WAY More Flies with Vinegar!

We've been having a fruit fly problem in our kitchen recently.  It was driving me crazy.  Every time I went to the sink or reached for a sponge and small black cloud of fruit fly would alight and disperse around the kitchen, flying in their frustratingly unpredictable patterns.  They were also having a field day in our fruit bowl, laying their nasty little eggs in the fruit that was supposed to make us fit and healthy. 


 Initially I went for the swiping hand-clap technique of killing them, however it soon became evident that that just wasn't going to work. After a small amount of googling, out came the now tried and tested vinegar trap.  Basically, you put some vinegar in a bowl, cover it with cling wrap and then poke some holes in it with a skewer.  The flies smell the fermenting bouquet of eau de vinegar, crawl in through the tiny holes and then find that they can't get out again.  Simple. Easy. Smelly.


But I thought you were supposed to "catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar"?  Apparently not.  All this got me thinking about the nature of the gospel.  More specifically it really reminded me of the truth of 2 Corinthians 2:15-17 which says, “ For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life. And who is equal to such a task? Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, like men sent from God."  


I think a lot of times, when we really understand the seemingly abrasive nature of the gospel and it's call that none of us are good enough to please God, but that we have all fallen short of his glory and must rely entirely on Jesus' death on our behalf to be made right with God, we can seek to soften this when we share it with people. We can seek to sweeten it up by not explaining the starkness of our state before God if we choose to rule our own lives, or to downplay the hardships of the Christian life by laying on the honey that "if you follow Jesus then your life will be problem free".


In our society, where appearance is everything, as Christians, we are to resist the urge to sweeten the gospel truth.  Yes, we are to come before God with nothing and continually rely on Him to do everything to save us.  Yes, the Christian life will be hard and we should expect to be persecuted for following Christ.  But also, we are called to preach a true gospel.  A gospel in which we are counted to be co-heirs with Christ, given every spiritual blessing and saved eternally.  It's a message that is caustic to the rest of the world, but to those that catch it's scent, it is the sweetness of Life itself.

Photo by MightyBoyBrian on Flickr