The saying is faithful and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.
Despite the above, however, it is precarious to identify these "faithful sayings" as any form of "proverb" in the early church.  Only two of them, here and in  1 Timothy 2:11, have any definite saying in view.  "In the other passages, the expression seems to be a short parenthetical formula, affirmative of the truth of the general doctrine with which the writer happens to be dealing."[35]