The Fly in the Ointment Was Already Dead

The vacation was perfect. Beach house, good weather, no arguments in the car. Well, except for the jellyfish. "That was the only fly in the ointment."

We use that one for the little thing that spoils something good. The wedding was beautiful except the DJ played the wrong song. The new truck runs great except for that rattle you can't find. It's a good phrase, and it comes from the Bible. Specifically, it comes from a book a lot of folks skip right over, Ecclesiastes.

Dead flies and expensive perfume

Ecclesiastes is the wisdom of the Preacher, a man who had everything and spent his life looking for meaning "under the sun." In chapter 10 he gives us this little one-verse proverb:

Dead flies make the perfumer's ointment give off a stench; so a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor. (Ecclesiastes 10:1)

You've got to picture it. In the ancient world, ointment wasn't the tube of cream in your medicine cabinet. It was perfume, oil, and costly stuff people saved for special occasions, used to anoint a king or prepare a body for burial. A perfumer would work hard to make it just right.

Then a fly lands in it, and another, and they die in there. Give it a few days in the heat, and that expensive jar doesn't smell like perfume anymore. It smells like what it is: rot. A couple of flies, the smallest thing in the room, ruined the most valuable thing in the room.

And here's the Preacher's point: so a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor. You can spend thirty years building a reputation for wisdom and integrity, and one foolish moment can make the whole thing stink.

How it got into our mouths

Now, if you go looking for the exact words "fly in the ointment" in your Bible, you won't find them. The old King James talks about dead flies making the apothecary's ointment stink. Preachers and writers took that picture and boiled it down. Back in the 1600s a Puritan preacher named Thomas Watson was already warning about a "dead fly in the ointment," and eventually it shortened to the phrase we use today.

And notice the shift. When we say it, the fly is usually somebody else's fault: the jellyfish, the DJ, the rattle. It's an annoyance that happens to us. In Ecclesiastes, the fly is our folly. It's not bad luck. It's the little compromise we let in.

Little things aren't little

It's the little foxes that spoil the vineyards, the Song of Solomon says (2:15). It's a little leaven that leavens the whole lump, Paul says (Galatians 5:9). We tend to worry about the big sins and let the small ones buzz around: a little gossip, a little shortcut on the taxes, a little secret on the phone, a little sharp word to your spouse.

You know what I've noticed? You can be right and write yourself right out of a relationship. Little bits of pride, defensiveness, and insisting on being right can make a whole marriage start to smell.

So here's a question worth asking: what's landed in your jar? You probably already know. It's best to be offended about your own sin, not your neighbor's.

The ointment that filled the house

Here's the good news, and I love this. There's another jar of ointment in the Bible. A few days before the cross, Mary of Bethany broke out the good stuff:

Mary therefore took a pound of expensive ointment made from pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. (John 12:3)

Jesus was the one perfect life with no dead flies in it. No folly ever spoiled his name. And he took all of our stench, every foolish word and secret compromise, to the cross so we could be made clean.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)

Don't let it sit in the jar. Bring it into the light, expose it to Jesus, and let him clean it out. Paul says those who belong to Christ become "the aroma of Christ to God" (2 Corinthians 2:15). That's a fragrance no fly can spoil.