Need to know what direction to take in your spiritual life? Paul converted people from many different cultures and spiritual persuasions and found that some of them had difficulty finding the correct direction for their spiritual lives. His instructions to them were simple, yet profound. For example, he tells the Christians in Corinth to “be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1). He gave similar instructions to the Thessalonians (1 Thessalonians 1:6; 2 Thessalonians 3:7-9), and tells those at Ephesus to “be imitators of God as beloved children” (Ephesians 5:1).
Christians in the first century, as now, were influenced by teachers of every kind, from those who were faithfully teaching Christ’s message to those who preyed on them for their money or tried to lead them into evil. Paul encourages the Colossian Christians: “As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him” (Colossians 2:6-7). He then warns them: “See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ” (Colossians 2:8). So we should be careful to follow good teaching and beware of the bad.
Paul tells the Ephesian Christians to “be imitators of God, as beloved children” (Ephesians 5:1). I think that when he uses the term “beloved children” Paul refers to an attitude of trustful obedience to the commands of God. There is a danger in the kind of child-like simplicity which might blindly follow an example whether good or bad. John warns: “Beloved, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. The one who does good is of God; the one who does evil has not seen God” (3 John 11). The standards have been set: be imitators of God!
The leadership of a congregation has to set an example for the members. Elders are told by Peter that they are not to behave “as lording it over those allotted to your charge, but proving to be examples to the flock” (1 Peter 5:3). The young evangelist, Timothy, is told that “in speech, conduct, love faith, and purity, show yourself an example of those who believe” (1 Timothy 4:12), and the Hebrew writer says Christians are to “remember those who led you, who spoke the word of God to you; and considering the result of their conduct, imitate their faith” (Hebrews 12:7). We have, then, a series of examples to follow all the way from Jesus Christ, to the Apostles and then the congregation’s leaders.
Let’s look to all these examples and become imitators of God, walking in the steps of our Savior from day to day.
Mel