Ever heard of the Australian sculptor Ron Mueck? He’s part of an emergent art movement called “hyperealism” which seeks to make accurate sculptures of the subjects they draw from. Mueck will go as far as to detail veins and hairs in his sculptures. When one looks at his work it’s hard to say fit sure whether it’s alive or not. It could be said that Mueck takes the subjects of his sculptures as the pattern for them.
In the second half of Philippians we also see Paul encouraging us to take Christ as our pattern. This also matches Romans 9 where we see we’re like a lump of clay being molded by God as the potter.
Well, if we are being molded, what are we being molded according to? The answer Philippians gives us is that is Christ Himself. Furthermore, Colossians tells us we are being conformed to the image of God’s Firstborn: Christ.
What the Lord needs isn’t our effort to conform to the pattern as a lump of clay that has a mind of its own isn’t very useful. We also shouldn’t be close because in our example this would be like working with obdurate clay. Ask anyone who has taken a ceramics class and they’ll be quick to affirm working with rock-hard clay isn’t fun either. The main thing the Lord desires from us is our cooperation just as the most desirable attribute of clay is it’s malleability.
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