February 18, 2022

II Corinthians 2: 15, 16 (NIV)
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.

Those who preach the gospel are pleasing to God regardless of the response of those who hear it.*

It is not unusual for people to have different ideas about what tastes good. I can’t stand the taste, smell, or texture of bananas while others find them quite – er – appealing. It is not quite so common for our appreciation of certain odors to differ widely.  I have never met anyone who did not like the smell of vanilla, cinnamon, or freshly baked bread. Who doesn’t love that new car smell or the scent of meat cooking on a grill? Of course, there are differences of opinion when it comes to fragrances – I don’t like the smell of most perfumes or incense, while I have a cousin who claims to like the way skunks smell.

Paul tells us that, to God, we Christians smell like Christ and we can be sure that he is pleased with our fragrance, but whether the world perceives us as a good smell or a bad one is determined by the associations of each individual. To those who are in the process of being saved, we are the fragrance of life. (I’m thinking of a walk in the woods with the scent of evergreens, grass, flowers, and fresh air.) To those who are on the path of death, Christ smells like death - and I doubt if anyone who has ever gotten a whiff of something dead and decaying stopped to sniff some more.

If the sense of smell is so evocative, perhaps we Christians could do more to improve our odor among the lost. We could lead lives that emit more pleasant aromas – the fruit of the Spirit comes to mind: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Don’t those sound like sweet-smelling qualities that could trigger a more positive response when others get a whiff of us?

In spreading the fragrance of Christ the preacher himself becomes fragrant.*