Fire Extinguishers: Things We do that Put Out Our Fire - Part I

Image by dolomite73 via Flickr

Fire has always been a metaphor for the experience of the Christian life. When speaking of his work in evangelism John Wesley said, “I set myself on fire and people come to watch me burn.” Christianity has been using this imagery since its birth.


In fact, it is on the birthday of the church, we call it Pentecost, that we most frequently use the image of fire. The Gospel writer Luke tells us in the book of Acts that on the day of Pentecost, when the church received the gift of the Holy Spirit, tongues of flame danced upon their heads. Thus vital Christian life in the Spirit became connected with the image of fire and we have used it ever since.

Fire is a good image because it evokes so many things. Fire can be positive or negative. Everyone loves to have a fire in their house but not in their house. Fire is equated with hearth and home. It can also be an image for consumption and destruction. Biblically speaking, fire (when used to refer to the presence of God) is often understood as a horribly wonderful thing, purifying as it consumes.

In our lives as Christians it is no different. That very presence of God in us purifies as it consumes while simultaneously drawing others as moths are drawn to a flame. Our job, as Wesley put it, is to burn so that others may watch and see the glory of Christ.

The thing about fire, however, is that for all of its power it does have its limitations. A fire can, after all, die and no one has ever been warmed by a dead fire.

In general, fire needs two things to live. First of all, it needs fuel. Because its job is to consume, fire has the nasty habit of using up its available resources. If you do not feed a fire it will starve and go out.

The second thing a fire needs is air – an oxidizer of some sort – because fire is the visible sign of a complex and destructive chemical process in which one thing is broken apart into its basic components while others a turned into something new.

This is why you can blow a candle out. Now, I know that this seems counterintuitive, but when you suddenly blow a candle out you are separating the fuel from the air around it. When an oil rig explodes they actually “blow” them out by using a large quantity of high explosives. Leave this one for the experts folks. You don’t want to try it out on your next birthday cake.

This is why fire extinguishers work. They separate the fire from its fuel or air, starving it out of existence or suffocating it to death. This is why firefighters spray water on a fire, your grandma keeps a box of baking soda near the stove and your grandpa kept a bucket of sand in the garage – they are all effective fire extinguishers. And of course, there are all of those people you know as wet blankets. And if you are a wet blanket yourself, well, there is a reason you never get invited to parties.

Now, I know that you are incredibly thankful for this little trip in the world of Mister Wizard and the magic of fire. My point is this. When it comes to the spiritual fire we have been given, there are many “extinguishers” we need to watch out for. Just like the real ones they tend to work by either starving or suffocating. In the next couple of messages we will take them up based on how they work. First, we will look at the ones that starve. Then, we will look at the ones that suffocate.