Imitation is th Real Thing

As a preaching student at Harding University, one of the things we were warned about was the temptation to unethically and illegally plagerize the writing of someone else.  We were strongly warned to take the higher road of original thinking, to do and present our own work.

On the other hand, a more subtle truth was offered, tongue in check, by one of our more pragmatic professors, "Original thinking is the product of a poor memory."  The point that he was making was to acknowledge that we did not just come to a conclusion or create a pattern of thoughts out of thin air.  Our thoughts, our words and our presentations were built upon the works of others, which we studied from and by which our thoughts were formed.

Another professor quipped, "plagerism is stealing the thoughts of another individual, research is stealing the thoughts of two or more."  The point being that we are not self-made preachers or writers or teachers - we stand upon the shoulders of others.  And, in a real sense, we imitate the thinking, writing and speaking of others.  We are a product of those we imitate.

In more general terms, we are to be ourselves - the self that God made us to be rather than try to be someone else or pretend to be other than what we are.  But, at the same time, God did not make us completely in a vacuum.  We have the combined DNA coding of our parents, we have the impressions made by our families, we have thoughts inserted by teachers, we have beliefs fomred by experience - there are many contributing individuals and factors that serve to mold us into who we are.

Original thinking and individualism notwithstanding, we are more a product of imitation than self-determination.  Yes, we must be ourselves.  But the self we become rests on the contributions of many.  That is why carefully choosing our friends, our church and our associations is so important.  We will be influenced by those with whom we surround ourselves.

That is why it is so important to be in the Word, studying the life, times and person of Jesus Christ.  We need to be heavily influenced by him.  More than any other, we need to "have this mind of Christ Jesus" (Phil 2:5).  We need to love like him, think like him, react like him, share like him, sacrifice like him...  To be a Christian is to be "a little Christ."  A disciple is one who "is covered by the dust of his teacher," or to closely follow the one from whom he is receiving instruction.

When we are striving to be like Christ, our imitation is the real thing.  We are called to "become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ" (Eph 4:13).  In the process, it is even good to imitate others who themselves are imitators of Christ: "Follow my example as I follow the example of Christ" (1 Cor 11:1).

The point being that who we become ought to be primarily influenced by the personhood of Christ, directly and indirectly - in the spirit, in the word or in the person of a godly disciple of Christ. Go ahead and copy Christ.  Imitation of Him is the real thing.  Jus' Say'n.