THE ROLE MODEL
Teachers need visuals and models as teaching aids for effective teaching and learning. It has been proven that people retain a little of what they hear, more when they see it and most when they practice what they have heard and seen. So role modeling is a very important matter in imparting knowledge. Any teacher who wants to do his/her job effectively must go beyond audio to audio-visual and then to practice.Teachers need visuals and models as teaching aids for effective teaching and learning. It has been proven that people retain a little of what they hear, more when they see it and most when they practice what they have heard and seen. So role modeling is a very important matter in imparting knowledge. Any teacher who wants to do his/her job effectively must go beyond audio to audio-visual and then to practice. The other side of the coin is that persons who are learning want a model. This is more true for young people who want to become like someone they admire so will copy them – the way they look and the way they behave. Many a time they want to look like and be like their fathers, mother, teachers, etc. This is why parents and teachers must be very careful the way they live before these young ones because they will copy you as a model in both good and bad aspects. More than these many of them today want to be like some entertainers, sports personality, or some high profile person that is popular in one field of endeavour or the other. So you see them dress like these that they have chosen as their role models, cut their hairs like them, try to speak like them and even tattoo their skins like them, etc. So role modeling is a powerful medium for moulding and changing lives whether positively or negatively. When you see young people, who usually would hate being different from others, behaving in certain way it is because they are patterning their lives after a model.
ROLE MODEL: Now a model means a couple of things. One thing it means is a person who models outfits, wears, etc. The designer and dress maker sometimes uses models to wear those wears before an audience or television to sell such to people. This is not the model we mean here. Here we are referring to things like architectural models. When an architect designs a house he presents it in two-dimensional or three-dimensional drawings. Many a time the client may not appreciate this because he is unschooled in the language of the draftsman. So the way out is to make a miniature of the real building. This will show in a four-dimensional view how the building will look like when completed. Most people will appreciate this, so modeling becomes a powerful way of conveying to the other person or party what a designer or teacher has in mind so that they can appreciate and appropriate it fully. When we talk about ‘role’ here we simply mean the part an actor plays in a drama. By ‘role’ here we simply mean the part a person plays in real life or the position they occupy, etc. A man who has children plays the role of father at home. He may also play the role of teacher at school or business man in the mercantile field. The same person could still play another role in sports, church, community, politics, etc. Life has different roles and each of these roles need to be modeled by people who have excelled in them. Character can also be modeled. Example, humility, integrity, meekness, love, etc, needs to be modeled for people to understand them well and aspire to develop them.
THE ROLE MODEL – Now the greatest teacher of all is the Almighty God. None can teach like Him. He uses every medium to teach. He speaks much and in speaking He teaches perfectly. He also uses nature, created things, etc, to teach. When you hear Jesus teaching you will marvel. He uses appropriate illustrations, pictures, stories, etc, to make His teachings so practical and easily understood. God’s Book for teaching is the Bible, the written Scriptures. The Bible itself says that:All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works. (2 Tim 3:16-17) The testimony here is that every Scripture is inspired by God and is useful and profitable for teaching and other things. So, God uses the Scripture to teach. His aim is not just to inform but to transform the person He teaches so that the person’s life is straightened out so that he becomes perfect. To be perfect means to become conformed to the Lord Jesus. It is only such person’s whose lives have been transformed sufficiently that can be equipped and entrusted with the work of God. Even though the Bible cannot be improved upon and contains a full revelation of God’s will and purpose for man, God feels it is not sufficient to perfectly convey His mind. You see, the purpose of God is to make men to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. This is the subject of the whole Bible and its aim. Despite that the Bible is perfect God still felt that He needs a Role Model. That is why He sent His Son to come from heaven and live on the earth as a man for 33 years so that what He is teaching in the Bible can be seen physically as Jesus lived and walked about on the earth, from birth, childhood, adolescent, youth, etc. So He is God’s model for living and models life at every stage. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. (John 1:14) Jesus Christ is the Word of God that was with God right from the beginning. It is this Word that created all things. At a point in history this Word was made flesh (became a human being). He came from heaven where He had always been God and took on flesh (became a human being). John testified that He dwelt among men. He was not an ascetic or a mystic dwelling in caves, monasteries and such places. No, He lived where people lived so that they could see Him live. John said they beheld (looked upon) His glory. This means they were close to Him and not just saw Him from afar but associated and interacted with Him – followed Him everywhere, ate with Him, heard Him, touched Him, etc. He said they saw His glory, the glory that befits the only begotten of God. He was full of grace and truth. The one they read about in the Old Testament Scriptures was now living and walking among them. They could see the Bible walking around and living as a person. They checked Him everywhere and saw His glory. He became their role model and they began to copy Him and pattern their lives after Him. Soon they began to change and began to look more and more like him and the Word began to be flesh in them. This is the purpose of God in sending Jesus Christ to the earth as our Role Model. He wanted man to be conformed to His image. So He became like one of us so we could see how He lived and He modeled life for us in every aspect. As we follow Him as our example and model, our lives begin to change to resemble Him in every area of life. In this way God has not only given us His WORD in a written form (the Bible) He has also given us someone to exemplify for us what He means in His Word. This is a tremendous help that makes it easier for us not only to understand the Bible but to have a living person we can follow and we will become what the Bible teaches. A book can say many things, for example about hunting or fishing and teach you how to hunt or teach but it is quite another matter to have an expert hunter or fisher man with you in the bush or sea side demonstrating what the book is trying to pass across to you. So we must thank God for this mercy and appropriate it maximally. It is not as you just read the Bible that you are changed but you behold Him as in a glass. 2 Cor. 3:18 testifies that: But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. So you must now read your Bible and study it with the intention of getting a revelation of Jesus inside it. It is as you see Him that you will become like Him. He is the role model that God has placed before us.
MODELLING CHARACTER For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps: Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously: (1 Peter 2:21-23)
Again you can see that God wants to teach us His children, about suffering. That suffering, not because of sin will work out good in our lives. Merely to tell us about it may not achieve the result but giving us a model will surely be of great help in making that Word to be flesh in us. If the father were simple to be telling us that when we behave well and yet suffer for it that such fortitude is a fine thing in His sight that would have been difficult to take. But He goes further to show us a man who suffered so much for us despite that He did not sin. He was convicted for no falsehood but was abused and did not retort, when He suffered He did not threaten but rather prayed and committed Himself to the one who judges righteously. In all these, God is giving us an example to follow in His footsteps. So, God uses Him to illustrate this principle or general rule. Jesus Christ therefore serves as an Example or Pattern to be imitated. This is a very big help in passing across things especially what is very difficult to appreciate and attain, humanly speaking. Apart from suffering we are also called to the Kingdom lifestyle. Humility, meekness, integrity, patience, and so on. These are qualities that are not native to man which is very difficult to pass across. So what God does is to use the Lord Jesus Christ to model these characteristics. Much more than explaining integrity, honesty, love, etc, God shows us the man who lived out all these and therefore exemplifies these characteristics and so makes it easier to appreciate and conform to. So as we follow Him committedly God works out in us what He sets out to do by His WORD.
MODEL FOR ADOLESCENTS – The adolescent age is a very difficult stage in life. It is at this age that these young people become very self conscious, want to find out many things about their bodies and lives generally, are very amenable to peer pressure because they want to conform to what is generally acceptable, are full of energy and want to explore many things, etc. This is why role modeling is acute in this stage of life because they copy a lot. Since they want to be fashionable and in vogue, they will copy popularly entertainers and their ‘achievers’ and try to pattern their lives after them. Unfortunately they do not know who they are copying. They do not know that many of these stage performers have fragmented lives and are in shambles in private but glamorous on stage. The devil will never show you a complete life, all round. But thank God that Jesus Christ was also an Adolescent. His story in this age range can be gleaned in the Bible. It was between the ages of 12 and 30 that we behold an excellent Adolescent and youth. He was knowledgeable, focused, submissive, etc. It was at this stage that He learnt carpentry and became the carpenter. He lived at home with His parents and siblings and modeled patience and endurance as He suffered much provocations and contradictions from His siblings and others. It was at this stage that He acquired the testimony that: And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man. (Luke 2:52) Yes He increased, grew and developed inside and outside and relationally with God and man and became the greatest and the most successful Man that ever lived. If you also want to succeed in future then you must not allow your adolescent life to be messed up. If that must happen then you must abandon every other role model you are trying to copy and look up and hook up to God’s Role Model that He is lifting up before you. You will not do well if you mix role models. To try to be like Jesus and at the same time be like someone else will produce a personality that is like a chameleon, so it is important to clear off every other models before your eyes and concentrate on Jesus, the Role Model. It is only then that God will work in you to become transformed into His image. Set Him before you always and imitate Him so that you do not complicate your life now and become a drop out in future.
CONCLUSION: Role modeling is very important for every teaching, training and discipleship. Paul said to the Corinthians: Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ. (1 Cor 11:1) All teachers and pastors and disciplers should speak like this. Following a person (a model) is easier than following the letters of the Bible. The instructions in the Bible will look too severe and unattainable if there were no models. Even the leaders and disciplers should model Christ. But it is only those that have followed Jesus that can model Him to others coming after them. So it is expected that at your level the seniors should model Jesus to the juniors. They will not be able to do this if they have not made Jesus and their teachers and disciplers who follow Jesus, their models. Taken from every side this great provision of God (modelling) must be utilized to the maximum if we hope to become conformed to Him and to succeed in life. Who is your role model? You need to sincerely answer this. If it is not the Lord Jesus and those that model Him then you are destined for troubles and failure. As you abandon every other role model and look on to Jesus may the Lord succeed to make you become like Him so that your life will bear His aroma and affect both God and man.
Teachers need visuals and models as teaching aids for effective teaching and learning. It has been proven that people retain a little of what they hear, more when they see it and most when they practice what they have heard and seen. So role modeling is a very important matter in imparting knowledge. Any teacher who wants to do his/her job effectively must go beyond audio to audio-visual and then to practice.Teachers need visuals and models as teaching aids for effective teaching and learning. It has been proven that people retain a little of what they hear, more when they see it and most when they practice what they have heard and seen. So role modeling is a very important matter in imparting knowledge. Any teacher who wants to do his/her job effectively must go beyond audio to audio-visual and then to practice. The other side of the coin is that persons who are learning want a model. This is more true for young people who want to become like someone they admire so will copy them – the way they look and the way they behave. Many a time they want to look like and be like their fathers, mother, teachers, etc. This is why parents and teachers must be very careful the way they live before these young ones because they will copy you as a model in both good and bad aspects. More than these many of them today want to be like some entertainers, sports personality, or some high profile person that is popular in one field of endeavour or the other. So you see them dress like these that they have chosen as their role models, cut their hairs like them, try to speak like them and even tattoo their skins like them, etc. So role modeling is a powerful medium for moulding and changing lives whether positively or negatively. When you see young people, who usually would hate being different from others, behaving in certain way it is because they are patterning their lives after a model.
ROLE MODEL: Now a model means a couple of things. One thing it means is a person who models outfits, wears, etc. The designer and dress maker sometimes uses models to wear those wears before an audience or television to sell such to people. This is not the model we mean here. Here we are referring to things like architectural models. When an architect designs a house he presents it in two-dimensional or three-dimensional drawings. Many a time the client may not appreciate this because he is unschooled in the language of the draftsman. So the way out is to make a miniature of the real building. This will show in a four-dimensional view how the building will look like when completed. Most people will appreciate this, so modeling becomes a powerful way of conveying to the other person or party what a designer or teacher has in mind so that they can appreciate and appropriate it fully. When we talk about ‘role’ here we simply mean the part an actor plays in a drama. By ‘role’ here we simply mean the part a person plays in real life or the position they occupy, etc. A man who has children plays the role of father at home. He may also play the role of teacher at school or business man in the mercantile field. The same person could still play another role in sports, church, community, politics, etc. Life has different roles and each of these roles need to be modeled by people who have excelled in them. Character can also be modeled. Example, humility, integrity, meekness, love, etc, needs to be modeled for people to understand them well and aspire to develop them.
THE ROLE MODEL – Now the greatest teacher of all is the Almighty God. None can teach like Him. He uses every medium to teach. He speaks much and in speaking He teaches perfectly. He also uses nature, created things, etc, to teach. When you hear Jesus teaching you will marvel. He uses appropriate illustrations, pictures, stories, etc, to make His teachings so practical and easily understood. God’s Book for teaching is the Bible, the written Scriptures. The Bible itself says that:All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works. (2 Tim 3:16-17) The testimony here is that every Scripture is inspired by God and is useful and profitable for teaching and other things. So, God uses the Scripture to teach. His aim is not just to inform but to transform the person He teaches so that the person’s life is straightened out so that he becomes perfect. To be perfect means to become conformed to the Lord Jesus. It is only such person’s whose lives have been transformed sufficiently that can be equipped and entrusted with the work of God. Even though the Bible cannot be improved upon and contains a full revelation of God’s will and purpose for man, God feels it is not sufficient to perfectly convey His mind. You see, the purpose of God is to make men to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. This is the subject of the whole Bible and its aim. Despite that the Bible is perfect God still felt that He needs a Role Model. That is why He sent His Son to come from heaven and live on the earth as a man for 33 years so that what He is teaching in the Bible can be seen physically as Jesus lived and walked about on the earth, from birth, childhood, adolescent, youth, etc. So He is God’s model for living and models life at every stage. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. (John 1:14) Jesus Christ is the Word of God that was with God right from the beginning. It is this Word that created all things. At a point in history this Word was made flesh (became a human being). He came from heaven where He had always been God and took on flesh (became a human being). John testified that He dwelt among men. He was not an ascetic or a mystic dwelling in caves, monasteries and such places. No, He lived where people lived so that they could see Him live. John said they beheld (looked upon) His glory. This means they were close to Him and not just saw Him from afar but associated and interacted with Him – followed Him everywhere, ate with Him, heard Him, touched Him, etc. He said they saw His glory, the glory that befits the only begotten of God. He was full of grace and truth. The one they read about in the Old Testament Scriptures was now living and walking among them. They could see the Bible walking around and living as a person. They checked Him everywhere and saw His glory. He became their role model and they began to copy Him and pattern their lives after Him. Soon they began to change and began to look more and more like him and the Word began to be flesh in them. This is the purpose of God in sending Jesus Christ to the earth as our Role Model. He wanted man to be conformed to His image. So He became like one of us so we could see how He lived and He modeled life for us in every aspect. As we follow Him as our example and model, our lives begin to change to resemble Him in every area of life. In this way God has not only given us His WORD in a written form (the Bible) He has also given us someone to exemplify for us what He means in His Word. This is a tremendous help that makes it easier for us not only to understand the Bible but to have a living person we can follow and we will become what the Bible teaches. A book can say many things, for example about hunting or fishing and teach you how to hunt or teach but it is quite another matter to have an expert hunter or fisher man with you in the bush or sea side demonstrating what the book is trying to pass across to you. So we must thank God for this mercy and appropriate it maximally. It is not as you just read the Bible that you are changed but you behold Him as in a glass. 2 Cor. 3:18 testifies that: But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. So you must now read your Bible and study it with the intention of getting a revelation of Jesus inside it. It is as you see Him that you will become like Him. He is the role model that God has placed before us.
MODELLING CHARACTER For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps: Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously: (1 Peter 2:21-23)
Again you can see that God wants to teach us His children, about suffering. That suffering, not because of sin will work out good in our lives. Merely to tell us about it may not achieve the result but giving us a model will surely be of great help in making that Word to be flesh in us. If the father were simple to be telling us that when we behave well and yet suffer for it that such fortitude is a fine thing in His sight that would have been difficult to take. But He goes further to show us a man who suffered so much for us despite that He did not sin. He was convicted for no falsehood but was abused and did not retort, when He suffered He did not threaten but rather prayed and committed Himself to the one who judges righteously. In all these, God is giving us an example to follow in His footsteps. So, God uses Him to illustrate this principle or general rule. Jesus Christ therefore serves as an Example or Pattern to be imitated. This is a very big help in passing across things especially what is very difficult to appreciate and attain, humanly speaking. Apart from suffering we are also called to the Kingdom lifestyle. Humility, meekness, integrity, patience, and so on. These are qualities that are not native to man which is very difficult to pass across. So what God does is to use the Lord Jesus Christ to model these characteristics. Much more than explaining integrity, honesty, love, etc, God shows us the man who lived out all these and therefore exemplifies these characteristics and so makes it easier to appreciate and conform to. So as we follow Him committedly God works out in us what He sets out to do by His WORD.
MODEL FOR ADOLESCENTS – The adolescent age is a very difficult stage in life. It is at this age that these young people become very self conscious, want to find out many things about their bodies and lives generally, are very amenable to peer pressure because they want to conform to what is generally acceptable, are full of energy and want to explore many things, etc. This is why role modeling is acute in this stage of life because they copy a lot. Since they want to be fashionable and in vogue, they will copy popularly entertainers and their ‘achievers’ and try to pattern their lives after them. Unfortunately they do not know who they are copying. They do not know that many of these stage performers have fragmented lives and are in shambles in private but glamorous on stage. The devil will never show you a complete life, all round. But thank God that Jesus Christ was also an Adolescent. His story in this age range can be gleaned in the Bible. It was between the ages of 12 and 30 that we behold an excellent Adolescent and youth. He was knowledgeable, focused, submissive, etc. It was at this stage that He learnt carpentry and became the carpenter. He lived at home with His parents and siblings and modeled patience and endurance as He suffered much provocations and contradictions from His siblings and others. It was at this stage that He acquired the testimony that: And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man. (Luke 2:52) Yes He increased, grew and developed inside and outside and relationally with God and man and became the greatest and the most successful Man that ever lived. If you also want to succeed in future then you must not allow your adolescent life to be messed up. If that must happen then you must abandon every other role model you are trying to copy and look up and hook up to God’s Role Model that He is lifting up before you. You will not do well if you mix role models. To try to be like Jesus and at the same time be like someone else will produce a personality that is like a chameleon, so it is important to clear off every other models before your eyes and concentrate on Jesus, the Role Model. It is only then that God will work in you to become transformed into His image. Set Him before you always and imitate Him so that you do not complicate your life now and become a drop out in future.
CONCLUSION: Role modeling is very important for every teaching, training and discipleship. Paul said to the Corinthians: Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ. (1 Cor 11:1) All teachers and pastors and disciplers should speak like this. Following a person (a model) is easier than following the letters of the Bible. The instructions in the Bible will look too severe and unattainable if there were no models. Even the leaders and disciplers should model Christ. But it is only those that have followed Jesus that can model Him to others coming after them. So it is expected that at your level the seniors should model Jesus to the juniors. They will not be able to do this if they have not made Jesus and their teachers and disciplers who follow Jesus, their models. Taken from every side this great provision of God (modelling) must be utilized to the maximum if we hope to become conformed to Him and to succeed in life. Who is your role model? You need to sincerely answer this. If it is not the Lord Jesus and those that model Him then you are destined for troubles and failure. As you abandon every other role model and look on to Jesus may the Lord succeed to make you become like Him so that your life will bear His aroma and affect both God and man.