Holy, But Still Human

2 Corinthians 4:7-15

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.”^[a] Since we have that same spirit of^[b] 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.

Galatians 2:11-14

¹¹ When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. ¹² For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. ¹³ The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.

¹⁴ When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of them all, “You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?
Galatians 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

New International Version (NIV) Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. 

1.      Why do you think Paul would say we are jars of clay?

a.       Clay always has a certain amount of impurities within it.

b.      Sometimes inferior products are made by insufficiently burning vessels. The vessels were not left in the fire long enough.

c.       Clay jars have an amount of fragility and can be easily broken.

2.      What does it mean to be human?

a.       Talking about our humanity makes us feel vulnerable and weaker than we like to think we are.

b.      Saying we are human jars of clay points out our weakness, and fragility; we get tired and old.

3.      In what way do we reveal Christ through our humanity?

a.       When we accept Christ, He does not remove our humanity. He merely enhances it, sort of like light through a stained glass window.

b.      In our humanity and fragileness, show the power of Christ through these weaknesses.

c.       Leslie B. Flynn, Dare to Care Like Jesus, illustrates the importance of living a Christlike life in a story. He wrote, “A Christian baroness, living in the highland of Nairobi, Kenya, told of a young national who was employed as her houseboy. After three months, he asked the baroness to give him a letter of reference to a friendly sheik some miles away. The baroness, not wishing to houseboy to leave, just when he had learned the routine of the household, offered to increase his pay. The lad replied that he was not leaving for higher wages. Rather, he had decided that he would become either a Christian or a Muslim. This was why he had come to work for the baroness for three months. He had wished to see how Christians acted. Now he wanted to work for three months for the sheik to observe the ways of the Muslims. Then he would decide. The baroness was ashamed as she recalled the many shortcomings in her dealings with the houseboy. She could only exclaim, “Why didn’t you tell me at the beginning!”

4.      How can we reveal Christ through our weakness?

a.       We can reveal Christ through our weakness by not focusing on our humanity, but on His sufficiency.

b.      We can know our weaknesses because of the power of Christ; we can be stronger in our times of weakness than when we are operating under our own strengths.

c.       Because we accept Christ, we do not instantly become perfect. “Christians are not perfect. They are just forgiven”.

d.      How can that person claim to be a Christian and act like that, is hard for unbelievers to grasp.

5.      How is what Paul is saying in 2 Corinthians 4:7 an indictment against humanism?

Humanism

* an outlook or system of thought attaching prime importance to human rather than divine or supernatural matters. Humanist beliefs stress the potential value and goodness of human beings, emphasize common human needs, and seek solely rational ways of solving human problems.

a.       Humanism essentially says that man is his own god; therefore, man has no weaknesses, but is a paradigm of goodness and can solve his own problems by rational reasoning.

b.      A humanist would not need to rely on an outside force, such as a Supreme Being.

6.      How do verse 8 and 9 fit?

a.       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.

b.      Everywhere we go, we will have trouble and problems, but with God’s help, we can keep going.

c.       Sometimes we do not know what to do or which way to take, or where we will get the supplies we need. We may also have perplexing thoughts, doubts, and fears.

7.      Can anything other than what is put into the jar come out?

a.       Consider when Jesus turned water into wine. It was still water until the servants took some out to give to the master to taste, and then the master called it the finest wine.

b.      Note that the water to wine that Jesus helped with went into stone jars, not clay. Ceremonially, clay was impure, therefore, for ceremonial purposes, stone needs to be used. Although, if you think about it, the water the servants put into the jar was not ceremonially clean either.

c.       The treasure in the jar of clay is unseen until it is poured out for others.

d.      A hidden treasure is of no value to anyone.

e.       God poured the treasure in. It is our job to pour out the treasure.

8.      It is because of our humanity we must be confronted by Christ. Why is that?

9.      What does being confronted by Christ mean?

a.       “To have experienced the Christ, to have encountered Jesus of Nazareth, to have run headlong into the person of God in the flesh must have been like stepping into the path of a hurricane. No one would do it intentionally. Human beings do not seek out hurricanes. Hurricanes happen. Suddenly. Often without much warning. If we can avoid “being there,” we do. If we can’t, we don’t. It is really almost as simple as that. To experience the Christ is to run headlong into the path of a hurricane. Yet the experience of the hurricane itself is scattering, disassembling, chaotic, violent motion.” (The Way of the Wolf: The Gospel in New Images, Martin Bell)

10.  Explain why it is in the context of our humanity that we live out our new life in Christ.

a.     Note: Just because within a human context something is impossible, we need to remember that the word “impossible” is not in God’s dictionary.