(It’s guest post Friday! Here’s one from Peter McMurray. You can check out his blog here. If you want to write a guest post for SCL, here’s how!)
Christian put-down lines
Valentine’s Day came around last month and it started me thinking. If there is one thing we Christians don’t like, it is singleness – the one spiritual gift that should come with a receipt so you can exchange it for something that suits you better. And what worse time to be single than Valentine’s Day, when all good Christian couples should be texting, tweeting and instagraming verse from 1 Corinthians 13 to each other (so helpful of Paul to split it into short, tweet-friendly sentences – restricting himself to under 140 characters way before Twitter made it mainstream, so hipster…)
Which is why as a young single Christian guy, I was afraid. The 14th was rapidly approaching and I had no-one to DTR with. But then I found a SCL post of Christian pick-up lines. Armed with these lines, what could possibly go wrong? It was time for me to put the stud back into Bible study.
So I used sermon time to eye up the talent in the pews (top tip – sermons are the best time for spotting holy hot girls – all their attention will be on the preacher, so they won’t notice you checking them out, plus you can use post-sermon prayers to ask for forgiveness for your lust…) and then come the post-service coffee time I was ready to make my moves. Unfortunately I came across something I wasn’t expecting. The Christian put-down line.
When I was expecting to hear responses like “You can be my Boaz any day” I was hearing terrible things. Things like:
- When I read in Jeremiah 29:11 that God has good plans for me, and think of you, I feel somewhat cheated
- My love for you is purely agape
- I see you as more prayer partner than date partner
- I have the gift of prophecy, and I have a word for you – celibacy
- God promised He has a great plan for me, I don’t see how you could fit in with that
- We are brother and sister in Christ, it would be like incest
- You need someone with less discernment
- I’m not sure our callings are compatible
- It’ll take prayer and fasting on your end…mostly fasting
It’s at times like this that you wonder how a girl can claim to be a Christian and yet be so lacking in grace and mercy. What would Jesus do? He ate with prostitutes, tax collectors and a person who betrayed him – all I’m asking is that you go out to lunch with me; I can’t be as bad as that can I?
So unfortunately for now it seems my love life is doomed to remain more Paul than Solomon. Fortunately there are plenty more fish in the sea. I’m just praying I don’t end up with one as large as the one that swallowed Jonah whole.
Guys, have you experienced any similar Christian put-downs? Girls – when asked out with a Christian pick-up line do you use put-downs like those? And if not – want to grab coffee some time?
(No girls were hurt in the writing of this post. My ego on the other hand took a severe beating…)
For more great writing from Peter, check out his blog!