Chief among sinners

Farmington United Methodist Church, Sept. 14, 2025

Kafeole from Agde, France, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

1 Timothy 1:12–17 (CEB)

I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength because he considered me faithful. So he appointed me to ministry even though I used to speak against him, attack his people, and I was proud. But I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and without faith. Our Lord’s favor poured all over me along with the faithfulness and love that are in Christ Jesus. This saying is reliable and deserves full acceptance: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” — and I’m the biggest sinner of all. But this is why I was shown mercy, so that Christ Jesus could show his endless patience to me first of all. So I’m an example for those who are going to believe in him for eternal life. Now to the king of the ages, to the immortal, invisible, and only God, may honor and glory be given to him forever and always! Amen.

For better or worse, Paul is, or seems to be, the source of more of our Christian theology and teaching than anyone except Jesus. Letters written by or attributed to Paul — Bible scholars argue constantly over who wrote what — make up a large part of the New Testament. The book of Acts, our history of the early church, puts a heavy focus on Paul and his travels. It is from Paul’s letters that we get a lot of details about what it means to follow Jesus. Paul had a…