After this benediction, Paul then addresses Timothy by name in verses 18-20. I think that's Paul’s way of telling Timothy that this is what he learned. This is the experience of Paul’s life. Paul knows that Timothy already knows this because the two of them have traveled and served together. But knowing what Timothy does, Paul wants him to, as he says, “…fight the good fight, holding on to faith and a good conscience.”
Compare these ideas that we find from Paul here in 1 Timothy and also in Philippians 3 with what he also writes in 1 Corinthians 15. Once again, you see Paul’s humility in his own self-assessment. In verse 9 Paul says to the church at Corinth, “For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.” Paul ranks himself alongside the other apostles because by God’s grace he was appointed by God for this work.
Paul came to that understanding of what he was in himself, apart from the grace of God, and what he had become in Jesus Christ. He did not go on from that point to become more and more self-righteous. As he entered into this process of growing in the Christian life, he progressed in an understanding of God and his nature, as well as of himself and his sin. He recognized himself not to be increasingly righteous, but increasingly sinful.
The first passage where Paul talks about his past is Galatians 1:13, where he writes, “For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it.” Paul believed that by working against the church he was serving God as a faithful Jew. He, of course, did not realize at that point that the same God he was claiming to follow was establishing the very church Paul was persecuting.
I find it very interesting that in writing this letter to Timothy and having begun it as he has with an emphasis upon sound doctrine, Paul now speaks in a personal way of how the grace of God in that doctrine came to him. As he does, we recognize that here is not a proud man who somehow has all of the doctrine and therefore lifts himself up for recognition by men and women, but who in the light of the very nature of the gospel of God's grace in Jesus Christ recognizes himself to be a sinner.
