Paul anticipates a potential objection. Didn’t he once persecute Christians? Didn’t he once engage in a mission to hunt down Hebrew Christians to force them to turn back to Judaism? Didn’t he stand by as an observer who approved of Stephen being stoned to death? Isn’t he like one of the very people who he has just being describing – one strongly opposed to Christian teaching? So he goes on to say, ‘I have thankfulness for the [one] having strengthened me, Jesus the Messiah, our Lord, that he led me faithfully, having placed me into service, 13 formerly being a blasphemer, a persecutor and damaging insulter’. (I Timothy 1 v 12 – 13a). Paul admits that this is exactly what he was like. But then he adds, ‘But I was shown mercy, because being ignorant I constructed within lack of faith, 14 and the graciousness of our Lord exceedingly abounded, in company with entrustment and beneficial love within the Messiah, Jesus’, (I Timothy 1 v 13b – 14). In effect, one of the things he is saying is that Christians do not act in the kind of ways that he has just been describing. He says, ‘Yes, its is true. I did act in that way, as persecutor and blasphemer, but I was acting in ignorance, within lack of knowledge and perception, and what I was doing was in the sphere of lack of entrustment and persuasion. This was how I was before I became a Christian.’ He then says that despite his excessive opposition, the free gift and mercy of God and His Messiah ‘exceedingly abounded’ – it was superabundant, it went beyond his self-forfeiture and was super-plentiful. God’s graciousness came in company with persuasion and entrustment – faith – and practical beneficial love within God’s anointed the Messiah.
