Thursday
Thursday
The Testimony of Paul
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.
1 Timothy 1:15
The different responses to the coming of Christ were made not only by the immediate actors in the drama. We see them also in the later apostolic period, for example, in the apostles Paul and John. Today we listen to Paul: “Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst” (v. 15). Paul claims that his statement of the gospel is reliable (“a trustworthy saying”), universal (it “deserves full acceptance”), historical (“Christ Jesus came into the world”), liberating (he came “to save sinners”), and personal (“I am the worst,” because once the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin, we give up all odious comparisons).
I can never hear or read these words without thinking of Thomas Bilney, or “little Bilney” as he was called on account of his small stature. Elected in 1520 a Fellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, he was searching for peace but could not find it. But at last he wrote:
I chanced upon this sentence of St. Paul—this one sentence, through God’s instruction and inward working … did so exhilarate my heart, being before wounded with the guilt of my sins, and being almost in despair, that even immediately I seemed unto myself inwardly to feel a marvellous comfort and quietness, insomuch that “my bruised bones leaped for joy” (Psalm 51). After this, the Scripture began to be more pleasant unto me than honey or the honeycomb.
Bilney’s most notable convert was Hugh Latimer, who later became the popular preacher of the English Reformation. Latimer greatly admired the courage with which Bilney went to the stake for his evangelical faith; he referred to him in his sermons as “Saint Bilney.”
For further reading: 1 Timothy 1:12–17