Sermon: "Imitators" by Bernard Taylor

Prayer: Jacqueline Lynch

Pastoral Welcome: Rob Mohr

Baptism: Autumn Ashley Bleier, Eric Whedbee - Joseph Whedbee
Wayne Adlaon, Andrew Sangari, Julia Toma - Genevieve Isidro
Tsai-Yen Lin - Siegfried Roeske

Meditation:

Paul called Christian believers to imitate his apostolic life and service to Christ—which he experienced in the power of the Spirit—even as he was an imitator of Christ. . . . Other than Jesus Christ, worshiped and served as Lord over all, no other person has had a greater impact upon Christian spirituality than Paul – R. P. Meye, Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, 907

Scripture Reading: Ephesians 5:1, 2, TNIV Eloise Mattison

INTRODUCTION TO THE SERMON 

Imitators

In our society we usually think of imitators in the same light as copycats; people who are reflectors of other people’s thoughts and ideas rather than people of original thought. In an attempt to put it in the best light possible, we sometimes repeat the saying, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, especially when someone is publically copying all the way down to mannerisms and clothing styles.

While the Old Testament never speaks of imitators, per se, we are commanded in the book of Leviticus, for instance, to be holy as God is holy. The notion of imitating and imitators occurs first in the non-canonical portions of the Septuagint (what is often called the Apocrypha), the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible begun in Alexandria, Egypt around 250 B.C., and finished 100 or so years later. This is likely indicative of the interface between the Greco-Roman world and the newly minted Judaism. In Greek education imitating one’s teachers was a common method. Perhaps the best-known example was Socrates, whose students would follow him around as he taught them and interacted with other people; and this method became popular with the Rabbis and their disciples.

In the Gospels and the Book of Acts there is much mention of disciples, but no mention in the rest of the NT. However, we do find the call in the Epistles for the new converts to be imitators; first of Paul, then of Christ. The earliest mention is in 1 Thessalonians, one of the first NT books to be written. In the early days of the church converts would have asked about the nature of post-conversion Christianity, since there were no written records available yet, so Paul advised them to imitate him as (and to the extent that) he imitated Christ. It would have been much like an apprenticeship for them, the form that discipleship took under Paul.

In this connection it is surprising to find in Ephesians 5:1 the call is to imitate God, the only such direct command/invitation in Scripture. The sermon will explore both what this call means, and what it does not mean in the 21st century.

Bernard Taylor
Scholar in Residence

Note: Baptisms and child dedications are in the extras section of the DVD

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