Seven days with Paul_I AM

There is a famous story that the London Times newspaper once asked a question to readers during the early 1900’s: What’s wrong with the world? That’s quite the question, isn’t it? How would you answer? We might say, “Well, how much time do you have for me to tell you?” And that would be fair, as there seems to be so much that’s wrong with our world.

The story continues that the newspaper received hundreds of responses, but one in particular caught everyone’s attention. The English writer, poet and philosopher G.K. Chesterton is said to have written this four-word response:

“Dear Sirs, I am.”

What do you make of that response? It’s nothing but true. Long before Chesterton gave that answer, the apostle Paul admitted how much he had messed up: “I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man” (1 TIMOTHY 1:13). After saying that Jesus came to save “sinners”, he added very honestly: “of whom I am the worst” (V.15). Paul knew exactly what was and is wrong with the world. And he knew the only hope of making things right: “the grace of our Lord” (V.14).

Jesus didn’t come into the world to judge us for our mess or to make us hang our heads in shame. He came to save us (JOHN 3:16-17)! In Jesus, we no longer need to be part of what’s wrong with the world.

Completing the picture . . .

Paul became a Christian when he met Jesus in a vision (ACTS 9). Before this, Paul had been a religious leader in Israel named Saul, and he had hated Jesus, Christians and the church (SEE PHILIPPIANS 3:1-14). He actively hunted Christians down, dragged them from their homes and threw them in prison (ACTS 8:3). When Paul later tried to join up with the apostles (Jesus’ first followers, like Peter) in Jerusalem, “they were all afraid of him, not believing he really was a disciple. But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles” (9:26-27). Paul was also an apostle, being “sent not from men nor by a man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father” to spread the gospel (GALATIANS 1:1).