I was idly flipping through my Bible, not really paying attention. And no, I don’t believe in using the Bible as some kind of "oracle," opening it at random to find a message for yourself as if it’s some kind of fairground fortune-teller. But it certainly does speak!

The text that caught my attention and got me thinking was Ephesians 5:1, 2 (NLT): "Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are his dear children. Live a live filled with love, following the example of Christ…"

A thought that could lead to some good moralistic sermonizing, certainly. But my brain (and I certainly admit its odd and peculiar ways) got me thinking about what imitating God really means. Main point: your imitation of God will be determined by the kind of person you believe God to be. It all depends on what you think he’s like.

Immediately an image came to mind of a priest holding out the cross to some poor "heretic" being burned at the stake for his "sins." I probably had seen it in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs or something similar. The idea was that if in his last breath the heretic recanted, then at least you saved his soul from eternal torture in hell. So what does it matter to have some earthly fire now, if you escape the fires of hell for all eternity? That was the reasoning.

In England, Queen Mary justified her burning of religious "heretics" on the basis of her view of God: "As the souls of heretics are to be forever burning in hell, there can be nothing more proper than for me to imitate the Divine vengeance by burning them on earth."

So she was an "imitator of God," following what she believed God would do to those who did not follow "the true faith." Such reasoning is logical, and shows the dangerous consequences of such views of God, his character, and his actions. Just think of other ways in which we try to imitate what we think God is like, and how horrendous the consequences if our understanding of God is wrong…

© Jonathan Gallagher