The Guides of Our Digital Corinth

Last week I spoke with a young man who attends our young adult ministry. He told me he was becoming convinced of Pentecostal Oneness theology from a “pastor” on YouTube. A few months earlier I met with a couple of young men who were being swayed by some things they had seen from Catholic apologists on Instagram Reels. Two years ago, I counseled a young woman who was considering changing her view on what the Bible teaches on sexuality because her favorite Christian influencer had become “affirming.”

In Paul’s day one of the main things Corinth was known for was sophistry. People went to Corinth to display their prowess at rhetoric. Not simply demonstrating they were wise, but that they were skilled at displaying their wisdom. The best would compete for greater reputation and larger crowds. Devoted disciples would attach themselves to a silver-tongued rhetorician in the hopes of kickstarting their own career.

This culture led to Corinthian Christians claiming Paul or Apollos over and against the other to the point of splintering the Corinthian church (1 Cor. 1:10–12). It was such a serious problem that Paul spent the opening four chapters of 1 Corinthians addressing this issue, leading to his final appeal in 4:14–17:

I do not write these things to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children. For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. I urge you, then, be imitators of me. That is why I sent you Timothy, my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, to remind you of my ways in Christ, as I teach them everywhere in every church.

After four chapters of a theological master class on the power of God in the gospel which confounds human wisdom, this is Paul’s closing statement on the issue. No more arguments, just an appeal: “you have so many guides, but I am your only father.”

I’m convinced we find ourselves in a similar situation, and an even more pervasive one, as the Corinthians. You and I live in a digital Corinth, and we too certainly have “countless guides in Christ” (1 Cor. 4:15). Podcasts, social media accounts, YouTube channels, book authors, Xers, Substackers, sermons from celebrity pastors we care for more than the ones coming from the pulpits at our own churches—we have countless guides in Christ. More countless than the Corinthians could have dreamed of.

And, also like them, we don’t have many spiritual fathers. The Corinthians at least had Paul. What about us? Can the swaths of Gen Zers getting the vast majority of their Christian content via their phones name anyone they could call a father in the faith?

And before you see a baby flying out with the bath water, this is not all bad. What a tremendous blessing to have at our fingertips so many godly and sanctifying resources! Where would any of us be without online Christian ministries? Having guides in Christ is not the problem—if they are truly guides “in Christ.” The problem for the Corinthians, and the problem that faces us, is when we try to use those guides to fill our need for spiritual “fathers.”

Not only this, but with the rise of social media and all the modes of Christian content mentioned above, how much of a felt need for spiritual fathers even remains? When constant access and seemingly unending resources—whether they be full online articles or 20-second reels—offer 24/7 instantaneous input laced with a dopamine hit to boot, how many Christians truly have someone who could be called a spiritual father? How many feel that they even need one? Just like with the Corinthians, the guides and gurus slowly but surely replace our felt need for would-be-fathers in the faith.

The trouble is that guides, even well-meaning ones, simply can’t do what only spiritual fathers (and mothers of course!) can do. Online or any at-a-distance guides remain woefully inadequate to do the two things Paul tells the Corinthians that only he can do for them as their spiritual father: love them and be their in-flesh model of the Christian life.

Love

Paul loves the Corinthians. Like a father with his children, he has a deep and genuine affection for them. They are his “beloved children” (4:14)—and not just anyone’s beloved children or God’s generally, but “my beloved children.” And Paul is their “father”—their only one, he not so subtly suggests—through the gospel. This is the core difference between spiritual fathers and guides. Gospel-fathers really know and really love their gospel-children. Because of that love, they have a unique relationship that guides simply can’t replicate.

It doesn’t matter how much you love Desiring God or John Piper himself (I count myself in that number by the way). It and he cannot love you back. Help? Totally! Guide? Yes! Know you? Love you? Feel for you and be concerned for your good like a father is for his children? No way. Not possible. And that’s ok. Being known and fully loved is what you need as a disciple. And it is something only a spiritual parent can offer.

Modeling

Secondly, the guides couldn’t satisfy Paul’s urge “to be imitators of me” (v.16). That’s the reason Paul says he is sending Timothy, so that if they forgot how Paul lived, Timothy can “remind you of my ways in Christ.” And notice that the purpose is to “remind.” It’s a refresher. Paul lived among them for at least 18 months. He was there, among them in person. They watched him live day in and day out. He had demonstrated his Christian life before them in such detail that they should know its shape and “vibe” and only need reminding of his “ways in Christ.”

Consider Your Ways

Who are you imitating? Not what Christian influencer, author, or preacher do you like. Whose life are you so close to that you could actually imitate them? What more-mature-than-you Christian are you tailing so closely that they are rubbing off on you? Whose “ways in Christ” have shaped and are shaping you because you’ve watched them be lived out in front of you?

I imagine most of us—especially younger Christians who have never known life without access to countless guides in the palms of their hands—struggle name someone whose life we are truly imitating. And that inability reveals our digitized Corinthian problem.

Rather than being content with digital and paper guides who cannot love us and whom we cannot imitate, we need spiritual fathers and mothers who love us and live in front of us.

We are not so different from our Corinthian brothers and sisters; our Corinth is simply digitized and our options for guides even more countless. We too need spiritual fathers and mothers who actually know and love us as their beloved spiritual children. We too need spiritual moms and dads we know are worthy of looking up to and who are actually around so we can follow in their footsteps.

So here’s a call to pursue spiritual fatherhood—both to those who need fathers in the faith and to those who need to become them for the spiritually fatherless. We don’t need to get rid of all the guides, though perhaps a few less wouldn’t hurt. But what we do need, like the Corinthians, are fathers like Paul who know and love us and whose ways we can imitate because we’ve watched and are watching closely.