You just need to be adequate.

I think I have "smell nostalgia". It's that phenomenon where certain smells take you back to certain memories, places, or times. I know a certain smell in some candle shops reminds me of the Bird-in-Hand farmer's market in Lancaster County, PA. As I write, I stare at a crockpot of chili that smells like a comforting dinner Mom would make back in Australia. Sometimes, there are very distinct scents I can describe, nor ascribe to their origin, but I immediately will be taken back to a place where it made a mark in my mind.

For some reason, I went for a walk this morning and caught a waft of what I believe my grandparents smell like. I don't know what that smell is. But I always associate it with my grandparents.

This is perhaps, the strangest way to begin a New Year's post, but bear with me.

Adequate.

I have been reading through the epistles this holiday season, and a little while ago was in 2 Corinthians. In chapter 2:15, it famously says that,

"we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing" (NASB)

In the following verse, Paul calls believers an "aroma from life to life" (2 Cor 2:16). But what should stand out to us appears in his rhetorical question:

"And who is adequate for these things?" (NASB)

The word "adequate" in Greek here is hikanos which is an adjective defined as "sufficient" or "fit" Thus, some translations (i.e. the ESV) will write, "Who is sufficient for these things?". Paul is questioning who could even be fit for this task. It seems a large one, no doubt. To be a fragrance of anything else would not measure up. An aroma of Christ must be potent enough, sufficient enough to carry out its task: to spread "the knowledge of Him" (2 Cor 2:14), that is, Christ. But, Paul thanks God because it is His work that "manifests through us" this fragrance (2:14). It is God who is adequate or sufficient for this work.

So I have this odor, you see, or at least I hope I do. I find myself up in Pennsylvania with these grandparents - who trigger my "smell nostalgia" - for the New Year, and I spend New Year's Eve with them in church. In the morning, the pastor preaches on 2 Timothy 3:16-17 (and its surrounding context), but I'm reminded,

"All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work" (NASB)

It's the verse Bible teachers are pointed to repeatedly, because "the man of God" is any teacher, believer, Christian, male or female, who exists, equipped to share the Gospel. They are being trained by the words of Scripture, the very words of God Himself. And look, they too are made "adequate".

Would have been kind of cool if it was hikanos, but it's not. It's another adjective transliterated artios. It means "fitted" or "complete" and it's the only one of its kind in the New Testament. Some have thought of it as "perfect" (Strong's) or "prepared to function" (HELPS). All that to say God's Word has worked in us to make us adequate for the work cut out for us.

There's something about Adequacy.

I don't know about you, but I hear the word "adequate" and I don't have good connotations. Adequate sounds below par, lower middle class, "not meeting the mark", or just barely making it. It does not sound like a "fragrance of Christ". I've seen the perfume and cologne commercials: those models, those celebrities are gorgeous.

Adequacy sounds rough around the edges. The Greek makes it sound like a diamond.

Okay, for a second, let's forget about all our notions and nuances with the word. And let's listen to the Greek. And let's listen to Paul in both contexts. Man, adequacy sounds fantastic! To be equipped by God for "every good work", or to be so distinct that the "knowledge" of God just carries from us. We are made adequate to do the work He has called us to do: to proclaim and glorify Him until our final breath.

And even if we did bring our understanding of the word "adequate" into this, consider how much adequate is the most fitting word. Consider how it is in our weakness that God is proven strong (2 Cor 12:9-10). Consider how I am but one part of the whole body of Christ equipped only with the gifts that God provides for me to play that role (1 Cor 12). He equips me with what I need to work out His very will (Heb 13:20-21). I can be no more, no less than everything He wants me to be. I am finite.

Furthermore, consider how much we've stepped up from "inadequate" through the work of Christ. Need I remind you of this: "you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked" (Eph 2:1), that you "have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Rom 3:23), that "none is righteous" (Rom 3:10), that "nothing good dwells in [you]" (Rom 7:18), that "there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins" (Ecc 7:20). We were so lost, we were so inadequate, until the work of Christ in our life. By grace, we are made complete. By grace, we are continually made adequate.

Have you been made adequate?

I told you I went to two services on New Year's Eve. In the evening, I went with my grandfather to a church service at the retirement community in which he and my grandmother live. I was the youngest person at that service. Others there were seventy, eighty, ninety, even a hundred years old. I looked around the room and felt oddly comfortable.

The pianist played the preludes before the service. One contained the hymn, Blessed Assurance in which you may recall the lyric "This is my story, this is my song/Praising my Savior all the day long". I sang quietly to myself. I felt oddly comfortable.

I looked to the right at a wall with many different picture frames on it. One contained a poster with some of the words of Psalm 71, which has coincidentally, been one of my favorites for the last semester:

"O God, from my youth you have taught me, and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds. So even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me, until I proclaim you might to another generation, you power to all those to come" (71:17-18)

I felt oddly comfortable. But it wasn't so odd. It was the combination of this verse, the words of that hymn, and the surrounding faithful witnesses of the Gospel that overwhelmed me with a sense of peace. Adequacy was enough because a faithful God prepared all these people around me to faithfully witness and rest in what God had prepared them for.

Their story was adequate. It was not only a comfortable, but a comforting thing to see.

So with some muffled giggling, I declared "adequate" my word for the year. A couple of years ago, it was "beautiful" and somehow I downgraded, in the world's eyes. See, the world sees a person who can't do it all but is trained enough to nevertheless be not enough. The world sees a bunch of older people and says they don't do much for us now and fail to see how God has and will continue to work through them.

But Christians can be assured that adequacy is beautiful, because it trusts fully in the work of Christ, in the words of Christ, to transform and change us into aromas that remind a dying world of their Creator. It's the best "scent nostalgia" on the market.

And God's chosen people are adequate models for it, through Him. Praise be to Him!