Christians too often push away people with “checkered” pasts. Somewhere along the line of Christian history, church folk decided they could parse who is “in” and who is “out” of God’s inner circle. I hear so many stories of people excluded by their church because of their past or current struggles, and it breaks my heart. Jesus, God in the flesh, was a friend to sinners, forgiving them and walking them toward a road to new life. He didn’t hold their sin against them, he gave them abundant mercy, again and again. Paul, who calls himself “chief among sinners” in our passage today, shares with young Timothy a powerful testimony of what that kind of grace looks like in his life. I think we have much to learn about welcome and grace and forgiveness from Paul’s testimony.