Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you. (Phil. 4:9)Paul said something similar to the Corinthians:
I am not writing this to shame you, but to warn you, as my dear children. Even though you have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel. Therefore I urge you to imitate me. For this reason I am sending to you Timothy, my son whom I love, who is faithful in the Lord. He will remind you of my way of life in Christ Jesus, which agrees with what I teach everywhere in every church…Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings…Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God—even as I try to please everybody in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved. Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ. (1 Cor. 4:14-17, 9:19-23, 10:32-11:1)Paul requires imitation of himself as he imitates Christ. We can all imitate the Apostle Paul. We can also imitate godly men and women around us.
There is a third group we can imitate - godly men and women who are not around. For me, it started in the spring of 1950 when Corrie ten Boom came to Annapolis. She gave me her first book, A Prisoner and Yet. I had only read one or two other Christian books.
Then in the spring of 1951, my ship (the Brinkley Bass) arrived in Hong Kong. I was wandering through Kowloon (on the mainland across from the island of Hong Kong) when I came across the BIOLA Bookstore. I was amazed. I did not know that there were so many Christian books. I bought five biographies of famous Christians.
I got back to the ship and read the first chapter of each book. Each day, I stood eight hours of watch duty a day, plus eight hours’ working my job as communications officer. I ate and slept in the other eight hours. That left no time for reading. I prayed for time to read the rest of the books and went to bed.
About half an hour later, a sailor woke me up and told me that the captain wanted to see me in the wardroom immediately. I got into uniform and went to the radio shack to find out what had happened. Then I went to the wardroom. The captain was very angry. “Mr. Wilson, you are in hack!” That was Navy parlance for, “You are under arrest in your room. Don’t come out until I tell you.” I explained the situation to the captain. He still said, “You are in hack.”
If that had happened six months earlier, I would have been greatly hurt. As it was, I recognized answered prayer when I saw it.
I was there three days. My meals were brought to my room, and I did my communications work from there, but I did not stand watch. That left me with a total of 24 hours’ free time. I read my books in two days and spent the third day in prayer. I learned that God answers prayer.
I knew that example was the best means of teaching and imitation was the best way of learning, but I had a problem. Who in the Navy could I imitate? From these books, I learned that I could imitate Christians who had lived and died a century earlier. I have been reading biographies ever since.
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