“Dad! This is the same brand that my friend is promoting!”
My daughter and I were browsing a mall store when she pointed out a counter of neatly stacked moisturizers and lotions. “Which friend?”
“You know, Sally, in my class.”
“Why is Sally promoting these? Someone is paying her to do this? Is she a model?”
“No Dad, she is an influencer!”
“Excuse me, an influencer?”
“Companies pay people who have a lot of followers on social media to use their products. That’s why she’s always posting photos of herself using this moisturizer, eating at different restaurants, wearing different clothes.”
My eyes opened wide as I struck a pose. “Hey! I want to be an influencer, too! I want people to pay me to use their products!” Then I had an epiphany. “I know, I can be an influencer for dermatopathology!” I pretended I was sitting at my microscope and spoke in a rehearsed voice over. “Everyday I am making life-changing decisions with my microscope. That’s why I only use Premium Microscope products!”
Rolling her eyes, my daughter informed me, “Dad! It doesn’t work that way! You have to be popular!”
“Oh!”
For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human? What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each.
1 Corinthians 3:4-5 (ESV)
During the early years of the Christian Church, believers were forming cliques, centered around the different prominent personalities and leaders like Paul and Apollos. Paul recognized the danger of following different personalities-the early influencers of the ancient world. He redirected everyone’s attention to the true influencer, Jesus Christ.
I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.
1 Corinthians 3:6-7 (ESV)
I may not be able to become an influencer in the same manner as my daughter’s friend on social media, yet God has shown me a better way. How can I be an influencer?
The answer begins with the verse that ends every blog.
Love and trust the Lord; seek His will in your life.
The Bereans Blog 