Monday, April 06, 2009
Drinking or Draining
Some metaphors need no explanation. Justin Taylor recently linked to one of them.
The biggest one is that a faucet, unless it is connected to some good plumbing, is just a useless hunk of polished metal, or in some cases plastic. The actual performance of the faucet is only as good as it's connection. A faucet is not a source, it is a conduit.
The gospel does not "flow" from us - it flows through us, and we forget that at our peril. It is not our job to bring salvation to the world - That is Christ's job - it is our job to be His instruments in that effort.
Being Christ's man or woman is a call to a double sort of selflessness. We must be selfless to our God and we must be selfless to the other. It is too easy to take pride in the "service" we render. It is too easy to lay claim as our own to the actions of the Holy Spirit.
I hope you are a faucet Christian, I just pray you remember where the water comes from.
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There are two kinds of Christians.Now, this is a brilliant metaphor - as far as it goes. And I think that anyone that reads it and thinks about it for even a minute will be drawn to it. But if you think about it - it contains some problems.
“Sink Christians” view salvation like they would a sink. The water of salvation flows into the sink so that Christians can soak up all the benefits:
[...]
“Faucet Christians” view salvation differently. They look at the world as the sink and themselves as the faucet.
The biggest one is that a faucet, unless it is connected to some good plumbing, is just a useless hunk of polished metal, or in some cases plastic. The actual performance of the faucet is only as good as it's connection. A faucet is not a source, it is a conduit.
The gospel does not "flow" from us - it flows through us, and we forget that at our peril. It is not our job to bring salvation to the world - That is Christ's job - it is our job to be His instruments in that effort.
Being Christ's man or woman is a call to a double sort of selflessness. We must be selfless to our God and we must be selfless to the other. It is too easy to take pride in the "service" we render. It is too easy to lay claim as our own to the actions of the Holy Spirit.
I hope you are a faucet Christian, I just pray you remember where the water comes from.
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