Lectionary Commentaries for September 14, 2025
Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost

The people of God are called to experience and embody the heart of God. In this week’s lectionary reading, we learn that the heart of God involves, in the words of the late Bishop Barbara Harris, seeking “the least, the lost, and the left out.”¹ This is not something new in the ministry of Jesus. Luke has signaled God’s heart for the outsider repeatedly, even as early as the call of the tax collector Levi into Jesus’ community of disciples (Luke 5:27–32). In our divided and divisive times, this passage reveals that God is a God whose heart is insistent on closing chasms.

God’s radical embrace

To begin, it is crucial to pay attention to the opening words of the passage. “Tax collectors and sinners” are coming to Jesus (Luke 15:1). Preachers may need to unpack these terms for listeners. Tax collectors were often-despised individuals who gathered income on behalf of the Roman Empire. For many, they represented morally compromised people who were aligned with the oppressor of the Jewish people. “Sinners” is a rather general term to refer to individuals who are not included among the upright or righteous followers of God’s law.

These outcasts are welcomed by Jesus. Indeed, Jesus practices table fellowship with them—a significant theme already developed in Luke’s Gospel (see also 5:29–30; 11:38–42; 14:1–24). As one who “welcomes sinners and eats with them,” Jesus is declaring that the wayward are acceptable to God and find a home in God’s reign (15:2). Surprisingly, while the text later speaks of repentance, it is clear from the opening context that to be enfolded in God’s embrace is more about God’s decisive action in turning toward us than about us turning toward God (15:7, 10). Here, there is no obvious outward change among those Jesus welcomes and accepts—although this is not the case elsewhere in the Gospel of Luke (see, for example, 19:1–10).

Jesus’ radical hospitality leads to “grumbling” among the religious elite, described as “the Pharisees and the scribes” (15:2). The Pharisees and scribes were disciplined law-keepers. As individuals who sought to carefully follow Jewish teachings, they would’ve understandably been scandalized to see Jesus, in the words of the psalmist, sitting in the company of “the wicked” (Psalm 1:1). In this context, Jesus begins to tell “them” a parable (15:3).

While the lectionary focuses on 15:1–10, it is helpful to keep in mind that Luke intends for the entire chapter to be read as a single unit, which is why the word “parable” is singular. Still, the text clearly includes three parables or stories that demonstrate God’s radical embrace. Though these stories are commonly described as the parable of the lost sheep (15:4–7), the lost coin (15:8–10), and the lost son (15:11–32), they might also as easily be depicted as stories of the faithful shepherd, the desperate woman, and the prodigal father. In each one, something valuable is lost, found, and celebrated. Given the boundaries of the lectionary text, I will only comment on the first two stories.

God as faithful shepherd

In the first story, Jesus asks the audience to consider which of them, as a shepherd with 100 sheep, would leave 99 to find one that has strayed (15:4). In an agrarian society, a person with 100 sheep would be a person of modest means. Hence, while there is some scholarly debate, it is likely that Jesus expects that no one in his audience would do what the shepherd in the parable does.² The loss of one sheep is, in many ways, inconsequential if one still has 99.

However, Jesus is a different kind of shepherd. Building on the common image of God as shepherd in the Hebrew Scriptures (see also Psalms 23; 78:52; 80:1; 100:3; Ezekiel 34:11–16), Luke presents Jesus as one who refuses to rest while a single sheep strays from the flock. Even more, God rejoices over finding the lost sheep. The shepherd in the parable invites “friends and neighbors” to share in his joy (15:6).

The picture is quite extravagant. Why throw a party to celebrate finding one sheep? However, Jesus’ parable is meant to invite the religious leaders—the religiously devout pastors and preachers—to move from “grumbling” to “joy” (15:2, 7). The parable suggests that a cosmic celebration erupts over a sinner who repents, and everyone is invited to join the party.

God as desperate woman

The second story is similar, yet different. In 15:8, Jesus inquires, What woman with “ten silver coins” would fail to search for one that was lost? Women often didn’t have much status in the ancient world, and the one depicted in this story seems to be a poor woman. She has 10 silver coins or drachmas, which amount to about 10 days of wages for a common laborer.

Preachers might draw attention to how the intensity of the search for what is lost is more vivid in this story than in 15:4–7. For one, the woman lights “a lamp” (15:8). This isn’t the modern equivalent of simply turning on a light switch; rather, it involves ensuring that oil is replenished in a lamp so the candle stays lit. Two, given the arid conditions of the Mediterranean world, the woman decides to “sweep” what likely was quite a dusty and dirty floor (15:8). Third, Luke presents the persistence of the woman’s search. She looks “carefully until she finds” the silver coin (15:8, author’s emphasis).

Jesus describes his commitment to welcoming the outcasts by offering this striking portrait of a desperate woman who relentlessly searches for lost money. However, what is surprising is that when the lady finds the coin, she chooses to spend it, and likely the rest of her money, on throwing a party with “her friends and neighbors” (15:9). The picture is even more outrageous than the modest shepherd’s celebration. God is a God who celebrates finding the lost, without restraint.

Sermonic possibilities

Preachers might consider many questions as they engage this passage sermonically. For one, who will your preaching audience most identify with in the lectionary reading? Jesus is speaking directly to the Pharisees and the scribes, but this may or may not be the only audience to focus a sermon on. For example, who might be those deemed “tax collectors and sinners” in your midst? And what does “lostness” look like among your listeners?

Second, related to this, how might the sermon offer a vivid picture of what it means to embody God’s expansive embrace as individuals and as a community? It may be helpful to offer an actual or aspirational example of enacting God’s embrace of the outsider. For the courageous, it may even be worthwhile to create a communal time for prayerful reflection where people share how the Spirit might be leading them to embody God’s heart in our times of social and political fragmentation.

Notes

1. Martha Simmons and Frank A. Thomas, eds., Preaching with Sacred Fire: An Anthology of African American Sermons, 1750 to the Present (W. W. Norton, 2010), 696.
2. See Joel B. Green, The Gospel of Luke (Eerdmans, 1997), 641; and James R. Edwards, The Gospel According to Luke (Eerdmans, 2015), 591.

This passage is part of the golden-calf episode. The previous verses (Exodus 32:1–6) describe the Israelites’ request and Aaron’s compliance to mold a calf from gold that would lead the Israelites since Moses has been absent for a long time. That calf was referred to with the words “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.” Whether this calf represents a foreign god or YHWH, the God of Israel, does not matter in evaluating this incident as a form of idolatry. YHWH has prohibited the Israelites from representing the deity in any material form (Exodus 20:1–5). Idolatry is a human attempt to have control over an unfathomable God. 

The fact that the text uses the plural “gods,” whereas Aaron only molded one calf, supports the argument that this incident is a parody of King Jeroboam’s golden calves that he set in Bethel and Dan (1 Kings 12:28). In this sense, the golden-calf story is a criticism of the state’s monopoly over faith and religion. When humans act out of fear, they fashion idols for themselves that lead them away from their covenantal relationship with God. 

Human apostasy, however, is not the final word. The prophet-leader Moses intercedes on behalf of the people, and the God of the covenant, though angry at the people and threatening to bring about judgment, still desires to dwell in their midst. Hence, this story is surrounded by the instructions for (Exodus 25–31) and the building of the divine abode, the Tabernacle (Exodus 35–40). 

God’s response to the golden calf (32:7–10)

While the people celebrated in front of the golden calf, YHWH was in conversation with Moses about their fate (32:6). The Lord said to Moses, “Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely.” In Exodus 5:1, YHWH told Pharaoh, “Let my people go, so that they may hold a festival (ḥg) for me in the wilderness.” However, in this instance, the festival and sacrifices were offered to the golden calf (32:5–6). Consequently, “my people” shifts to “your people,” and it is no longer YHWH who delivered them from Egypt but rather Moses who is credited with that (32:7). 

Although the people sought to draw nearer to the deity by creating a tangible image, their sin of idolatry alienated them from their God, who had claimed them as God’s people through the covenant. 

The word that describes the people as “acting perversely” or “have become corrupt” (šḥt; 32:7) is used in the flood story to describe all humanity (Genesis 6:12). The people quickly turned away from the path YHWH had commanded them to follow. Up to this point, the Hebrew word drk, “way or path,” has not been used to refer to the divine commandments. But the word is used elsewhere in Exodus to refer to the path the people must take to worship, celebrate, and sacrifice to YHWH in the wilderness (3:18; 5:3; 8:27). 

The people deviated from this path by prostrating themselves to the golden calf and offering sacrifices to it (32:8). Now it has become visible to YHWH that these people are “stiff-necked” (qšh ‘rp). Earlier in the book of Exodus, the word “hard” or “stiff” described Pharaoh’s heart (7:3). Here, the text uses the same adjective as an attribute of the people of Israel (see also Ezekiel 2:3; 3:7; Jeremiah 17:23). YHWH is not very hopeful about the people. Therefore, the deity asks Moses to let YHWH alone to grow in anger to the point of consuming them. YHWH’s alternate plan is to make a great nation out of Moses (32:10). 

Moses bargains with YHWH

But Moses did not leave YHWH alone. Instead, he opposed YHWH’s plans to consume the people in anger. Moses resisted the temptation to be the nexus of a new nation. In this way, Moses models a leadership that does not seek personal greatness at the expense of the people. With the boldness of a person called to a great task such as that of leading YHWH’s people from oppression to freedom, Moses pleaded before the Lord. 

To implore (ḥlh + pnh) the deity means seeking the favor of this God (see also 1 Kings 13:6; 2 Kings 13:4). It almost means to be sick before God from the intensity or the humility of entreating. Moses’ boldness to confront a deity who is powerful and angry at the people is rooted in the recognition of his place in relation to this God. Moses can do this because YHWH is described as “his God.” 

Moses reminds YHWH that the deity was the one who brought the people out of the land of Egypt. YHWH did such a miracle with great power and a strong hand (Exodus 32:11). Bringing the people out of Egypt is ultimately YHWH’s project to form a covenantal people that would embody justice. Moses would not have been able to do it alone, without YHWH’s leadership. This is the reverse of the call of Moses. 

In Exodus 4, YHWH assures Moses of the ability to bring the Israelites out of Egypt. Here, it is Moses who is reminding YHWH of the meaning of all this work. An essential part of the exodus was that YHWH would be known to the Israelites and also to the other nations, especially the Egyptians (7:5). Therefore, Moses raises the question: What will the other nations say about YHWH, and what kind of message will be proclaimed if YHWH destroys the people in the wilderness? (32:12; compare Ezekiel 20:8-10; Numbers 14:13-19). Then, Moses asks YHWH to “turn” from the deity’s fierce anger and to repent (nḥm)—that is, to change God’s mind and decision to bring calamity (r’h) against the people. 

The basis upon which Moses relies in his prayer is that this great act of leading the people out of Egypt is essentially a continuation of God’s faithfulness to the divine covenant with the ancestors to whom YHWH had promised descendants like the stars of heaven who would possess the land (32:13). In response to Moses’ prayer, the text states that YHWH repented—that is, God’s mind was changed toward the people of Israel (see also Jonah 4:2). This verb “to repent, to change one’s mind, to relent” (nḥm) shows that God in the Old Testament is a relational God who responds to human prayers. 

Theological questions around sin and forgiveness

The rest of the chapter reflects a more complex picture of the relationship between human sin, divine grace, and justice. For example, though Moses calmed the deity who was angry when he came down from the mountain, he too was angry and asked the Levites to participate in violent retribution against those who worshipped the calf (Exodus 32:19–28). Moses also confronted the people with their transgression, telling them he would go and seek divine forgiveness (32:30). One would assume that Moses’ prayer earlier in the chapter was sufficient (32:7–14). Further, God, who seemed to have forgiven the people, still brought a plague to punish those who sinned (32:33–35). 

And finally, while the divine speech says that judgment will be in the future, it actually takes place immediately. Thus, it seems that this chapter is wrestling with some important theological questions around sin and forgiveness: Does the divine judgment impact the whole people or only those who have sinned? Is the judgment immediate or in the future? Is it the responsibility of the prophet-leader to bring violence against those who sinned, or to intercede on their behalf?

Have you ever read Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day to your children?¹ This is a rare children’s book in which the main character, a young boy named Alexander, has a very bad day; the entire book is focused on what goes wrong for Alexander. He wakes up with gum in his hair, and the day gets worse from there. A host of bad things happen to Alexander as he goes to school and the dentist and then eventually comes home for the night. The evening ends with his cat going to sleep with his brother instead of him.

I appreciate this book because it doesn’t sugarcoat that sometimes children will encounter bad days or seasons in their lives that are hard to navigate and require experiencing the full range of human emotions, including the hard ones, such as anger, hurt, and sorrow, which are often minimized or less valued in our culture.

Our biblical text envisions or describes just such a season for the people of Israel, albeit with far bigger consequences and more violent realities than Alexander faced. This is an unrelentingly terrible, horrible, no good, very bad vision of the future for Israel. As you consider which passages to preach to your community, note the following: If you are looking for good news in this biblical text, you will need a magnifying glass. If you are looking for hope in this biblical text, there is none. If you are looking for the goodness of God, look elsewhere. There is only evil, destruction, ruin, violence, anger, judgment, and mourning.

This passage can be interpreted as either foretelling or retelling the Babylonian conquest. The exact dating of when this was written is not known. During the life of Jeremiah, the nation had undergone a period of intense social and religious upheaval. The reign of Josiah saw the implementation of intense religious and cultural reforms, eradicating idolatry, destroying sites of idol worship, restoring the temple in Jerusalem, and removing foreign cultural influences. However, Josiah’s reforms were short-lived, and they ended upon his death.

After the brief reign of Jehoahaz, who was dethroned by the Egyptian pharaoh and forcibly removed to Egypt, Jehoiakim was installed as king. Biblical and rabbinical sources document him as being incredibly violent, idolatrous, and unjust. Under his reign, Judah increasingly became a pawn in the conflict between Babylonian and Egyptian powers, resulting in vassal status. Jehoiakim was beholden to external powers (Egypt and Babylon), switching allegiances, which would eventually result in his execution by Babylon after they besieged Jerusalem in 597 BCE.

Shortly after his death at the hands of the Babylonians, much of Judah would be led into Babylonian exile. Ten years later, Judah rebelled, and the Babylonians besieged the city and destroyed the temple and the entire city. The nation was brutally devastated.

This passage vividly foretells or describes the human and ecological impact of the Babylonian conquest. The conquering forces are described as approaching like an unrelenting and violent wind that will destroy all within its path. (Graphic imagery of the human trauma of war can be found in verses 13–21.) The images of ecological devastation hauntingly evoke all-too-familiar images from contemporary war zones in Ukraine and Gaza, in which unstoppable imperial forces have wreaked unchecked havoc on a much smaller country. The land is empty (verse 23). Everything that once stood or lived has been destroyed or has fled (verse 26). Entire cities and towns that were once vibrant are piles of rubble.

There are haunting interpretative possibilities in the ecological themes of this text. The land is quaking in pain and fear (verse 24). Birds have been forced to migrate (verse 25). Drought and heat have devastated what was once fertile (verse 26). The earth is grieving, and the sky is dark and foreboding (verse 28). While this ecological destruction is the consequence of war, the imagery also evokes the destruction of disasters caused by climate change, and there is interpretative room to contextualize this to our contemporary world, which is simultaneously devastated by war and environmental crises.

If there is any whiff of good news to be found in this biblical text, it is in verse 27, which states that though the land will be severely harmed, it will not be completely and finally destroyed. This contrasts with the unrelenting nature of the rest of the passage, which concludes with God’s declaration of unwillingness to change God’s mind or to reverse this judgment (verse 28).

This passage invites us to sit with a horrific vision of judgment and destruction as the result of evil and wickedness. The theology here is devastating. God is represented as ensuring the destruction of God’s people. Similar theological images can be found throughout Jeremiah. As a preacher, how do you engage Jeremiah’s theology?

One of the most important and advanced skills my preaching students can develop is the ability to contest and disagree with biblical texts, and Jeremiah requires much contesting if you do not wish to endorse a theology of a punitive, violent God who (within that theology) may be considered one of the most violent single forces in human history.

Even as my own theology leads me to strongly critique the potential violence of God glimpsed in this text, I still try to sit with this haunting description of judgment. As a justice-minded theologian, I believe in a God who will judge evil, and this passage invites me into the uncomfortable space of reconciling that with my understanding that God would not commit mass or systemic violence. Disagreeing with and contesting this biblical text can also be accompanied by deep humility in which we realize our own theological and human limitations.

Like our children, who can recognize and learn much about their own lives through reading about another child’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, maybe we can find connection and meaning in our war-torn and environmentally devastated world through reading about a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day faced by God’s people long ago. Maybe we can develop our capacity to sit amid the anxiety, grief, trauma, and pain that war and ecological disaster are forcing upon us.

Notes

1. Judith Viorst. Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (New York: Athenum Books, 1972).

Christians attending mainline congregations are unlikely to come to worship thinking about their “sin” (verses 2, 3), “iniquity” (verse 2), or “transgressions” (verses 1, 3). It’s not that they lack experience in these matters; they are human beings! However, they likely dwell on that experience using different terms (for example, failure, not enough-ness). Additionally, the human attempt to justify ourselves by denying or diminishing our sin is strong. Thus, your people may need help sensing the resonance between the psalmist’s lack of trust in God and their own (lack of trust in God being understood as the root of all sin, regardless of how the symptoms of that distrust manifest in particular sins).

This is a good Sunday to take additional care with the prayer of Confession and Forgiveness, or to consider incorporating those elements into the service.

Words like “mercy” (verse 1) and “love” (verse 1) are likely more familiar to mainline Christians. Due to that very familiarity, however, the potent shock of these things being sought in faith by one we may feel is undeserving (those whom mainstream culture would wish to “cancel,” those who have harmed us personally, the person we are on our worst days) might be lost. The preacher can show the hearers what mercy and love look, sound, and feel like for this psalm to more easily speak good news to the hearers’ lives as sinners also in need of God’s promised abundant mercy and steadfast love, which is for them in Christ through the Holy Spirit.

Psalm 51 is attributed to King David as a repentant response to God after being confronted by the prophet Nathan about his adultery with Bathsheba and murder of Uriah in 2 Samuel 11 and 12. This narrative contains a series of events that easily speak across the centuries and may serve to deepen the resonance of this psalm for those in the pew by providing tangible examples of what the noted terms above can look like. In doing so, however, the preacher will want to keep a few things in mind.

Don’t minimize David’s sin.

David does not deny what he has done, nor does he seek to justify what he has done as “not so bad” or “not as bad as those other people’s sins.” He writes this psalm because he recognizes that his need for blotting out (verses 1, 9), washing (verses 2, 7), cleansing (verses 2, 7), and purging (verse 7) is greater than what any human being could provide. He acknowledges that he has done evil. He asks God to create him a brand-new heart, because his own is so thoroughly corrupt. Minimizing sin masks humanity’s need to be created anew; it obscures our death-and-life need for the gospel.

David’s sin is in the pews.

The likelihood is high that there are people in the room who have committed adultery, pursued a relationship with someone who is married, committed sexual assault or rape, put another in harm’s way to protect themselves, or in some other way abused their power to get what they want without regard for others. The likelihood is also high that there are people in the room who have had one or more of these sins committed against them. Preachers sometimes talk about sin in a way that keeps it safely “out there,” as though we are the righteous ones who don’t struggle with these things. The church, however, is made up entirely of human sinners.

Psalm 51 is for human sinners. The gospel is for human sinners. The preacher needs to sensitively and unconditionally proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ both for those who have done these things and for those who have suffered because of these things.

David’s sin and our sin are against God.

In 2 Samuel 12:13, David says in response to Nathan’s condemnation, “I have sinned against the LORD.” In the psalm, David writes, “Against you, you alone, have I sinned” (verse 4). While most people will understand how David sinned against Bathsheba and Uriah, some might not sense that David’s sin is also against God. The preacher might take a brief detour to the first commandment: “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3; Deuteronomy 5:7).

In his Large Catechism, Martin Luther interprets this commandment as clinging to God with our whole heart and entrusting our entire lives to God as the one from whom we expect all good things. He names this commandment as the most important, to the point that all the rest of the commandments return to it and depend on it, “so that end and beginning are completely linked and bound together.”¹ David sinned against God by clinging and entrusting his life not to God but to his own desires and by expecting good things not from God but from himself. The same is true for each of us daily, as “no one is able to keep even one of the Ten Commandments as it ought to be kept.”²

David trusts in God’s mercy.

The existence of this psalm reveals David’s trust that what he seeks will be granted. Consider the intimacy of being cleansed by another, the vulnerability of entrusting your physical body to someone else. This is the imagery David returns to again and again, all the way down to his heart, revealing his trust in the steadfast love of the God to whom he prays.

In Christ, whose arms we see stretched out on the cross to embrace the world that is murdering him, reconciling all things to Godself, we can trust God this wholly. The preacher might even invite their people to close their eyes and place their hands on their hearts, prayerfully entrusting their own hearts, bodies, and lives to the One whose steadfast love and abundant mercy are theirs in Christ through the Spirit.

Notes

1. Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert, ed., The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, trans. Charles P. Arand et al. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000), 430.
2. Kolb, 428.

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.