Paul, who was saved by the blood of Christ, and knew it, considered himself chief of sinners. That's the kind of faith I want to have!!
Well, that explains why California is about to fall into the ocean! I wonder what kind of a teaching position I can get in Afghanistan!
John, I realize full well that you are just making a joke, but some new Christians who have never read the Bible might possibly take you as being serious and thus be led into a most abysmal error. Therefore I am going to address your post as though you actually were serious.
1 Timothy 1:15. It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost
of all.
1 Timothy 1:15 Pistos ho logos kai pases apodoches axios, hoti Christos Iesous elthen eis ton kosmon hamartolous sosai, hon protos eimi ego.
Paul is using here the same literary device (present active indicative first person singular) that he used in 1 Cor. 15:9,
1 Corinthians 15:9 For I am the least of the apostles, and not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.
1 Corinthians 15:9 Ego gar eimi ho elachistos ton apostolon hos ouk eimi hikanos kaleisthai apostolos, dioti edioxa ten ekklesian tou Theou,
Paul does this to bring to the forefront of the reader’s mind a state that was, in past time, dynamically real, but has no real bearing on the present circumstances. Unlike any of the other apostles, Paul had persecuted the Church that he now realized to be body of the Christ, and therefore, had persecuted Christ himself, making himself the foremost of sinners and the least of the apostle. Needless to say, upon Paul’s conversion to Christianity, his persecution of Christ came to an immediate, abrupt end, and the sin that he found to be so loathsome was entirely and exclusively in his past.
Acts 9:3. As he was traveling, it happened that he was approaching Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him;
4. and he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?"
5. And he said, "Who are You, Lord?" And He
said, "I am Jesus whom you are persecuting,
6. but get up and enter the city, and it will be told you what you must do."
You might ask, “How do we know for certain that we have here a literary device rather than a literal statement?” The answer to that question is very simple. If Paul was literally the foremost of sinners, that would mean that he was a worse sinner that Saddam Hussein, Ben Laden, and Adolph Hitler. But what does Paul have to say of himself in plain simple language:
Acts 22:3. "I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city, educated under Gamaliel, strictly according to the law of our fathers, being zealous for God just as you all are today.
4. "I persecuted this Way to the death, binding and putting both men and women into prisons,
5. as also the high priest and all the Council of the elders can testify. From them I also received letters to the brethren, and started off for Damascus in order to bring even those who were there to Jerusalem as prisoners to be punished.
Acts 23:1. Paul, looking intently at the Council, said, "Brethren, I have lived my life with a perfectly good conscience before God up to this day."
Acts 24:16. "In view of this, I also do my best to maintain always a blameless conscience
both before God and before men.
Rom. 1:9. For God, whom I serve in my spirit in the
preaching of the gospel of His Son, is my witness
as to how unceasingly I make mention of you,
10. always in my prayers making request, if perhaps now at last by the will of God I may succeed in coming to you.
Rom. 9:1. I am telling the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit,
2. that I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart.
3. For I could wish that I myself were accursed,
separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh,
4. who are Israelites, to whom belongs the adoption as sons, and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the Law and the
temple service and the promises,
5. whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.
2 Cor. 1:12. For our proud confidence is this: the testimony of our conscience, that in holiness and godly sincerity, not in fleshly wisdom but in the grace of God, we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially toward you.
2 Cor. 4:1. Therefore, since we have this ministry, as we received mercy, we do not lose heart,
2. but we have renounced the things hidden because of shame, not walking in craftiness or adulterating the word of God, but by the manifestation of truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.
2 Tim. 1:3. I thank God, whom I serve with a clear conscience the way my forefathers did, as I constantly remember you in my prayers night and day,
4. longing to see you, even as I recall your tears, so that I may be filled with joy.
(All translated scriptures are from the NASB, 1995)
