1 Corinthians 4:16

16 I entreat you therefore to become like me.

1 Corinthians 4:16 Meaning and Commentary

1 Corinthians 4:16

Wherefore, I beseech you
Though he might have used the power and authority of a father, yet he chose rather to entreat and beseech them; saying,

be ye followers of me;
for who should children follow, but their parents? The Vulgate Latin, adds, "as I am of Christ"; so Chrysostom in his time read it; and Beza says he found it so written in one Greek exemplar; and so it is in one of Stephens's; it seems to have crept in from ( 1 Corinthians 11:1 ) . However, though it might not be now expressed by the apostle, it is to be supposed; for he never desired any to follow him any more, or further than he followed Christ; particularly he was desirous that these his spiritual children would follow him, and abide by him in the doctrine of a crucified Christ, he had preached among them, and not the false apostles, who had represented his ministry as weak and foolish; and in his life and conversation, especially in his humble carriage and deportment among them, and in his tender love and affection for them; observing their growing pride, haughtiness, and vain opinion of themselves, and those unnatural divisions and animosities which were fomented among them; and also in bearing reproach and persecution cheerfully and patiently, for the Gospel of Christ; a detail of which he had given them in some preceding verses.

1 Corinthians 4:16 In-Context

14 I am not writing all this to shame you, but I am offering you advice as my dearly-loved children.

15 For even if you were to have ten thousand spiritual instructors--for all that you could not have several fathers. It is I who in Christ Jesus became your father through the Good News.

16 I entreat you therefore to become like me.

17 For this reason I have sent Timothy to you. Spiritually he is my dearly-loved and faithful child. He will remind you of my habits as a Christian teacher--the manner in which I teach everywhere in every Church.

18 But some of you have been puffed up through getting the idea that I am not coming to Corinth.