When I was younger, I used to be a VORACIOUS reader. I was one of two kids in my kindergarten class who could read before they started school, and I was devouring classic novels like *Jane Eyre* and *Les Misérables* for fun by junior high. I was the kid reading under the covers at midnight to keep from getting into trouble for being up so late. I always finished the books assigned for English class weeks before everyone else did - the ONLY homework that I ever finished early, by the way. My appetite for books significantly decreased later in my education when reading started to feel less like a banquet and more like force-feeding, but during my formative years, I spent the vast majority of my free time with my nose buried in a book.
Suffice it to say that all of this reading gave me quite the precocious vocabulary for someone of my tender years. There was only one problem: while I knew a lot of words, I’d only ever seen them in print. I had no idea what they were supposed to sound like spoken out loud. So for years - YEARS - I went around thinking that “colonel” was pronounced “co-LONE-ee-ul”, “segue” only had one syllable, “indict” was pronounced “in-DICKT”, and “epitome” was “EH-pih-tome”, just to name a few. I had absolutely no idea what to do with “queue” or “phlegm”, so I mostly just tried to avoid saying them altogether.
Now obviously, I eventually figured out the correct pronunciations. Was it embarrassing to find out that I’d been casually mispronouncing these words for years? You bet. Was it hard to rewire my brain to associate those particular arrangements of letters with new sounds? Absolutely (I may or may not have even struggled a bit saying a few of them out loud just now). But did it ever occur to me to double down on my pronunciations and refuse to change the way I said these words? Of course not. That would be absurd. My mistake could be overlooked *before* I was told the correct pronunciations, because I just didn’t know any better. But once I learned the truth, refusing to pronounce them the right way would have come across as stubborn at best and arrogant at worst. I had no excuse not to say them correctly. Because as Maya Angelou says, “When you know better, you do better.”
The writer of 1 Timothy seems to feel the same way - or at least, he believes that Jesus does. Not about how to pronounce words, of course, but about what we do when we discover that we’ve been wrong about something, using Paul as an example. We all know how awful Paul was before his encounter with the risen Christ on the road to Damascus. In case we’ve forgotten, 1 Timothy offers a blunt reminder: he was a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence, according to the NRSV translation. And yet, God still saw fit to call Paul to ministry.
While other accounts of this story (in Acts and Galatians) don’t give much of an explanation as to why this is the case, 1 Timothy offers a rare glimpse into the logic behind God’s decision. The writer clarifies that God chose to show Paul mercy *because he had been acting in ignorance and without faith*. As terrible as Paul can now see that his actions were, he genuinely thought he was doing the right thing at the time. But after he (quite literally) saw the light, he immediately changed his ways. Once he knew better, he did better.
Now, of course hindsight is 20/20. It’s easy for us to sit here and cheer Paul on, knowing and believing what we do about the gospel. It’s clear to *us* that he made the right choice. But think about what the experience must have been like for him in the moment. Setting aside the terror of his temporary blindness, things that Paul had believed for his entire life, that were at the very core of his faith, were being challenged by someone he’d never met before - someone who at that point had zero authority over his life. A defensive response to Christ doesn’t seem quite as unreasonable from this perspective, does it?
Think about where you’ve seen this very thing happening in your life - especially the times that *you’ve* fallen into the trap of defensiveness. Think about when God’s beloved children have spoken about how certain actions have caused them harm - not just to their feelings, but to their very existence - and they’ve been brushed off. “They’re exaggerating,” people insist. “That only impacts a miniscule number of people,” they rationalize. Or worst of all, “Well, what about how *I* feel?” These sorts of reactions aren’t “a difference of opinion”; they’re an effort to avoid having to take responsibility for something that you’ve simply gotten wrong. But reacting with defensiveness doesn’t make you right - it just turns your ignorance from a simple mistake into an intentional choice.
Imagine if I insisted on doing that with every word I’d ever mispronounced. “That can’t be true," I’d insist. “Well, it *shouldn’t* be pronounced like that,” I’d rationalize. Or most absurd of all, “I don’t like it that way, so I’m not going to change.” I’d sound ridiculous and irrational. Nobody would take me seriously. So why do we insist on doubling down when it comes to things that are much MORE important than word pronunciation? Why wouldn’t we WANT to do better once we know better?
The only explanation I can think of is that we don’t want to look weak or stupid. But our past mistakes don’t have to define us negatively unless we let them. Why do you think Paul and those who followed him boasted about his conversion experience so often? Not because he was proud of the person he’d been before, but because he wanted to serve as an example. He wanted us to understand exactly what’s possible when you let new information change *you* instead of you trying to change it.
Even though I’m not reading nearly as much these days, I’m still learning new things. Some of it’s easy to accept, like finding out that I’ve been watering my plants too much. Some of it is much harder - like realizing that I’ve been talking about someone in a way that’s hurtful to them. But I try to treat all of this information the way I’d treat a mispronounced vocabulary word: not as an indictment of my character, but as an opportunity to make myself a better person - the kind of person that would make Jesus proud. I try to keep my mind open enough to shine a light on my ignorance instead of hiding it away - after all, I know I’ve been wrong before, so it’s more than reasonable to assume that I’ll be wrong again. Do I always do this perfectly? HECK NO. But that’s part of the learning process, too.
Admitting when we’re wrong is the only way that we can grow, both as people and as Christians. It’s so hard, but it’s so, so important. Imagine what would have happened if Paul *hadn’t* been willing to admit that he’d been wrong - if he’d rejected Jesus’ words on the road to Damascus. We very well might not be sitting here today. But, of course, he didn’t - he accepted the correction, and now the whole world knows about Christ. Who knows what God might be able to accomplish through your "Road to Damascus” experience? There are new things to learn every day - embrace them all. Because once you know better, you can do better - for yourself, for the kindom, and for the world. Amen.
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