Follow Me
1 Corinthians 1:12
What I mean is that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,” or “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Cephas,” or “I follow Christ…”
In these days of social media, I see a lot of business signs and advertising encouraging people to “follow us on Facebook!” Tik Tokers and YouTubers are always looking to gain followers.
A while back I saw a funny video in which a young lady was trying to livestream and an old gentleman came along and sat down on a park bench behind her. She asked him to move because she didn’t want him in her video. He declined and they got into a bit of a back-and-forth about it, during which time she mentioned her followers. He responded in his finest Scottish accent, “Oh! You have followers, do you? What are you, like Jesus?” I found it hilarious.
In this chapter of 1st Corinthians, Paul chastises the church members for their habit of picking out their favorite teacher and claiming that is who they are following. Not all that much has changed, I suppose. We tend to want someone we can follow.
Recently, I had someone ask me about good preachers to listen to. Over the years I have had guys that I tended to follow. J. Vernon McGee, John Macarthur, Alistair Begg, John Piper… Over time, I became less of a fanboy of anyone. Not that those are not fine examples of good preaching. What I have come to also be more aware of is they are also just men, prone to error and sin just like any of us. I don’t want to get too enamored with any of them lest I put them on a pedestal from which their fall would devastate my faith.
I think the reason we like to have someone like that to follow is because it is easier. We don’t have to think for ourselves as much. We don’t have to do the study. We don’t have to take responsibility for our faith. We can just let them spoon-feed us. That sure makes decision-making easier.
I was driving through a construction zone and one of the contractor’s trucks was in front of me. On the back of the truck, it had a sign that said, “Do Not Follow.” The reason for this sign, if you didn’t know, is that the truck may drive off into an unfinished part of the road where they are doing the road work. Paul is putting a sign on his back that says, “Do not follow.” Of course, he also says, “Follow me as I follow Christ.” But I hope you get the point.
When you are driving, the problem with following another vehicle too closely is you can’t see what is ahead of you. You can’t see down the road. Are there stoplights? Does the road curve? Are there dangers ahead? You don’t know because you can’t see anything but the back of the vehicle in front of you.
The same idea applies to our spiritual life. Sure, listen to good preaching. Just make sure you aren’t following someone so closely that you can’t see anything but them. You need to have a clear vision of the road ahead, and you can’t get that if you are saying, “I follow Gorschel,” or “I follow Furtick.”
