Scripture: 1 Timothy 1:12-17
From Last Lesson: The God Paul served and upheld was angry and unforgiving.
The only way of responding to people who didn’t appease God the way that Paul thought was appropriate was to condemn them with punishment or even death. Yes, Paul had, on occasion, something to do with death sentences to the people of God, and the killings were in God’s name. Can you imagine being so sure of your own conception of God that you would be willing to put to death or harm another person who found a different way of describing and relating to the same God?
We can understand the depth of Paul’s gratitude when he said to Timothy:
“And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who has enabled me, because He counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry, although I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man; but I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief” (1 Timothy 1:12-13).
That may be just a sentence to some of us, but it was a profound confession of Paul which, undoubtedly, still ripped him apart.
Paul had done a bit of thinking about why he, of all people, had been called out by God to minister precisely to those whom he had hated and hurt. How could he ever earn the right to speak to people he had abused and the survivors of those whose deaths he had instigated? Maybe with sins bringing about less dire consequences than these particular sins of Paul, many of us often wonder about our worthiness to do what we are convinced God is calling us to do. What right have I to proclaim to you the good news of God in Jesus Christ whose high standards I have not always kept and whom I have assuredly hurt through my carelessness and willfulness? I assure you that my being here and speaking to you about the most important truths in your lives has much more to do with God than with me.
I somehow take it as an act of maturity to be able to consider the possibility that we might not actually deserve something of value, something of pivotal consequence, or some great privilege which has come to us by grace alone. In terms of our faith and awareness of God’s great expressions of love, we can reflect, search, ponder, and study the matter for a lifetime and never find anything along the way that we did or could have done to earn all that God gives us.
The biblical writers at times just can’t come to grips with a God who is so loving and forgiving. Especially in the Old Testament we find writers who explain God’s grace in the face of human sinfulness as, actually, a change of God’s mind. The gist is that God, when people sin, has to be angry, offended, and instantly in the process of planning punishment when, for some unknown reason that seems to have more to do with luck than love, God changes His mind. That’s what happened one time when Moses was atop Mount Sinai in intimate conversation with God.
To Be Continued
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD 