Combining your seminary education with life application, you wind up with the sweet blend of a fragrant aroma…
Last week before Thanksgiving, my church small group gathered food and money for a “pounding.” I had never heard it termed that, so if you haven’t either, a pounding is where a group of people collect a “pound” of food and give it to another family to fill their pantry. We weren’t literal with it, but each person gave as they could or felt led, and we put all the food together to give to a local family of four who had fallen on hard times. They were a part of our faith family, believers who had gone through some extreme circumstances and were struggling to get on their feet, but were obediently praising Christ in their difficulties and willingly relying on the help of their brothers and sisters to share their burdens.
As we sat in their home, listening to the sharing of their testimonies, I recalled a passage of Scripture we had discussed in class the week before. 2 Corinthians 2:14-16:
“But thanks be to God, who always puts us on display in Christ, and spreads through us in every place the scent of knowing Him. For to God we are the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. To some we are a scent of death leading to death, but to others, a scent of life leading to life. And who is competent for this?”
Here the application struck me a little differently. In class we had discussed the evangelical and missional context and implications of this passage. But in this home, we weren’t spreading the Gospel to unbelievers. We weren’t concerned over the eternal lives of these people because they are family already. But [thankfully] God uses us to spread the knowledge of Christ in every place. And even in the home of our believing friends, we were the fragrance of life leading to life, a beautiful and pleasing aroma to our Lord.
I’ll let Paul wrap it up with this:
“Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” Ephesians 5:1-2
