Pastor John, one important question we get occasionally through email is about Christian

role models.

If Christ's our example, and of course he's much more than a moral example, but he's

no less than a moral example, and if this is the case, do we need any other role models

at all?

Most of these thoughts Tony come from reflecting yesterday on Philippians 317, which

says, brothers, join in imitating me and keep your eyes on those who walk according

to the example that you have in us, and what struck me and started all these reflections

was keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example that you have in us.

In other words, it's not just me you're supposed to look at, not just Christ you're supposed

to look at, but look at the people that are looking at me while I look to Christ, and

that just struck me as so removed from Christ, and why Paul would say that, I know that

when he says, be imitators of me, he means to the degree that I'm an imitator of Christ,

because he says that in 1 Corinthians 11, be imitators of me as I am of Christ, and yet

it's just struck me, my goodness, there's all these degrees of separation.

In fact, if you count it all the way back into the Trinity, at this point, there's five

of them.

There's the father who imitates nobody, he's the origin of everything, and then there's

the son who imitates the father, John 519, where it says, I only do what I see the father

doing, and then there's Paul who imitates Jesus who imitates the father, and then here

in verse 17 of Philippians 3, there's those who walk according to the example that you

have in us, and then there's the fifth generation, the readers, me, as I'm reading it, he's

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