Leading While Being Led

The Call to Imitate

1 Corinthians 4:14–17 (NIV)

I am writing this not to shame you but to warn you as my dear children. Even if you had ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel. Therefore I urge you to imitate me. For this reason I have sent to you Timothy, my son whom I love, who is faithful in the Lord. He will remind you of my way of life in Christ Jesus, which agrees with what I teach everywhere in every church.

The mood of the letter changes. Remember that this is a letter from Paul, not a theological dissertation. Paul moves to a much more gentle tone. Paul very much so writes with the tone of a father to his children. The word ward (noutheteo) is used multiple times in the Paul’s letter and in ever use, the warning or instruction is given with love and care like a father to their child.

Paul points the brothers and sisters in Corinth to see his words against their factionism as words of warning. Paul knows that the path of factionism and personal preferences only leads us away from our place following God and we become our own lord.

The tutor or guardian in the NIV was not the teacher of the child in the ancient world. The tutor was an old and trusted slave who would take the child to school, who trained him in moral matters, cared for his character and tried to make a man out of him. He was not his father. Paul saw himself in the role of father to the church in Corinth. Thus he urges his children to take after their father.

Paul urges them to imitate him as he imitates Christ. It is rare for a father to be able to tell their child to do as I do rather than do as I say, but when you are living your life under the leadership of the Lord, then you have a path by which to lead those that God puts under your care. The Christian aim is to come alongside one another and push one another toward the Lord. We all too often settle for far less than what the Lord has for us because we fail to fulfill the Lord’s calling of leading others toward Him.

The Kingdom of God

1 Corinthians 4:18–21 (NIV)

Some of you have become arrogant, as if I were not coming to you. But I will come to you very soon, if the Lord is willing, and then I will find out not only how these arrogant people are talking, but what power they have. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power. What do you prefer? Shall I come to you with a rod of discipline, or shall I come in love and with a gentle spirit?

None the less, there is a deep rooted arrogance in man, the need to right and in power. There were those who stood against the power of the Lord in their lives. At the center of the Christian relationship with the Lord is the understanding that the Lord leads.

The Gospel does not simply tell people what they ought to do; in it God gives them the power to do it. The Kingdom of God is rooted in the divine power of the Creator. The Corinthians had given way to the wisdom of the world which centered on high speech as the prize. Jesus never said that you would know his followers by their words but rather that you would know them by their fruits.