⁷ Remember those who led you, who spoke the word of God to you; and considering the result of their conduct, imitate their faith.

Memorials help in Christian life and growth; they give us models of Christlikeness to follow in a fallen world, a human picture to which we can aspire. To be sure we are to imitate Christ (Eph 5:11). But Paul, inspired by the Spirit, told us to imitate him (1 Cor 4:16, Phil 3:7). Therefore, we should, following the apostle’s example then, imitate Christ (1 Cor 11:1). Remembering those who have gone before us, particularly those who suffered for their faith, provides us with specific examples of Christlikeness.

We should not idolize them as though everything they did was perfect. A quick survey of Hebrews 11, the faith chapter, reveals those notable believers were certainly not perfect (e.g. Jacob, Rahab, Samson, Jephthah, etc.). These individuals are not to be canonized as “saints” in the religious, ecclesiastical sense, but we are to learn from them, and imitate them at the point of their faith. Certainly, we shouldn’t imitate Jephthah’s foolish vow, for example. But, then he found himself in the unfortunate result of that vow, with a difficult choice to honor his vow of loyalty to God and thereby offer up his daughter in sacrifice (whatever that meant at the time) or to save his daughter and thereby break his vow of loyalty to God. He chose loyalty to God over protecting his daughter and his heritage in the world. In that, we should imitate his faith.

But our passage today teaches us to “imitate their faith,” not everything about their life. We should be on the lookout for faith, so that we can be instructed how faith works out in the myriad of circumstances laid before us. We learn from the experiences of others.

We learn by watching, by telling stories of and by celebrating lives of faith, just like we read in Hebrews 11. Stories of the Old Testament, the patriarchs, the prophets and the kings. Stories of the New Testament, the apostles, their disciples and the unnamed believers referred to in the epistles. We learn by stories of missionaries and martyrs. We learn by the testimony of fellow believers in our church and nearby churches. We learn by reading biographies, watching movies and listening to dramas of the heroes of the faith. We learn by watching the elders of our churches, the godly women and the Christ-centered young people who are living out their faith in the flesh, in their schools, in their work places, in their homes, in their neighborhoods and in their extended families. We listen to our preachers, but more so we watch their lives. And in all this we learn what faith looks like in imperfect human flesh.

Lord, thank You for giving many examples of faith for me to imitate!