What Does 1 Corinthians 4:16 Mean?

I urge you, then. Become imitators of me.

1 Corinthians 4:16 · SDV

Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.

Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

Wherefore I beseech you, be ye followers of me.

THE KEY

“Followers” means “imitators”: the verse presents a life lived as something another person can learn by embodying.

THE MEANING

You encounter a way of life here that is visible in how someone lives, not only in what they say. The appeal treats an embodied example as a form of teaching that can be recognized and carried forward.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

Truth reaches you only through explicit instruction or ideas; this verse also presents a lived example as a way truth becomes visible.

THE ROOT

μιμηταί

mimētai

GROWS FROM

⁨μιμ-⁩ (⁨μιμέομαι⁩, mimeomai)

to imitate, to do as another does

“imitators” in this verse is mimētai. The Greek word pictures more than following at a distance: it names a person who takes on a pattern by doing likewise. The verse presents example as a way a manner of life becomes visible and reproducible.

ALSO GROWS

mimeomai: to imitate, follow another’s example

μιμέομαι

This verb names the action behind “followers”: taking a pattern into one’s own conduct.

mimētēs: imitator

μιμητής

This is the singular form behind the verse’s plural “followers,” naming someone shaped by another’s example.

mimēsis: imitation

μίμησις

This related noun makes explicit the process the verse describes: a pattern carried forward by being enacted.

THE PATTERN

A way of life can be passed on through visible example as well as spoken instruction.

Become imitators of me, even as I also am of the Anointed One.

1 Corinthians 11:1 · SDVThe same word for “followers” appears, and the verse names the pattern Paul himself follows.

Become therefore imitators of God, as beloved children.

Ephesians 5:1 · SDVThe same language of imitation presents a way of life learned through relationship and example.

And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, having taken in the word, in much pressure, with the joy of the Set-Apart Breath.

1 Thessalonians 1:6 · SDVThe same root joins receiving a message with embodying the lives through which it is made visible.

THE THREAD

Become imitators of me, even as I also am of the Anointed One.

1 Corinthians 11:1 · SDV

“Followers” translates the same Greek word for “imitators” in both verses. The next verse shows the pattern’s direction: imitation follows a life that is itself following Christ.

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