Peter Misselbrook's Blog
Apr 12 2020 - 1 Corinthians 10:14-11:1 – Who and what is shaping your life?

For the second time in this letter, Paul tells the Christians at Corinth to imitate him. On this second occasion he writes, “Be imitators of me, even as I am of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1, cf. 4:16).

Paul is exhorting self-centred Christians to live not to please themselves but in a manner that will commend themselves and the gospel to others, and so win others to Christ. Paul had shown what such a life is like when he lived and ministered among the Corinthians. But Paul is quick to remind them that he was only following the example of another, namely of his Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Jesus lived and died for the sake of others, to reconcile them to God. The risen Jesus lives now to bring people to God. Paul was a follower of Christ, concerned that his life should be shaped by the mind of Christ, “not seeking my own benefit but the benefit of all manner of people I meet, that they might be saved” (10:33). This was the purpose for which Paul lived – and for which he eventually died. “Be imitators of me,” says Paul, “even as I am of Christ.”

We were made to be imitators. From the moment when we first began to take any notice of our surroundings we learnt to imitate others. We learnt speech by imitation. Our patterns of behaviour, our hopes and fears, were all learnt by imitation. It could not be any other way; it’s the way we were created.

But in this way we learn bad patterns of behaviour as well as good. In this way too, we can become enslaved to patterns of behaviour which are destructive of ourselves or of others.

Christ came to set us free. He comes to provide us with a supreme example of a life lived to please God and to bring blessing to others. But his example alone would condemn us rather than help us. By his death and resurrection, Jesus breaks the power of the sin which has spoilt our life, and by his outpoured Spirit he provides us with the power to live a new life. This is the good news of the gospel.

But Paul’s words to the Christians at Corinth remind us that the Christ shaped life is not automatic; it does not grow without deliberate cultivation. I find Paul’s words an uncomfortable challenge. I recognise that it’s all too easy for my behaviour to be shaped by others around me. Who is shaping whom? I need my life to be shaped by Christ and for my Christ-shaped life to have a shaping influence upon others.

As those who are born imitators, we need also to be encouraging one another. “Be imitators of me,” says Paul. Christians need to play a key role in shaping one another’s lives under Christ so that together we are strengthened in following him and in having a positive influence on the world around us. We not only belong to Christ, we have been intimately connected to one another, “Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all share the one loaf” (10:16-17). We need to give ourselves to the encouragement, strengthening and growth of one another, just as Christ gave himself for us.

What is shaping your life? More to the point, who and what is shaping my life and how am I shaping the lives of those around me?

Lord, help me to follow you. Make me more like you. Enable me to encourage others to follow you, grow in you and to have a transforming influence upon the lives of others.

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Apr 12 2019 - Judges 16 – Delilah, defeat and death

Samson is a comic book hero. When trapped in gated Gaza where he has been visiting a prostitute he pulled gates and gateposts out of the city wall, heaved them onto his shoulders, and walked with them them 30 miles to Hebron where he left them perched upon the top of a hill facing the city as a trophy for all to see – to the delight, no doubt, of the Israelites and the fury of the Philistines.

But Samson was also a tragic figure whose weakness for women got him into continual trouble. He never seems to learn from the situations he gets himself into. He fell in love with a woman called Delilah and her duplicity led to his downfall. Delilah had been persuaded by the Philistines to discover the secret of Samson's strength. In what could have been the script for a pantomime, three times Samson spins her a yarn about his strength and three times it is proved false. Finally, faced with Delilah's whining, Samson was persuaded to reveal that his strength lay in his hair, the symbol of his devotion to the Lord as a Nazirite. When his hair was shaved off, the Lord left him and so did his strength; he became like any other man and was able to be taken captive by the Philistines. His eyes were gouged out and he was sentenced to hard labour in a Philistine prison.

There, as Samson is bound in bronze shackles and forced to grind corn for the Philistines, his hair began to grow back again. The Philistines may have had some awareness that his strength is returning for, when they were celebrating a festival to their god Dagon in his temple, they called for Samson to be brought in that he might "perform" for the crowds. And perform he does; crying upon the Lord for strength, he pushed apart the main pillars of the temple and brought down the roof upon himself and thousands of celebrating Philistines. He had fought the Philistines for much of his life, nevertheless it is recorded of him, "Thus he killed many more when he died than while he lived."

Samson was a man of his time; he reflected the compromised obedience of Israel. It's easy for us to find fault with his "devotion" to the Lord. But are our lives really so very different? Our sins may not be as obvious as those of larger-than-life Samson but are they any the less real? Is our devotion to the Lord free of all compromise? Samson's life challenges us to consider what it would mean for us to be truly and single-mindedly devoted to the Lord – and in so doing it points us to Jesus.

Jesus alone was without sin. He alone was continually determined to do the will of his heavenly Father – to complete the work the Father had given him to do. That obedience not only brought him into this world but took him to the cross. Of him also, and in a far more significant sense, it can be said that he achieved the greatest victory of his life through his death. But unlike Samson, he rose victorious from the grave. His victory was over sin and death itself – he destroyed the reign of death over his people through his own death and resurrection. Now he shares that triumph with us – we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. In view of God's mercy towards us in Christ and by the power of his Spirit who fills us with Christ's risen power, we are called to offer ourselves to God in undivided worship and in joyful service.

Holy God, I find it easy to identify the faults in others and to point out the inconsistencies in their profession of devotion to you. Help me to deal with the plank in my own eye. You have said, "The people that know their God shall be strong, and do exploits" (Daniel 11:32). Increase my knowledge of you and of your saving goodness. May my life be marked by single-minded devotion to you.

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Peter Misselbrook