Theological Commentary: Click Here
Discipleship Focus: Imitation
- Imitation: This is the second over-arching step of the discipleship process. First we gain information, then we imitate our spiritual mentor. Imitation leads to innovation of spirituality in our own life.
When we look at this chapter, it reads like a summary of Abraham’s
life. In fact, many scholars have tried
to argue that these stories didn’t really happen but rather that someone got
Abraham and Isaac confused and changed the main character to Isaac and
duplicated the stories. However, I think
it makes perfect sense that Isaac should have a similar life to Abraham. Isaac would have learned from Abraham and it
would make sense that he would similarly imitate him.
In the greater scheme of things, this is a great pattern to
recognize. Yes, Isaac imitates the
faithfulness of Abraham as well as the deception of passing off his wife as his
sister. When we imitate others, we often
imitate the good and the bad. But for
the most part, Isaac is blessed as he learns to imitate his father Abraham. He makes good decisions because he is
following a good leader.
We should do likewise. We
need to find spiritual mentors who can teach us. Then we can imitate their faith in our own
life. After we imitate their faith, we
can then innovate their faith and make it our own in ways that make sense to the
person that God has created us to be.
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