Treasures in Clay Jars
For Meditation
We all have had a tough year and we are weary in many ways. For some of us, our spiritual patterns are weak or non-existent. We find it hard to make it to worship regularly. Our family life is tough and we struggle with keeping or reviving healthy patterns. Probably for all of us, we just want things to change.
Paul’s message in this passage is aimed to help us not lose heart – to not give up. He wants to tell us that what will enliven and encourage us is to see how God is powerfully at work even in the midst of the bone wearying struggle we are in. Paul can relate. He reviews his story, telling us how hard pressed he is, how confused he is about what is going on, about his persecution and hardship, and about how beat up he is. But he does so to reveal a secret of incredible good news. We have a treasure in these jars of clay lives. It is God’s power that is especially visible in the midst of weakness and suffering.
The treasure he describes does not seem to fit with the ordinary clay pot lives we are living. They are fragile, ordinary, and uncompelling. However, Paul is telling us that God is powerfully showing up right there in those fragile, ordinary, uncompelling places to produce a glorious life that lasts. He starts and ends this section of his letter telling us that God is transforming us into Jesus’ image with ever increasing glory. In the middle of what he calls “light and momentary” troubles, God is producing an eternal weight of glory in our lives that will far outweigh all the trouble.
God wants us to see him powerfully at work and so see everything differently. Looking at the unseen reality with unveiled faces, with the blindness of this world removed because we are seeing the glory of God in the face of Jesus, we will find ourselves revived, encouraged, strengthened and empowered. He wants us to look with new eyes at the true reality shown in viewing His power at work.
As you prepare for Sunday, reread the 2 Corinthians passage aloud. These additional passages also help us see afresh God’s power at work in us and will help us take heart: Romans 6:1–11, Colossians 3:1–5, 12–17, 1 Peter 1:3–9.
2 Corinthians 3:17–4:18
17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
1 Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. 2 Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God. 3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. 4 The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 5 For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.
7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 11 For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. 12 So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.
13 It is written: “I believed; therefore I have spoken.” Since we have that same spirit of faith, we also believe and therefore speak, 14 because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you to himself. 15 All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.
16 Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.