Paul's Honesty.

I am not quite sure why, but when I sat down to blog, this verse popped into my head...

"This is a trustworthy saying and everyone should accept it: 'Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners' -- and I am the worst of them all. But God had mercy on me so that Christ Jesus could use me as a prime example of His great patience with even the worst of sinners. Then others will realize that they, too, can believe in Him and receive eternal life." --1 Timothy 1:15-16.

I don't think that Paul is actually saying that he committed sins that were far worse than any other person who ever lived, but I do think that God humbled and convicted him of the sins he committed before he was a true follower of the Way. Paul says that he used to blaspheme the name of Christ...this is considered the "worst" sin, but all throughout the New Testament, God tells us that sin is sin...the wages of sin (any kind of sin) is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. It's amazing to see how God took Saul from being a persecutor of Christians to the prime example of the Christian striving after God's own heart. (This story is told in Acts 9 and retold in Acts 22).

The part that gets me about this 1 Timothy passage is that Paul says everything that he used to do ultimately demonstrated God's grace and His glory...Paul made the amazing statement that Christ made Paul a prime example of His patience. Being in a position of leadership these past few years has taught me that people just want an example to follow. It would be easy for leaders to try to win people over with their outgoing personalities and try to make themselves the archetype of the "cool Christian" so that people would want to be like them...it would be easy for them to lose sight of the fact that they are supposed to be pointing people to Christ, because worldly popularity brings so much more quick fulfillment. But Paul realized that God had not brought him from the mire and clay so that people would follow Paul, but to follow Christ in Paul. Our flaws are the ultimate way that we can relate to people and point them to Christ...His power is made perfect in weakness.

"And you should imitate me, just as I imitate Christ." --1 Corinthians 11:1.