Commentary on 1 Timothy 1:12-17

Today’s epistle reading, 1 Timothy 1:12–17, is a thanksgiving section within the letter’s opening—a common feature in the Pauline letters. Yet, rather than thank God “for what God has done through Christ in and for the various churches (see Romans 1:8; 1 Corinthians 1:4; 1 Thessalonians 1:2), here the gratitude is to Christ for what he has done for Paul.”¹ This portion of 1 Timothy thus focuses on Paul’s experience of becoming a Christ-follower and what that experience conveys about God.

If Paul’s “conversion” was the solution for his misguided life, what was Paul’s problem before his transformational experience? Growing up in the church, I was often taught that one of Paul’s issues before his Damascus Road experience was that, despite his efforts, he could not live a morally upright life; more specifically, he could not manage to keep the law.

In several places, however, Paul indicates that he was actually quite good at keeping the law (Philippians 3:6). He had, in fact, been better at it than most (Galatians 1:14; see also Acts 22:3; 26:5).² Similarly, 1 Timothy does not indicate that Paul struggled to keep the law. The epistle only references the law three times (1:8–11), and none of those references involve Paul’s (in)ability to keep it. What, then, was his moral problem before his dramatic transformation?

The author of 1 Timothy states the matter plainly in 1:13: Paul was “formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence” (New Revised Standard Version). The first of Paul’s moral failings was that he was a “blasphemer” (blasphēmos), which is to say that he somehow spoke against God or spoke slanderously in relation to God. Paul’s previous, problematic use of speech is not a common theme in the Pauline letters (though see also Acts 9:1; 26:10–11). The author adds that Paul had been a “persecutor, and a man of violence,” traits that are indeed characteristic of Paul’s autobiographical statements.

In the undisputed letters, Paul writes, for example, that in his “zeal,” he had been “a persecutor of the church” (Philippians 3:6, New Revised Standard Version). To the Galatians, Paul combines the language of violence and persecution: “I was violently persecuting the church of God and was trying to destroy it” (Galatians 1:13, New Revised Standard Version). Because of that persecution, he labeled himself “the least of all the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle” (1 Corinthians 15:9, New Revised Standard Version).

The author of 1 Timothy portrays Paul’s past life similarly. According to our focus text, Paul’s problem before receiving a revelation of Christ was not that he could not stop sinning in general; his problem was that he violently opposed God’s work in Christ in both speech and action. Such conduct flowed from his “acting ignorantly in unbelief” (agnoōn epoiēsa en apistia; 1 Timothy 1:13b).³

In sum, due to his ignorance and lack of faith, Paul was a blasphemer who violently persecuted the church and opposed God’s work. Every form of historical storytelling requires selectivity in what is and is not included. By choosing to narrate these aspects of Paul’s past life, the author of 1 Timothy portrays him as having been “the foremost” of sinners (1 Timothy 1:15).

The author’s abysmal descriptions function not only to showcase Paul’s radical transformation—he is now “strengthened” by Christ, evaluated as faithful, and appointed to serve (1 Timothy 1:12)—but, above all, to emphasize the gracious and merciful character of God’s work in Christ. The author establishes bluntly that Christ’s purpose for coming into the world was “to save sinners” (1:15). In response to Paul’s sin in particular, “the grace of our Lord overflowed … with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus” (1:14 New Revised Standard Version).

Moreover, Christ extends mercy and displays patience toward Paul (1:16). The depths of Paul’s prior behavior and sinfulness are overcome by the immeasurable grace, mercy, love, and patience of Christ toward him. These putative self-descriptions are, in the end, not merely “about Paul.” They reveal the power of God to change the lives of even the most corrupt and harmful people. Paul’s life functions as “the prototype for everyone who subsequently comes to believe in Jesus Christ,” and provides “a reliable example of how God deals with sinners,” namely, with mercy and salvation.⁴

This pericope portrays the revelatory power of a human life transformed. One can, of course, simply name that Christ is gracious, loving, patient, and merciful. Yet the author’s paradigmatic use of Paul’s story reminds readers that divine love and mercy do not exist merely in the abstract; love and mercy are necessarily relational virtues. One cannot love or show mercy without having an intended recipient of that love and mercy.

Concerning the passage at hand, the story of Paul’s life reveals to the world not only that God loves but that God loves and has transformed Paul. The narrative of Paul’s radically changed life, even if shared only in snippets, serves as a vehicle for the revelation of both Christ’s merciful love and God’s eternal honor and glory. Such is the power of narrative, of testimony, and of a life that embodies divine transformation. Paul’s life functions as an “example” for the “display” of Christ’s love in the world (verse 16).

So too, the text beckons readers to embody the features of a transformed life in a way that reveals God’s overflowing grace and Christ’s merciful love in the world. Put simply, a transformed life can be revelatory: It can reveal that God not only loves in general, but that God loves and transforms individua people.

Notes

1. Jouette M. Bassler, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, ANCT (Nashville: Abingdon, 1996), 42.
2. One might refer to Romans 7:7–25. Yet, I agree with scholars who argue that there, Paul writes not autobiographically but “in character.” For foundational arguments on that point, see Stanley Stowers, A Rereading of Romans: Justice, Jews, and Gentiles (New Haven.: Yale University Press, 1994), 1–41.
3. Bassler, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, 44.
4. Annette Bourland Huizenga, 1–2 Timothy, Titus, Wisdom Commentary (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 2016), 8.