As I continue my work among the church community, the most common complaint I hear is how people who say they are Christians behave. I received this text recently: “Dr. Dixie, I’m a fairly new believer. I’ve been pretty disappointed in what I see some Christians doing. I don’t want to be judgmental, but shouldn’t the difference between Christians and non Christians be more obvious?”
Both Christians and non-Christians have higher expectations of people who profess to know Jesus as Lord. Because we are anticipating a certain level of behavior, disappointment is greater when Christians fail. Sadly, over the past several generations, those who claim to know God have become noticeably less knowledgeable about the Word of God. When Christians are ignorant of God’s power, and are uninstructed about the practical changes needed in our daily behavior, we will continue to act just like the unsaved world. Disillusionment will certainly follow.
The New Testament describes believers as “the Body of Christ”. 1 Corinthians 12 and Romans 12 explains that each believer is a unique part of the His Body. So here’s an observation that may sound distasteful, but is an important concept: wherever a physical or spiritual body is, there will inevitably be some level of body odor! Changes in cultures and eras often determine what level is considered acceptable.
People in early European history rarely bathed. Body odor was accepted as normal, and not particularly noticed. In America, anything more frequent than a weekly bath only became common within the last 75 years; mass marketing of deodorants did not begin until the early 1960’s. Now, we have abundant clean water and soap available to us to minimize or eliminate physical odors; good nutrition can reduce odors from the inside. It has become culturally unacceptable not to shower daily. So, what do our bathing habits have to do with Christian behavior? I’m glad you asked! At salvation, the Holy Spirit moved into the physical bodies of believers to eliminate the odor of sin on the inside (1 Corinthians 6:9-7, 19). Because Jesus is the Living Water, and we have His cleansing life within, it is now possible to progressively wash away the “odor” of sin from our behavior: dishonesty, greed, lack of discipline, unfaithfulness, gossip and unkindness, to name a few. These selfish, immature behaviors, especially when seen in men and women who have been a part of the Body for many years, is spiritual body odor. It’s offensive, and needs to be “washed” by becoming sensitive to the Presence of the Holy Spirit each moment, learning to know Jesus intimately and behaving differently because of our growing knowledge of Him.
Every person has a unique belief system, developed in a unique family, church and life situation, so we each have a different perspective of what “stinks”. We may get so focused on someone’s offending behavior that we neglect to acknowledge what has changed on the inside. Paul addressed this problem in Romans 14: “One man’s faith permits him to eat all things while a weaker one limits his eating to vegetables. Neither is to regard the other with contempt…rather let us determine not to put an obstacle or stumbling block in a brother’s way.”
We cannot make others act the way we think they should, or even the way the Bible says they should. We are to encourage and admonish one another while paying close attention to our own behavioral “cleanliness”; choosing not to be offended by others as God does His sanitizing work in each one, from the inside out.
1 Thessalonians 5:14: “We urge you to admonish the loafers and the disorderly, encourage the timid and fainthearted, help the weak; be patient with everyone, always keeping your temper.”
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