Taking A Hard Look

“There are lots of places in the Bible I would remove if I could. Whether it’s a rule I don’t want to follow or a judgment that just seems too harsh for modern sensibilities, my fallen flesh would love to apply a bottle of white out to many verses. There’s one place, though, that’s nothing like that. It’s convicting without doing either of those things. Right in the middle of one of my favourite passages in the Bible sit a few simple words that always make me squirm.

What is this horrible passage? “Brothers, join in imitating me” (Phil 3:17a).

“Wait, that’s it?” Yes. I always feel like someone just poured ice water down my back.

It’s not that I think Paul’s being arrogant. He’s not saying, “You don’t need to imitate Jesus; just imitate me.” He’s imitating Jesus, so if they imitating him, they are imitating Jesus.

This passage makes me twitchy because how can you possibly feel comfortable telling people to imitate you? But Paul did. So why don’t I?

And that’s the meat of it. Why don’t I?”

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