Creation Continues

Date: Tuesday, November 10, 2026

Check out this overview of 1 Timothy from the Bible Project for context of what's ahead.

Readings: 1 Timothy 1 | Psalm 109:1-15

Welcome to the Pastoral Epistles! For the next stretch we're reading mail from a seasoned apostle to his young protégés Timothy and Titus. Timothy was pastoring a complicated church in Ephesus sometime in the 60s AD. Paul's letters to him show the gospel growing up and getting organized. The same grace that thundered at Pentecost now has to appoint leaders, care for the vulnerable, and push back on teachers peddling spiritual nonsense. It's the long story of God's people, from Abraham's tents to Israel's tabernacle, now carried on as one Church gathered around Jesus in many small communities around the world.

Paul opens with his own rap sheet: "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost" (1 Timothy 1:15). Notice the present tense. Paul doesn't say "I was." Paul implies that sin and temptation is still running rampant, but he has come to "truly understand God's grace" as he wrote in his letter to the Colossians (Colossians 1:6). Paul is trying to encourage a young pastor to teach the Ephesian church that striving for perfection is not the goal; resting in God's love is. Paul says that God saved him so that Christ could show "his perfect patience as an example" to everyone who would come after (v. 16).

Think of Mitsuo Fuchida, the Japanese naval aviator who led the air attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. After the war, a disillusioned Fuchida was handed a pamphlet by Jacob DeShazer, an American Doolittle Raider who had come to faith reading a Bible as a prisoner of war in Japan. Fuchida bought a Bible of his own, and when he reached Jesus' prayer from the cross, "Father, forgive them," something broke open in him. He became a Christian in 1950 and spent the rest of his life preaching the gospel, including to the very nation he had once attacked. That's the logic of 1 Timothy 1: God loves to choose the least likely candidates and say, "Watch this." Your worst chapter isn't disqualifying. In God's hands, it may become the turning point for realizing that God is still doing His work of creation in you.

Devotional Prompts:

• Why do you think Paul calls himself the "foremost" of sinners in the present tense rather than the past?
• How does the order of God's work in Paul's life (mercy first, then service) challenge the way you think about "mission" work?

Prayer: Patient Lord, You came into the world not for the polished but for sinners like me. Turn the chapters I would rather hide into testimonies of Your mercy, so that others may see Your patience and believe. Through Christ Jesus, our hope. Amen.