Trending
It is true what they say, "You can't always tell the value of something by the package it comes in." That is true of preachers and it is certainly true of the rest of us who are witnesses to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
It reminds me of the parable that Jesus told of the treasure of salvation buried in the dirt. The treasure was so valuable that the man sold everything to buy it or the pearl without price hidden in the ugly oyster shell for which a man gave up everything. The container doesn't always reflect the value of its contents.
That is the contrast delineated for us in II Corinthians 4:5-7. It is a startling and extreme contrast. It is a contrast between the shining glory of God in the face of Jesus and the feeble, imperfect, ugly containers by which this glorious gospel is carried and delivered to people. We need a little background to understand the text.
When Paul first founded the Corinthian church. I don't believe he had any idea that this church would break his heart. But they did. First, they broke his heart by dragging into their life as Christians all the sins that they had been forgiven for in their salvation and justification. They broke his heart because they allowed false teachers into the church who taught heresy and doctrines of demons. They broke his heart because they assaulted Paul relentlessly, mercilessly, and constantly for months and months. They attacked his integrity and his credibility. He was so devastated by the onslaught that he paid them a visit. While there, one man stood up in the congregation and blasted Paul to his face and nobody defended him and it left him with a shattered heart. So Paul then sent Titus another letter, a letter not included in the N.T. He wrote, "Don't abandon me because if you abandon me, you'll abandon the truth." Then Paul wrote this second letter to the Corinthian church. It was a hard letter to write for in it, Paul had to defend himself, he had to defend himself as a messenger of God. Then they began to attack his character. They even attacked him personally. In II Cor. 10:10 they said his personal presence was unimpressive and his speech was contemptible. In other words, they said he was ugly and he couldn't communicate. That is pretty strong language. If you are handsome and can't communicate, people can at least enjoy looking at you. If you're ugly but can communicate, people can at least listen to you. But if you are both ugly and can't communicate, you've got nothing.
In 11:6 they said he was unskilled in speech. Some commentators have suggested that Paul was a small hunchbacked man with some physical deformities. We only know he was aging and scarred. Do you know what his response was? What do you want out of a clay pot? So he writes in v.7, "We have this treasure in earthen vessels."
Paul was overwhelmed that God would put such a priceless treasure in such a clay pot. Here was a man in his 60's and writes, "I was a blasphemer, I was a persecutor, I was a violent aggressor and yet I was shown mercy and the grace of our Lord." He writes, "It is a trustworthy statement deserving full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am chief."
Preachers, ministers, elders, deacons, laity are just people, that's all. I am not perfect and therefore my ministry will never be perfect. If God could not use poor instruments and feeble voices, He couldn't make music, right? Abraham, guilty of duplicity, and yet he became the man of faith and the friend of God. Moses, stuttering speech, quick temper, yet he was chosen by God to make a nation and commune with God and receive His law. David, guilt of adultery, conspiracy, murder, unfaithful as a husband and father, repented and became a man after God's own heart and the number one song writer in all of history. Elijah, running from Jezebel, asking for euthanasia, stood on Mount Carmel, defied Ahab and all the prophets of Baal and heard the still small voice of God at Horeb. Isaiah, in the presence of a heavenly vision say, "I am a man with a dirty mouth, I live among people with dirt mouths, I am useless to you God, and yet when he had been cleansed said, "Here am I, send me."
Peter, another clay pot, the leader, the spokesman for the 12 Apostles, denied His Lord with oaths and curses, had the audacity to correct the Lord and was restored by the compassion of Jesus and enabled by the H.S to speak with such force on the Day of Pentecost that thousands were saved and the church was born.
John the apostle, who expected to be praised by Jesus for refusing to allow a man not in their company to cast out a demon and who with James wanted to call down fire from heaven to burn up a Samaritan village, who sent his mother to ask Jesus if they could have the chief places in the kingdom, became the beloved disciple, the apostle of love. Get the picture?
So it is with Paul. He is under assault unjustly. He's falsely accused. He's battered and hammered. It is physical, for in Ephesus, he started a riot and had to escape. In II Cor. 11 he lists all the beatings: five times beaten by the Jews, 39 stripes, three times beaten with rods by the Gentiles, shipwrecked, and on and on. Beyond that he bore the concern for the church, the plotting of the Jews, and he writes, "I die daily." He wasn't speaking of some mystical experience; he suffered so greatly that every morning he awoke he realized this could be the day of his death.
But it is one thing to suffer at the hands of those who despised the gospel; it is another to suffer at the hands of those whom you love. He even writes to the Corinthians, "How is it that the more I love you the less you love me?" But instead of defending himself, instead of telling of all his great exploits, instead of focusing on what he has accomplished he says in chapter 12, you're right, you're right, but when I am weak, I'm strong. His weaknesses are not defects; they are credentials of his ministry. It is a tribute to humility. He defends himself not on the basis of natural talents, not on the basis of human skill or achievement, he says in v.7, "We have this treasure in earthen vessels in order that (purpose clause in the Greek) the surpassing greatness of the power may be of God and not from ourselves."
That is why God puts the priceless treasure in clay pots, so that nobody ever has to ask where the power comes from. In ch.10 it says, "I don't compare myself to other ministers, I don't measure myself by that standard, I don't even compare myself by my own standards, we have this treasure, this ministry. The treasure is the ministry. The ministry is the gospel. The gospel is the story of God incarnate in Christ redeeming sinners. It is the great shining gospel. And God puts that ministry in clay pots. What is a clay pot? It is baked dirt, baked clay, really cheap stuff, common, breakable, replaceable, essentially valueless. Maybe you have one at your house. Some people start their gardens in clay pots. They're cheap and if you break one, no big deal. You can put a ribbon on it and dress it up and at least make it look like it is worth something. Maybe that is why my wife likes me to wear a tie at church. But I am still but a clay pot. I don't have any value; I am but cheap, breakable, disposable, replaceable, valueless. yet, useful sometimes.
The Dead Sea Scrolls were found in clay pots. Sometimes they were used to put valuables in and bury them in the ground, but you couldn't leave them in the ground very long because they would deteriorate. In II Tim. 2:15, it says, "Now in a large house there are not only gold and silver vessels, but also vessels of wood and earthenware, some to honor and some to dishonor." And then he says if you are ever going to use any of these vessels for honor you've got to cleanse them because they are defiled." The point being the only value they had was the service they performed.
In II Cor. Paul says, "We have this treasure in a garbage can, a waste bucket." Common containers, that is what we are. That is how it is in the ministry. Our only value is as a container. It is the treasure we bring that has value. That is why the Lord did not choose many noble, not many mighty. That is the essence of spiritual service. They say you are weak, unimpressive, not clever, not a good communicator, common. You say, "I know, I'm just a pot but do I ever have a treasure." The New Testament was not written by the elite of Egypt. It was not written by the elite of Greece or Rome or Israel. The greatest scholars in the world at that time were in Egypt. The greatest scholars were found in the Library of Antiquity in Alexandria. The most distinguished philosophers were in Athens. The most powerful leaders were in Rome. The religious geniuses were in Israel's temple. But God never used any of them. He just used clay pots. He passed by Herodotus, the historian, Socrates, the philosopher, Hippocrates, the father of medicine, Plato and Aristotle, Euclid, the mathematician, Archimedes, the father of mechanics, Hipparchus the astronomer, Cicero, the orator and Virgil, the poet. He passed them all. Why? He was looking for clay pots. He used peasants and fishermen, smelly guys and tax collectors, clay pots to hold and proclaim and to write the priceless treasure of gospel truth. And God is still doing it, isn't he? He is still passing by the elite, the hard-hearted, non-listening, proud intellectuals. They may be sitting in their ivory towers in universities, sitting in their ivory towers in seminaries, sitting in their positions of authority in the church but God is finding the humble who will carry the treasure of saving truth.
You might be thinking, how can that work? Verse 5, We do not preach ourselves. We are not the message. It is not me or you. Doesn't mean we have no convictions, doesn't mean we are undisciplined, doesn't mean we are lazy, doesn't mean we are irresponsible. Doesn't mean we don't work hard. Just means we get ourselves out of it and that is when strength becomes the parent. If you want to be used by God, get yourself out of it. Just see yourself as a garbage pail. Peter said it this way, "Clothe yourself with humility." It's not you. It's not your personality; it's the word of God. But doesn't the Lord need the intellectuals, the great people, the fancy and famous people. No, because the people aren't the power. What's the power? The message. In I Cor. 3, Paul wrote neither is the one who plants anything and the one who waters anything. God is everything. Denny wrote, "No one who saw Paul's ministry and looked at this preacher could dream that his success lay in him. Not in this ugly little Jew without presence, without eloquence, without the means to bribe or compel could be the source of his courage or the cause of such a great transformation. It must not be him but of God. A.T Robertson wrote, "There always have been men in the world so clever that God could make no use of them. They could never do his work. They were so lost in admiration of their own. God's work never depended on them and it doesn't depend on them now."
The power is not the product of human genius, cleverness, technique or ingenuity. The power of the gospel is the gospel. We are just weak and common and fragile and breakable and disposable clay pots who are used to take the garbage out. But in doing so we are bringing glory to God. Listen, it is not your job to be effective. It is not my job to grow this church. It is not your job to be eloquent when you share the gospel. We are just clay pots. The treasure is the message not the man. Yes, we want to be diligent in our study so that God can use us in new situations. Yes, I want to study hard so I get the message right. But when we open our mouths we want to say, thus saith the Lord because it is the word of God that is sharper than any two-edged sword. Maybe we ought to change the name of the church we attend. Maybe we ought to call it the Clay Pot Church. We are unworthy servants but God has given us a treasure. What a privilege.
•••
The Rev. Dr. James Barnes is currently the pastor of White Memorial Church in Milroy.