Who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and insolent: but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief.
All Commentaries on 1 Timothy 1:13 Go To 1 Timothy 1
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
From being a persecutor he was changed into “a preacher and the teacher of the nations.” “Previously,” he says, “I was a blasphemer and persecutor and an insolent man. But the reason I obtained mercy was this, that Christ Jesus might demonstrate his forbearance first of all in me, and for the instruction of those who were going to trust him for eternal life.” It is by the grace of God, you see, that we are saved from our sins, in which we are languishing. God alone is the medicine that cures the soul. The soul was well able to injure itself but quite unable to cure itself. In the body, too, after all, people have it in their power to get sick, but not equally in their power to get better. I mean, if they exceed the proper limits, and live selfindulgent lives and do all the things that undermine the constitution and are injurious to health, the day comes, if that’s what they want, when they fall sick. When they’ve so fallen, though, they don’t get better. In order to fall sick, you see, they apply themselves to selfindulgence. But in order to get better, they must apply the doctor’s services to their health…. And so it goes with the soul.
