I Cor 4—You have many teachers, but only one father

In I Cor 4, Pauls talks about the different aspects of being a leader, e.g being a servant, a player on a
stage but most of all a spiritual father. This week in the cell, we want to focus on this one point i.e.
Paul as the father. In verse 15, he says, “For even if you had ten thousand others to teach you about
Christ, you have only one spiritual father. For I became your father in Christ Jesus when I preached
the Good News to you. So I urge you to imitate me”.

Verse 15 defines the relationship Paul considers himself to have with the Corinthians. He is their
spiritual father, not their guardian. The word translated "guardians" here was used of slaves whose
job it was to take the master's children to and from school. This person was responsible to protect the
child from evil influences and associates and from physical and moral harm. He was to see to it that
the child arrived at school and later at home on time. These responsibilities are all concerns of a
father, but for the guardian it was a job. Guardians could come and go. A person could have dozens of
them while growing up. To make his point Paul exaggerated - a person could have myriads (the Greek
word for ten thousand) of guardians. In contrast, however, a person has only one father. There is one
for whom care, protection, and nurture are not a job, but the heartbeat. We could easily consider either
father or mother or both fulfilling the description, but since Paul was referring to his own relationship
to the Corinthians he used the term, father.

It’s a tremendous blessing to have fathers in life to guide and advice us instead of learning things just
through the hard knocks of life. However, to reap that benefits, we need the right attitude. Think of
example of Moses and his father in law. At one stage, Moses was drowning in his leadership role,
trying to lead and govern two million people on his own. If not for Jethro, Moses could have burnt out
and never made it to the Promised Land.

To reap the benefits of that Father-son relationship we must have the right attitudes. First of all, Moses
was teachable. When Jethro told him, “What you are doing is no good”, he did not react by being
defensive or angry. He was not proud and said, “haven’t you heard about the parting of the Red Sea?”.
Paul in 1 Cor 4 was similarly concerned about the arrogance in the Corinthians.

Secondly, Moses listened. In Ex 18;24, it says “Moses listened to the to his father-in-law’s advice and
followed his suggestions”. In other version, it says “he heeded the advice”. It is one thing to listen, it
is another thing to heed the good advice we hear. To heed is to listen to the commitment to change.

Thirdly, Moses was a man of prayer. Jethro exhorted him to stand before God for his people. To have
spiritual father does not abdicate us from the responsibilities of developing good spiritual discipline
and being dependant on God.

Finally, we need to imitate them which was Paul’s exhortation. Verse 16 introduces a common Pauline
appeal, "be imitators of me." Many modern people have been offended by this theme in Paul's
thought. They see it as arrogant. However, it represents a very realistic view of Paul's perception of
being the Corinthians' spiritual father. Spiritual and moral life is not taught in the classroom; it is
learned in the laboratory of life. It is taught by modeling the desired behavior. Parents teach children
how to be married and how to parent by modeling. People who are married understand very well the
problems that arose early in their marriage. Most of those problems came as they imitated their
parents and expected their spouse to imitate their parent. However, the spouse was imitating her or his
own parent and expecting imitation of his or her own other parent.

We pay coaches to model correct athletic and musical techniques. We never think of them as arrogant
when they say, "Do it like I am showing you." We must expect Christian leaders to call for others to
imitate them. In fact, if we are growing spiritually we should be prepared to model our faith and invite
new believers to imitate us as we imitate Christ.