1 Timothy 1:15

1 Timothy 1:15. This is a faithful saying. Better, ‘ Faithful is the saying.' The formula of citation is peculiar to the Pastoral Epistles, and in them occurs frequently (1 Timothy 3:1; 1Ti 4:9; 2 Timothy 2:11; Titus 3:8). It obviously indicates a stage of Christian thought in which certain truths had passed in a half proverbial form into common use and were received as axioms. Who first uttered them, and how they came to be so received, we do not know. What seems probable is that they were first spoken by prophets or teachers in the Church, approved themselves to its judgment, testing what it heard and ‘holding fast that which was good,' and then became the basis of catechetical teaching for children and converts. St. Paul clearly cites them as already known to Timothy.

Came into the world to save sinners. Here, for the first time, we find St. Paul using the phrase which was afterwards so characteristic of St. John's Gospel (John 1:9; John 3:19; John 6:14; John 11:27). It implies with him, as with St. John, a belief in the mystery of the Incarnation, and it defines the purpose of that Incarnation as being to save all who came under the category of ‘sinners' (Romans 5:8 ).

Of whom I am chief. Every word is emphatic. ‘I' more than any other, ‘am' as speaking not of a past state only, but of the present

first not in order of time, but as chief in degree. Compare the cry of the publican in the parable, ‘God be merciful to me the sinner,' Luke 18:13. Such is ever the cry of the conscience, when, ceasing to compare itself with others, it sees itself as in the sight of God.