A Father's Example (1 Cor 4:16-17)

Therefore I exhort you, be imitators of me. For this reason I have sent to you Timothy, who is my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, and he will remind you of my ways which are in Christ, just as I teach everywhere in every church.

You may have heard a failing father, seeing his children fall into the same vices as he himself is captive of, pleading with them to follow what he says, and not what he does. As surely as that tactic will fail with natural children, it will fail with spiritual children. Every father leads by example, whether he wants to or not.

Paul does not merely tell them what to do. He lives it. And since he does, he can say “be imitators of me”. There are many words in this epistle, but Paul knows he can not lead by words alone. But being prevented from coming himself, he sends another. Timothy is another of his spiritual children, who has walked with him and followed his ways thoroughly. In 2 Timothy, written some years later Paul says to him:

(10) Now you followed my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, perseverance, (11) persecutions, and sufferings, such as happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium and at Lystra; what persecutions I endured, and out of them all the Lord rescued me! (...) (14)You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them (2 Tim 3:10,11,14)

Timothy had been so conformed to Christ that in stead of Paul coming himself to remind them of his ways in Christ, he could send Timothy to refresh their minds on the very same thing. He had walked with Paul for a long time, and grown into a level of maturity where he was able to represent Paul. He was a faithful, mature child that Paul could send to set an example for his younger brothers and lead them into the same maturity.


This is part 2 of a 3 part series on Spiritual Fatherhood the last one is being posted on Monday

1 Cor 4:14-15 - The Forgotten Doctrine of Spiritual Fatherhood
1 Cor 4:16-17 - A Father's Example 
1 Cor 4:18-21 - A Father's  Discipline