The Attractive Christian Life: I was listening to someone talk at length about how Christians ought to dress and conduct themselves in such a distinctive way that people should almost immediately recognize them as followers of Christ. Numerous examples were given: our clothing, our speech, our entertainment, our general manner of life. And I found myself wondering what that would actually look like in practice. Certainly there are ways a Christian probably ought not dress, and we would hope that our conduct would reflect something of the hope we profess. No one is arguing that conduct is irrelevant, or that a profession of faith should have absolutely no bearing upon the way we live.
But beyond that, what exactly are we talking about? What is a Christian supposed to look like from across the room? Am I supposed to wear a Scripture verse across my chest everywhere I go? Carry a Bible under my arm at Walmart so nobody mistakes me for an unbeliever? Trade in my jeans for suspenders and start dressing like an Amish farmer? And if we move beyond clothing, what particular mannerisms, vocabulary, hobbies, music, or entertainment are supposed to announce, “There goes a true follower of Christ”? The longer I listened, the more I began to wonder whether we sometimes confuse Christian conduct with Christian advertisement, as though the life of faith must somehow be packaged in a visibly recognizable form.
And that becomes even more interesting when we are told why this visible distinction supposedly matters. The argument was essentially this: if there is no noticeable difference between your life as a Christian and the life of an unbeliever, why would he ever want what you have? In other words, our lives are expected to make Christianity attractive. The unbeliever sees the happiness, order, conduct, dress, family life, or whatever else supposedly marks the Christian, and somewhere along the way begins to think, “I want what he has.” Before long, Christian conduct has become a kind of advertisement for Christianity, and the believer himself is almost placed in the position of making the gospel desirable.
But is that really the problem the gospel addresses? Whatever happened to conviction of sin, to lostness, to the realization that I stand guilty before God and have nothing in myself that can make me acceptable before Him? The sinner’s great need is not that Christianity has failed to look attractive enough. His great need is reconciliation to God. This does not make Christian conduct unimportant; it simply puts it in its proper place. The law exposes sin and shows us what righteousness requires, but the gospel does not point the sinner toward the Christian and say, “Look at his life.” It points away from us altogether and toward Christ: “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” MPJ