Imitate Men as they Imitate Christ

“But I thought we weren’t supposed to be looking at men, but only Jesus!” I remember a friend uttering these words when we arrived at 1 Corinthians 11:1 during a table talk. What a shock. We were new believers at the time and we had heard repeatedly from our pastor that we were not to look neither at him nor any other church member as examples. Given the proper context and a more exact explanation I suppose to this could be true, but I perceived that it was most often used by many as a way to rid one’s self of the responsibility placed upon every one who names the name of Christ. My friend was initially struggling adjusting his belief in conformity to this newly revealed truth. I have repeatedly observed this to be disturbing phenomena. It seems that once someone settles it in their mind that something is “scriptural” you will find it nearly impossible to convince them otherwise even in the face of clear evidence. I speak particularly of fellow Christians who profess to hold to the authority of the Bible yet find themselves unwilling to abandon practices even when it can be demonstrated Biblically that their belief is really not “scriptural”. Tradition is the word for it. We all develop bad tradition in some form or another and Protestants have been most unfair and hypocritical in this regard towards Catholics. If we looked inwardly we would find that we too hold to unbiblical traditions.
Nevertheless, I mean to call your attention to the Apostle Paul’s audacity to invite others to look to him so that one would see Christ imitated. Paul wrote to the Corinthian church saying, “Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1).
Neither did Paul leave himself without witness. He offers up Timothy as a witness and writes, “For this reason I have sent Timothy to you, who is my beloved and faithful son in the Lord, who will remind you of my ways in Christ, as I teach everywhere in every church” (1 Corinthians 4:17).
It is easy to invite fellow believers for dinner and “put on Christ” for the two to three hours they are over, but it is an entirely different thing to ask them to stay for a week or two so that they may see all of our conduct in Christ 24 hours a day 7 seven days a week. This would certainly include the morning. Men, what is our attitude like in the morning? How do we treat our children? How do we treat our wives? I imagine the average believer would object at such scrutiny on the basis of privacy, but does the Bible call us to be private in this regard? Jesus told his disciples that people do not “light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house” (Matt. 5:15). He goes on to command them, “In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).
It cannot be argued that the Apostles were somehow more advantaged in regard to godliness than us as if they were more than human. This was the error of the pagans at Lystra who perceived Paul and Barnabas as gods in human flesh but the Apostles objected saying, “We also are men, of like nature with you…” (Acts 14:15). Paul also writes of his and everyone else’s condition before being made alive by Christ. He writes “…we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind” (Ephesians 2:3). This also touches on the issue of church leadership i.e. eldership. We are not called to live secluded or apart from the church. The church is a new community for a new people and when Jesus appoints shepherds to look after his flock he instructs the church to appoint shepherds/overseers. He instructs the church to look for men that are “…above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, 3not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. 4He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, 5for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church? (1Timothy 3:2-5)”
So how can a church find such men if everyone is accustomed to seeing each other only for an hour and a half on Sunday morning? Now, this spills over into what fellowship means. Fellowship means living together, but that is another post for another time. For now, let us heed the exhortation of Paul to imitate him as he imitates Christ. Yes, we are to imitate men insofar as they imitate Christ.
Portrait Credit The Apostle Paul by Rembrandt van Rijn