1 Timothy 1.12-17 I Thank King Jesus our Lord, who gave me strength. He regarded me as trustworthy by appointing me to his service - even though I used to say blashphemous things against him, and persecuted his people violently! But i recieved mercy, because in my unbelief i didnt know what i was doing. And the grace of our Lord was more than enough for me, with the faith and love that are in King Jesus. Here is a word you can trust, which deserves total approval: King Jesus came into the world to save sinners - and Im the worst of them! But this was why i recieved mercy: so that in me, precisely as the worst, King Jesus could demonstrate the full scale of his patience, and make me a pattern for those who were going to believe in him and so attain the life of the age to come. To the King of the ages, the one and only God, immortal and invisible, be honour and glory to the ages of ages, Amen! When I was a boy, television was in its infancy. There was only one channel, and there wasnt very much to watch on it. But, when i graduated off the programmes for little children (Andy Pandy and Bill and Ben, the Flowerpot Men), there was one regular series that stands out in my mind: The Lone Ranger. I didnt know then what i know now, that the story of one Texas Ranger left alive after the death of colleagues and family fitted into a pattern of American stories which were shaped by, and then shaped in turn, the way many American saw the world. Like alot of young boys, I was excited by the exploits of this quiet, understated hero. The Lone Rangers horse, Silver, became almost as famous as the man himself. Silver shared his masters exploits, and seemed to understand exactly what he was doing and where he needed help. But when we first met Silver, at the start of the long and almost epic cycle of Lone Ranger stories, the horse is not only unbroken, untamed, but is assumed to be unbreakable, untamable. Tonto, the Indian who becomes the Lone Rangers close friend and ally, declares that it is impossible to tame a horse like that. There is an utter wildness and willfullness about him which would make normal horse tamers give up and try their skills on easier animals. But the Lone Ranger is not to be put off. This is the horse for him. By some secret means he calls the animal to be his, and the horse responds and gives him a lifetime of service. Now there are other interesting themes here as well, notably the biblical one of the truly human being who is put in charge of the animals ( see Genesis 2.19-20 ). But the point i want to make is this : from the moment when the Lone Ranger shows that he can tame the untameable horse and make it into his servant, and even in a measure his friend, the viewer knows that he will be able to conquer all other obstacles in his path as well. He has already taken the hardest case, and the easy ones will now be - well, easy. And that is precisely the point Paul is making when he talks of what God has done in his Life. God has taken the wildest, most violent of blaspheming persecutors, and has transformed him into not only a believer but also a trusted apostle and evangelist. If God can do that, there is nobody out there, no heart so hard, no anger so bitter, that it remains outside the reach of Gods patient mercy. This is the point of verses 15 and 16, which form the centre of this passage. Paul had been the worst sinner; the word for worst literally means first or chief. Chief Sinner - that, looking back, is how Paul sees his former life! Not that it had seemed like that at the time, of course; he had thought he was doing Gods will. Sincerity is clearly not enough. Now he realizes that his angry words against the early Christians had been blasphemous, slandering the people who were following King Jesus, and that the angry deeds that had gone with them were just like the persecutions that Gods people had always had to endure.He was doing to Gods true people what the wicked pagans had done to Israel in times past. The fact that he thought he was defending Israel against heresy only made it worse. This is the sort of man he had been. The Christians, doing their best to hide from his violent attacks, would surely have regarded him as way beyond the scope of Gods mercy. But nobody is beyond that loving reach. Paul adds an interesting note, similar to what he says about his fellow Jews in Romans 10.2-3: he was acting ignorantly, in unbelief. Just as Jesus had prayed that God would forgive the Roman soldiers who were nailing him to the cross, because they didnt know what they were doing (Luke 23.34), so Paul looks back and sees that he had had no idea what he was really doing. No doubt he would say the same about others in his condition. And God loves to show to just such people how patient and forbearing he really is (verse 16). Paul thus becomes a pattern, a model, for the way in which God reveals his love to the most unlikely people and brings them to faith. ANd, as always in Paul, faith in turn becomes the key to membership in the age to come, the new age for which the Jews had longed. Paul had originally supposed that the blasphemous nonsense of the Christian message might hold back the day when Gods new age would dawn for Israel and the world. Now he sees that the message is actually about this new age, dawning in Jesus and now spreading its light to all the nations. Paul has become one of the central agens of this spreading light. He finds new strength bubbling up inside him for the tasks to which God has called him, and he knows this comes from King Jesus himself ( verse 12 ). Whats more he knows that this is a sign that God is considering him trustworthy. In a world of suspicion, of lies and counter-lies, Gods project to save the world is built on trust. This seems intolerably risky: surely God isnt going to trust frail, fallible mortals? But that, too, is part of Gods strange way, the way of love. And its because of that intial trust that Paul can in turn trust others to help him in his work. Thats one part of what the Pastoral Letters are all about. As so often, the passage which seemed to be all about Paul s in reality all about God and his grace and love. So its quite appropriate that Paul ends it with an outburst of praise to the one true God ( verse 17 ). This is the line made famous in the great hymn of W. Chalmers Smith (1824-1908), Immortal, invisible, God only wise. When your train of thought brings you back to praise this one and only God, you know he is trusting you and equipping you for his service. That is one of the reasons why worship is central to all genuine Christian living. Paul for Everyone : The Pastoral Letters by Tom Wright
Posted on: Mon, 04 Nov 2013 18:52:12 +0000
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