“Be imitators of me”

"Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God, just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved. ***Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.***”
1 Corinthians 10:32-11:1

I read this and was wondering exactly what attributes Paul exhorted his readers to imitate.

I have never really thought of following Jesus as equivalent to "imitating” Him. Rather we are responsive to the leading of the HS that informs us how to act, if we are obedient.

What are your thoughts on the correlation between the idea of "imitating” and "being led?” Do they amount to the same thing?

Bro.Todd,
...a good question....

I believe, ..that in between the leading's by The Spirit of God,
we are not to forget His leadings,.. and imitate what He has put into us.....as much as He has revealed of Himself to us.....our walk,in The Spirit.

Paul was walking after The Lord-

Am I saying that, in a way that makes sense ?

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elizabeth

Imitate means to copy. Monkeys can be taught to copy. Further, a person can copy with an impure heart or motive.

Perhaps someone with a Greek lexicon can let us know what Greek word for imitate is used and what it actually means in Greek.

2Cor.4:4,
Paul preached:
.
"But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost:

4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of 'the glorious gospel of Christ', 'who is the image of God', should shine unto them.

5 For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake.

6 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

7 ¶ But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.
~~~~~~~~~
He said, he preached "the gospel of God" ,..".the gospel of Christ "

Paul preached,...and walked in that Way,..so, I would say, that is why he can say, to be imitators of Him.

(This Scripture was given to show the depth of Paul.)

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elizabeth

Paul imitated Christ in that Christ was always fully dependent upon the Father, empowered by the Holy Spirit and strictly obeyed the word of God. Paul imitated Christ insofar as the Spirit of God manifested himself through Paul. Jesus healed, Paul Healed, Jesus cast out devils Paul cast our devils, Jesus Preached, Paul preached, Jesus loved his enemies, Paul loved his enemies, Jesus was humble, Paul was humble.
Putting it in context the canon of scripture was not fully available yet, so all that was needed to be said about Jesus and Paul and the remainder of the Apostles and the foundation of the New Covenant was yet to be written.
But what was readable was Paul's life. Our lives are readable. Paul's invitation to imitate was Paul's expression of Jesus approval of Paul, that Paul's life depicted Christ's life as Jesus demonstrated his Father's love, mercies, healings, deliverances, preaching and caring for his sheep.
In all this imitation we find the necessity to be led of the Spirit, filled with the Spirit, obedient to the word of God. Our lives are another manifestation of Jesus in the world, though we are inaccurate representations, we are representations and accordingly should recognize that not only to we seek to imitate, but having the full canon of scripture are now able to see the correlation between Paul and Christ in his person and ministry.
We not only imitate we fully live under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we not only imitate but we obey with the same desire and motive as Jesus and Paul...to please God and glorify his name always.

Our imitation and our being lead of the Spirit and our obedience to God's word and our relationship with the Heavenly Father are all earthly representations of the truth of the gospel. Though we falter and fail in various things, we are epistles known and read of all men, therefore we are imitators because we see Jesus in us, in each other and we see Paul in us and in each other by way of his expressions found in scripture.

We are partakers of God's divine nature, we are imitators of God's divine nature, we are preachers of God's divine nature in our words and our lives.

So well said,Marvin....

I thank you,

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elizabeth

Elizabeth, glad it helped in some way.

The beauty of our imitation is, our imitation is not an act whereby we seek to externally mimic. Our imitation is nothing less than the divine pattern of Christ displayed uniquely through our minds and hearts. Our true depiction of Christ is directly proportional to our yielding to the Spirit of God whereby Christ lives his very life through us. Our imitation is in truth because He who lives in us and through us rightly represents himself in truth.

May God give us the grace to declare as Paul did "be imitators of me". The Jesus who lived in Paul lives in us.

Re: Brother Marvin,
You said,..

"Our imitation is nothing less than the divine pattern of Christ displayed uniquely through our minds and hearts."

I say, yes and Amen !

.....and May I add,..and lived out in our life, as you explained in your first post on this subject.

You also said:

"May God give us the grace to declare as Paul did "be imitators of me". The Jesus who lived in Paul lives in us."

Absolutely-

Thank you,

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elizabeth

Thanks Elizabeth, it edified me to write it and it edified me that you received it and its better because you added to it.

I believe the verse refers to the way an apprentice intently observed all that his master did and said, in order to gain mastery of his craft.

It jars against modern Christianity's 'Jesus did it all, i just need to believe and receive it'.

I believe Paul meant for his converts to closely observe his character, as reflecting Galatians 5: 22-23, and they were to go and do likewise.

I was once at a church rally/protest in front of a statehouse where a gay marriage bill was being considered. Across the street, were vocal gay marriage supporters, carrying placards with words that ought not be heard in decent company. As you can imagine, the atmosphere was anything but calm.
A reporter approached the leading pastor and questioned him in a way that was calculated to annoy.

I listened closely as this gentle man [sic] answered in such a disarming manner, the reporter was at a loss for words. A thousand sermons on 'A soft answer turns away wrath' couldn't have impacted my poor heart in the way that pastor answered the reporter.

I saw the Lord in that brief exchange.

More to your question, the Holy Spirit is always seeking to SHOW us the Lord Jesus. One of the ways He does this is by leading us to people who manifest Him so we can SEE His nature, His character. The Christian life is about SEEING and SHOWING the Lord not merely talking or hearing about Him.

There's plenty of talk about the Lord Jesus but you are truly blessed if you know someone in whose life the Lord Jesus is clearly SEEN. A true disciple you are, if the Lord Jesus is seen in your conduct.

Thank you,Marvin,

Also I might add,..
Paul ,his very beginning relationship with Jesus,..... learning of Him, ...and. not only learning of Him, but being yoked up with Him,.......("what would you have for me to do,Lord ? )......he learned through seeking The Lord (kings)
Will in his life ,.....He turned from his will unto The Lord' will ,....The Lord gave Paul eyes to 'SEE' through the eyes of The Spirit, in .aligning his life up with the Spirits guidance.......he sought the resurrected Life of Jesus,....the very Life of God.

Phil.1:21-22,
(Paul) "For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.
22 But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labour: "

Yes !, that is the reason he could say, "Follow me as I follow Christ.

And it was not a one time, but was Paul's life-breath...daily,as a follower of Jesus' life.

Actually, this is The Life that The Lord revealed to me about
'the kingdom of God'.
The Lord, through The Spirit, said,...' the kingdom of God is the resurrected Lord in us'.......( He is Alive, and did not come to lye dormant,but resurrect His Life from us)

Love the communion,
Thanks also to you, Todd, prompting this conversation.

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elizabeth

Thank you all for the thought provoking responses.

Todd et. al.

To imitate in this sense does not mean to "copy" as one would mimic another. It means to pattern ones life after another. If I am an imitator of Christ, I am patterning my entire life after Christ. I am seeking, not to look like Christ, but to be like Christ. The two are very different.

CS Lewis said: "Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him.”

Does this have any relevance to this conversation?

C.S. Lewis is one of my all-time favorite authors, but I believe I would have to disagree with him here, and I believe on scriptural grounds. Many will come on that day saying, "Lord, Lord, did we not do such and so in Your name." He will reply, "Depart from me ye workers of iniquity, for I never knew you."

I believe we can act as though we love someone, and that might actually make us feel more human love toward them, and it might make us actually feel friendly toward them, but it will not cause the love of God to be perfected in our heart. On the other hand, if we truly have the love of God perfected in our heart, we will naturally love even our enemies and behave kindly toward them out of sincerity.

I think the point is that if we are very honest there are people around us who we do not like very much . Nothing wrong with that and it’s just the way it is. We then have a choice- to shun or avoid them, or we can treat them favorably, because this is how Jesus would have us treat them. This dying to our natural desire to avoid the person and instead being obedient in our action works an actual change in our heart. It’s along the same lines as true faith requiring an action as opposed to mere mental assent.

ADD- it also reminds me of Jesus’ parable about the father who asked his two sons to work in the field- one said he would go but didn’t, the other said he wouldn’t but did. The 2nd did the will of the father.

In other words, I think God will bless our obedient action even if it does not initially come from the heart.

Jackie Pullinger in one of her marvelous sermons spoke of compassion in this way.

"should we pray for compassion?" She said I don't think it really works like that...when you start you don't "feel" compassion because compassion is what you do not what you feel. She said go out and be compassionate, the feelings will come later. Go out and love people, feelings have nothing to do with it.

The spiritual truth lay in 'giving of ourselves', in seeing the needs of people we give out of grace that has been given to us. What we feel for people will change as in when they reject us or misuse our gifts or take for granted our compassion. The focus is on imitating Christ, our soul will catch up later. The importance of this truth lay in our willingness to persevere when men fail us or misuse our love and gifts. We persevere because of Jesus unfailing love and empowering by the Spirit, not because it is safe to be compassionate...for it will be stepped on by the ones we love.

The second truth lay in 'feeling or deeply desiring' is not synonymous with obedience and surrender to Jesus.

I haven't added anything to Todd's remarks, I only added what Jackie taught which coincides with this topic.