.

Paul the blasphemer

And it needs to be said that this description isn’t an exaggeration. As you read through the book of Acts, you get glimpses here and there of who Paul was. You recall that when Stephen was stoned (in Acts 7), the witness laid their coats at the feet of Paul as they stoned Stephen to death, and Paul heartily approved of the crowd’s actions. We’re told that, following that event, Paul “began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off both men and women and put them in prison.”

This misplaced zeal defined Paul’s life. Later in Acts, as Paul looks back on that period of life, he would say this (Acts 22):

I persecuted the followers of this Way to their death, arresting both men and women and throwing them into prison… (Acts 22:4)

“To their death”, Paul says. He persecuted Christians to their death if necessary.

So when Paul describes himself as a blasphemer, persecutor, and violent man, that’s no exaggeration.

“Well-intentioned” blasphemy?

Here’s what struck me as I was studying this passage. When I hear the word “blasphemy”, I tend to think of an irreligious blasphemy, or maybe a better way of saying it is blasphemy that is deliberately rebelling against God.

So, you know, when I was in my teens, some of the music I listened to was from your stereotypical heavy-metal bands, where, you know, part of the shtick (part of the marketing) is the shock-factor of cursing the name of God. That’s blasphemy.
Or maybe the academic in his ivory tower, who is too smart for God, and out of that position of arrogance ridicules the God of the Bible as a myth or a monster.
Or, you know, stories of deconversion, which are trendy right now, where high-profile people who once claimed to believe in Christ, become disappointed / disenfranchised in some way and reject God, turning their energies into efforts that mock God.

Those would all certainly qualify as blasphemy, but in all those cases the person is consciously choosing sides against God. That really isn’t the form it took in Paul’s life. His was a very (can we call it this?) well-intentioned blasphemy. At the time, Paul certainly wouldn’t have categorized his behavior as blasphemy. From what we just saw of Paul’s life, he truly believed that his intense zeal was in the service of God.

What we should see then is that zeal and sincerity are not enough. One can be seriously sincere, and also seriously deluded. And those delusions can have devastating consequences. Paul was committed to a false ideology, and his false beliefs are what fueled his persecution and violence against those who disagreed with him, all the while thinking that he is faithfully serving God.

And that, unfortunately, is a reality worth pondering for a minute because if we’re honest that strikes really close to home in our current culture, and in the church. We see this most clearly today, I would submit, where political ideologies get brought into the church. Where instead of the Bible being the authority, deriving our thinking from it, and letting that worldview stand in judgement of ideologies, the ideologies are treated as primary and then we find ways to sprinkle Bible verses on top to justify those ideologies. And this is on both sides. Where legitimate Christian terms and concepts like equality and justice (if you are on the one side), or responsibility and freedom (for the other side)—things we can and should be talking about—are hijacked to support ideologies that result … in what? Not in “love from a pure heart and sincere faith”, like verse 5 talked about, but rather the same types of “persecution and violence” against others that Paul’s path led him down.

One can be seriously zealous and sincere about one’s beliefs, and also be seriously wrong. That was Paul’s experience.

Christ’s mercy shown to us

But something changes in Paul’s life to rescue him from false ideology. And it’s the same thing that needs to happen today—an encounter with the living Savior. Back in 1 Timothy 1, in verse 13 Paul notes that he “was shown mercy”. In fact, look down at that whole first paragraph, from verses 12 to 14, and take note of who is contributing what in Paul’s calculus. Here’s what Paul is contributing:

“I was once a blasphemer”
“I was once a persecutor”
“I was once a violent man”
“I acted in ignorance”
“I acted in unbelief”

That’s Paul’s contribution, which if you are keeping score at home, adds up to zero. And here is God’s side of the equation:

“Christ Jesus gave me strength”
“Christ Jesus considered me trustworthy”
“Christ Jesus appointed me to his service”
“I was shown mercy”
“The Lord’s grace was poured out on me abundantly”
“The Lord’s faith was poured out on me”
“The Lord’s love was poured out on me”

It’s not a balanced equation at all. Paul’s contribution to salvation, just like ours, adds up to nothing. Really, less than nothing. We’re bringing sin and brokenness. It is despite who we are, that God has mercy through Christ Jesus.

Which leads to the trustworthy statement in verse 15, which is the gospel, and this is the main point. “Here is a trustworthy statement” comes up a few times in this letter and elsewhere in the New Testament, and we can basically translate that as “Here’s the main point; don’t miss this.” What Paul states here is the Gospel, the “good news”. Here’s the news: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” That’s good news because we all qualify! We’re all sinners!

We don’t come to Christ with the attitude that God’s really lucky to have us on His team. Boy, I am such a friendly person; God must have chosen me because He knows how good I’ll be at evangelism. Or boy, God must have chosen me because I’m so intelligent. Or eloquent. Or talented. Or insert-whatever-here. No, if you are a Christian here today, you made the team because “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” Congratulations!

Of whom I am the worst…

And then Paul adds this comment, “of whom I am the worst.” Now that phrase generates a lot of discussion. Some of the questions people debate about:

Is Paul talking about being the worst of sinners because of his past (his blasphemy, persecution, and violence that he talked about in the immediate context)? Or—notice the present tense—is he referring to his present life, even more aware of his sinfulness now that he is in Christ?
Does Paul intend for us to understand “the worst of sinners” as describing himself, or are we meant to read this as applying to ourselves as well? That is, should every Christian see him or herself also as the worst of sinners?

Those are interesting questions, and those would be good discussion fodder while we are eating or some other time if you are interested. I would just say here that those options are not necessarily as mutually exclusive as they might seem at first. That being said, in context I think Paul’s meaning is pretty clear. Continue reading in verse 16: “But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life.”

“If the mercy of Jesus Christ is great enough to save me,” Paul is saying, “and I used to MURDER HIS FOLLOWERS!—then certainly that should be sufficient to demonstrate that no one is outside of the mercy of God.” It doesn’t depend on you.

Your sexual brokenness doesn’t disqualify you. “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”
Your pride and pattern of lying to others to appear better than you are doesn’t disqualify you. “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”
Your addiction doesn’t disqualify you. “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”
Your greed and self-absorption doesn’t disqualify you. “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”

Christ’s mercy available to “them”

And … sin doesn’t disqualify “THEM”, whoever we label as “THEM”.

I think that’s one of the reasons that this passage exists in the context in which we find it. Note that what immediately precedes our passage is a list that Paul is contrasting with the righteous: “the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious, those who kill their fathers or mothers, murderers, the sexually immoral, those practicing homosexuality, slave traders and liars and perjurers.”

Reading a list like that, isn’t it our instinct to assume those people are outside of the realm of possibility of receiving God’s grace?

But that’s Paul whole point … they are NOT disqualified from the Gospel. He was one of them! He was ungodly, sinful, unholy, a murderer. If God’s mercy can be shown to Paul, then certainly it can be extended to them as well.

In the same way that your sins (my sins) don’t disqualify us, so also the sins of others don’t disqualify them.

Your boss who is a jerk and climbs the corporate ladder by exploiting workers and customers? “Christ Jesus came to save sinners”
Your neighbor who marches in support of abortion rights? “Christ Jesus came to save sinners”

To be clear, there is a distinction being made here, an “us vs. them”; verse 9 explicitly makes that connection. “The law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers”. NOT this, BUT that. But the distinction isn’t between “us” (whom God chose because of how awesome we are) and “them” (who are too sinful to be saved) but between the righteous (those sinners who have received God’s mercy) and the unrighteous (those sinners who have not YET received God’s mercy).

Or to put this another way, we can ask: “Is the gospel inclusive?” Wow, that’s a loaded term in today’s culture, huh? And I would say that it depends on how you define “inclusive”. Let’s say this circle is the set bounding Christianity and those outside of Christianity. The world’s definition of inclusivity would say that we need to stretch the boundaries of the circle. “Oh, you’re ok where you are, no need to change, we’ll just stretch to include you.” “Oh, it doesn’t matter what you believe about that, we’ll include you as well.” By that definition, the gospel is decidedly NOT inclusive. But if by inclusive, we mean that the boundary of this set is completely permeable, inviting anyone in regardless of what’s in their past, then yes, the gospel is infinitely inclusive.

There are many testimonies about murderers on death row who have a religious experience while awaiting execution and profess Christ as Savior. It’s easy to be cynical, and—to be sure—some of those are, I’m sure, insincere attempts to win favor. But by all accounts, many of those are genuine, and those persons will be, like the thief on the cross, in paradise, forgiven of their sins. Is that fair? Absolutely not. But none of this is fair. If we all got what was fair, we’d all be condemned, without hope. No, rather, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.

Gospel centrality while correcting error

That’s the first reason this passage is here, in this context: the gospel must remain central to keep us humble, reminding us that we are all on equal footing in terms of our dependence upon God’s grace.

I would submit that there’s a second reason this passage is here in its context, and to see that, we need to look at an even larger context, that of the entire chapter and letter.

There’s something very curious about this passage. Look down at your Bibles and take note of the flow of this chapter. In verses 3 and 5, Paul is giving Timothy a command: “To instruct certain people not to teach strange doctrines … the goal of this command is love…” The purpose of this letter, Paul says, is to help Timothy correct error that is in the church. Hang on to that piece of information, we’ll come back to that in about two minutes.

Paul then begins to explain the difference between correct doctrine and what characterizes false doctrine through verse 11. Now, pretend that verses 12 through 17 aren’t there at all, and skip down to verse 18. “This command I entrust to you, Timothy, my son, in accordance with the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you fight the good fight.” What command? The command from verses 3 and 5. Paul hasn’t changed subjects. In a way, verses 12-17 almost break up the letter, like they don’t really belong there.

Some conclude by this that Paul kinda lost his train of thought, you know, he starts talking about one thing then gets distracted and starts rambling on about himself. And then he’s like, “Oh sorry, what was I talking about? Oh yeah: this command, I entrust to you Timothy…” But if we believe in the divine inspiration of Scripture, we need to reject lazy explanations like that. Rather, we ask the question: how does this passage—about the centrality of the Gospel—inform the larger command of correcting error in the church?

There are two ways we can go astray when addressing sin and false doctrine in the church, and the gospel corrects for them both. The first mistake we can make is that we come at it with an attitude of arrogance and superiority. That’s sort of what we just talked about. The gospel reminds us that we’re all equality dependent upon God’s mercy and illumination, so the goal becomes restoration rather than “winning the argument” or “putting someone in their place”.

The second mistake we can make is that we don’t address sin and false doctrine at all, because we falsely believe that any form of rebuke, correction, or judgment, is in conflict with the gospel and Christ’s command to love. But quite transparently, if we take these verses seriously, Paul sees these as complementary, not conflicting. He says in verse 5 that “the goal of this command is love,” our passage today glories in the gospel, and then Paul proceeds throughout the letter to correct false teaching, sometimes in language that we might consider harsh.

Here’s how Paul describes these persons:

In chapter 1, they are devoted to myths, have turned to meaningless talk, don’t know what they are talking about, and have suffered shipwreck with regard to the faith.
In chapter 4, they are hypocritical liars, their consciences have been seared.
In the case of someone not caring for their relatives in chapter 5, they have denied the faith and are worse than an unbeliever.
In chapter 6, they are conceited and understand nothing.

So, either Paul is being a complete hypocrite … or our definition of love is influenced more by the priorities and agenda of an unbelieving culture than faithfulness to God’s word.

Rather than seeing this passage as a digression, or—God help us—as a conflicting message, we should see Paul’s glory in the Gospel as a necessary foundation while we are correcting false teaching. Both/and, not either/or.

Doxology

Paul concludes this passage in verse 17 with a doxology, and we’ll end with that as well. “Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.” That’s the appropriate response of every Christian when we reflect on what God has done for us in the person and work of Christ Jesus. We give him all the honor and glory. And again, to reinforce the same point: This is the God who showed us mercy: the king, the eternal one, the invisible one, the only God. God doesn’t need you or me. God doesn’t need our church. But he chooses to show mercy to us, that we might be his instruments to proclaim to others that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”