<p>3:3 <i>For we also once were foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another</i>- Paul says that this catena of poor behaviour was <i>him</i> before his conversion. Yet he was legally obedient to the Law. But it didn't elicit a spiritual person within him. So he holds up his own conversion as an example to those on Crete who were tempted to turn to the Law as a means of spirituality. Legalistic obedience just would not elicit spirituality, and Paul was the parade example of that. He wished them all to follow his pattern (:4), just as he wrote to Timothy of his being a Christ-appointed model of conversion (1 Tim. 1:13-15). </p>