GETTING STARTED
I love how my kids will watch a movie and then transform into the characters they just watched. They will even imitate people from shows they’ve never seen! For example, they’ve never seen Star Wars but wanted light sabers for Christmas. Kids are just copiers. But so are adults. From the cradle to the grave, imitation shapes our behavior and beliefs. From peer pressure to keeping up with the Joneses, we consciously and subconsciously copy others. Depending on the example, this can be a great thing or a terrible thing.
- Who are some people you have sought to imitate?
READ THE WORD: 1 CORINTHIANS 4:8-21 (ESV)
8 Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! Without us you have become kings! And would that you did reign, so that we might share the rule with you! 9 For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men. 10 We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute. 11 To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless, 12 and we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; 13 when slandered, we entreat. We have become, and are still, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things.
14 I do not write these things to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children. 15 For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. 16 I urge you, then, be imitators of me. 17 That is why I sent you Timothy, my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, to remind you of my ways in Christ, as I teach them everywhere in every church.18 Some are arrogant, as though I were not coming to you. 19 But I will come to you soon, if the Lord wills, and I will find out not the talk of these arrogant people but their power. 20 For the kingdom of God does not consist in talk but in power. 21 What do you wish? Shall I come to you with a rod, or with love in a spirit of gentleness?
English Standard Version, copyright 2001 by Crossway Bibles. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
DIGGING DEEPER
(Today’s questions focus on verses 4:14-21.)
- What did Paul mean by saying he was their father (vs. 15)? How did he refer to Timothy and to the Corinthian Christians?
- Why did Paul send Timothy to Corinth?
- What do you think Paul meant by “my ways in Christ”?
- In what ways do you imitate Paul?
RESPOND TO GOD
“Imitate me.” A bold claim coming from any mere mortal! But the Apostle Paul, a mere mortal, doesn’t hesitate to say it here in our passage or elsewhere in his letters. Empowered by the Holy Spirit, Paul called others to imitate him as he imitated Jesus. I wonder how many of us are comfortable calling other believers to imitate us as we imitate Jesus? Do we live out “the ways of Christ”?
- Thank God for great heroes of the faith who you can imitate, as they imitate Jesus.
- Ask the Spirit to show you areas of your life that are out of step with Christ.
