2 Corinthians 4:7 Commentary and Bible Study

In olden times cheap earthenware pots might contain the treasures of a large house. And many, many times precious, precious documents, biblical manuscripts, Dead Sea scrolls have been rescued from caves – and what were they held in? Cheap earthenware pots.What does Paul have in mind? Some people say he has in mind his bodily weaknesses, his experiences that he goes on to mention, his susceptibility and vulnerability to all kinds of troubles and hardships, his temptations and persecutions. He also has in mind without doubt his inadequacies. The apostle Paul by the will of God was no great speaker. He had faltering speech which could be despised by people who desired great oratory. And yet God used him massively and mightily. Earthen vessels, vulnerable men, weak and frail human bodies. Oh, the inadequacies of human ability and human strength to do the work which God has called them.Paul was brilliant but he did not use his brilliance, he stuck to the word, patiently commending it to every man’s conscience. Not indulging in great flights of reasoning which he had invented himself out of his brilliant mind but he stayed with the doctrines, faithful to them, presenting the gospel. I am merely an earthenware vessel, he says. We have got our weaknesses, our inadequacies. We cannot do anything that would elevate us and make you think we, by our mighty gifts, can win souls and transform people. No, we are stripped of all of that by the wisdom of God, so that the power, ‘the excellency of the power’ – a word with a built-in double superlative – greatness of the power than converts, that changes lives, may obviously, clearly be God’s and not the preachers.Why does God sometimes use such inadequate instruments? That it may be proved ‘that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.’ So do not admire the preachers. Pray, and in these days of great need with the pandemic spreading and fear beginning to mount even among many of the young, what opportunities we have. How much we need to declare this gospel. This pandemic and its economic aftermath maybe in a strange way the answer to the prayers of God’s people by which people’s minds will be opened more. How much we need to pray. Do not look for the most brilliant instruments, but to come on our knees and pray for an outpouring of the Spirit for the work of God because ‘we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.’