1 Corinthians 11:1-2 Be you followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.… I. BE YE FOLLOWERS OF PAUL. But how can we be like a man who has been dead for centuries, whose language and occupations were wholly different from ours? Can the nineteenth century be changed into the first? No. There are hundreds of points in which we cannot be like him; and yet Paul is more capable of being an example to us than he has been to almost any previous age of the world. He is truly the apostle of Englishmen, because — 1. He is the apostle most congenial to our peculiar excellences. There is a real likeness between the English character and the freedom and love of truth which is the fibre and tissue of the teaching of St. Paul. 2. He is the apostle of progress. Are any of us inclined to think that Christianity is worn out, that it is too contracted for these broad, enlightened times? Some forms of it may have become so, but not the Christianity of St. Paul. He is the apostle of the vast and unknown future. St. Paul is always looking, not backward, but forward. He went beyond his own age, beyond the ages that followed; and, however far we have advanced in enlightenment and liberation, he has gone before us still. 3. The apostle of toleration. Have we outgrown the noble lessons of Romans 14.? Are we more able to bear with those who differ from us, more tender to the rights of conscience, than he? Let us separate the essential from the non-essential, the temporal from the eternal, as he did. II. EVEN AS HE WAS OF CHRIST. 1. In many forms this is the burden of all his Epistles (Romans 13:14; Colossians 2:6; Romans 8:29; Galatians 6:14; Galatians 2:20). He is but a servant of Christ. To carry in his own life a copy, however imperfect, of what Christ had said and done; to be one with Christ now and hereafter was his highest ambition and hope of salvation. And to this he calls us still. 2. True, we cannot imitate Christ in the letter, but we can in the spirit; we cannot "put on" His outward garb and actions, but we can put on "the mind which was in Christ Jesus." We cannot attain to His perfection; in great part He is rather the likeness of God than the example of man; but we can study in His life and character the will of God and the duty of man. He should be to us as a second conscience, to fix our wills, to calm our scruples, to guide our thoughts, the conscience of our conscience, the mind of our mind, the heart of our heart. III. HOW SHALL WE BRING HOME THIS JOINT EXAMPLE TO OURSELVES? How shall we concentrate on our own lives the rays of this double light, the greater light for ever going before, the lesser light for ever moving behind? Turn from the text to the context, and you will find laid down two fundamental principles of Evangelical religion — 1. For the service of God (1 Corinthians 10:13.). Whatsoever ye do, in commerce and in labour, wheresoever it be, there is what you have to do to the glory of God. Here, joining in the prayers and hymns, etc., you are preparing for the service of God. But there, in your daily life, is the true "Divine service," in which we must all bear our parts. (1) Paul was ever employed in driving the enthusiasm of his followers into homely, useful, practical channels. (2) What was true of Paul was still more true of Christ. He did not retire to the wilderness. He lived and died in blessed companionship with men. In labour and in festivity, in moving multitudes and in crowded ship, He found alike His Father's work. 2. How are we to follow Paul and Christ in the service of man? (1 Corinthians 10:33; 1 Corinthians 9:22). Not by one uniform mode, but in ten thousand was, ever fresh, every varying with the wants and characters of each. (1) Every face that looks up from this crowd is different from every other; it expresses a history, a character, a weakness, a strength of its own. To every one the apostle would have been, as it were, a different man; he would have transformed himself into the thoughts and would have borne with the infirmities of each. No outward difference would have prevented him from seeing the good which lay beneath. He would have made straight for that and built it up, and so would have saved the soul in the midst of which he had discovered it. (2) And this example is not only for teachers or special times and places. It is for all times, places, and persons; for it is the example, not only of Paul, but of Christ Himself. He, too, "became all things to all men, if by any means He might save some." He came with a gracious word and touch for each. And as Christ and Paul have done to us, so ought we in our humble measure to do to our brethren; so ought we humbly to hope that they each in their turn will do to us, if by any means some of us may be saved. (Dean Stanley.) Parallel Verses KJV: Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ. |
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