I'm a former drug addict, and for years I couldn't read this verse without tears because Paul calls himself the worst of sinners. He's the chief of sinners, he says, but he received mercy. That's not flowery language for him. He's reminding Timothy and himself that mercy isn't given to people who deserve it. It's given to people like Paul, like me.
There's a particular kind of shame that comes with a real, serious past. Not the shame of falling short of perfection, but the shame of having genuinely hurt people, having done things that justified the anger of those you harmed. That shame tells you that you're permanently disqualified from redemption and usefulness. Paul's claim that he was the foremost sinner yet received mercy directly contradicts that shame narrative.
What restored my life wasn't stopping using drugs, though that was necessary. It was encountering this impossible mercy. Not the kind that minimizes what I did, but the kind that says even the worst genuinely can be recipients of grace. Now decades sober, I try to be that presence for others coming out of addiction—living proof that Paul's promise about mercy extends even to the chief of sinners.
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