1 Corinthians 4:15 - Homiletics

Spiritual paternity.

"For though ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers: for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel." The subject of these words is spiritual paternity, and three remarks are suggested.

I. THAT ONE MAN MAY BECOME THE SPIRITUAL FATHER OF ANOTHER . What is it to become the spiritual father of another?

1. Something more than to become the father of one's ideas. There are men in society gifted with that intellectual vitality and vigour which enables them to generate the leading ideas in the minds of their contemporaries. This they do by their conversation, their speeches, their writings. But these are not spiritual fathers, they are mere schoolmasters or teachers. Coleridge and Carlyle are examples of this.

2. Something more than the author of a certain style of thinking. There are men in society who not only generate leading thoughts in the minds of their contemporaries, but, what is perhaps something higher, a style of thinking—a style characterized by precision, freshness, and force. Aristotle, Bacon, etc., are examples. But a spiritual father is one who is the father of man's moral character, one who generates in another his own spirit, sympathies, and aims, one who transforms the character of another into his own image.

II. THAT THE NOBLEST SPIRITUAL FATHER IS HE WHO BEGETS IN ANOTHER THE CHRISTLY CHARACTER . Many are the moral characters prevalent amongst men—the sensual, the sceptical, the selfish. The Christly character stands in sublime contrast to these; it is disinterested, spiritual; Divine.

1. The man who generates in others this character imparts the highest good. In the Christly character is harmony, kinghood, and paradise. To be like Christ is the highest end of being, it is the summum bonum of souls.

2. The man who generates this character in others creates the highest mutual affection. Far deeper and profounder is the affection subsisting between the spiritual father and his offspring than that which exists between the physical. Christ recognized this when he said, "Whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brothel and my sister, and my mother." Paul called Timothy his "beloved son;" and elsewhere he speaks with inexpressible tenderness of his converts as his little children, with whom he travailed in birth ( Galatians 4:10 ).

III. THAT THE CHRISTLY CHARACTER IS ONLY BEGOTTEN IN OTHERS BY THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST . "I have begotten you through the gospel." Natural religion cannot do it; Judaism cannot do it; Mohammedanism cannot do it; heathenism cannot do it; no speculative creeds, no moral codes, no ritualistic religions can do it. The gospel alone is the power to generate in man the true Christly character; it is that transformative glass into which as we look we get changed into the same image from "glory to glory."

CONCLUSION . Learn from this:

1. The supreme interest of man. What is that?—learning, wealth, fame? No; Christliness. He who has this has everything; all things are his. He who has not this has "nothing," says Paul.

2. The grandest distinctions amongst men. What are they?—sages, soldiers, sovereigns? No; spiritual sires. The man who generates in another the Christly character has done a greater work than any sage as sage, king as king, has ever done. Every man may and ought to become a spiritual father.