... in your answer an explanation of what a vessel of honor and a vessel of dishonor would have meant to a potter and how to apply this principle spiritually
Fully explain the illustration Paul uses of the vessels of honor and dishonor in Romans 9. Include?
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Fully explain the illustration Paul uses of the vessels of honor and dishonor in Romans 9. Include in your answer an explanation of what a vessel of honor and a vessel of dishonor would have meant to a potter and how to apply this principle spiritually.
Answers (2)
From a single lump of clay the potter could make a vessel for an honorable use and another for a dishonorable, a common, or an ordinary use. Similarly, Jehovah has authority to mold individuals as he pleases and has tolerated wicked ones, “vessels of wrath made fit for destruction,” but this has worked to the benefit of “vessels of mercy,” persons making up spiritual Israel.—Ro 9:14-26.
Yes, some of the Great Potter’s work will be molded for an honorable use, and some, for a dishonorable use. Those who choose to go along with the world as it plunges ever deeper into the morass of ungodliness are molded in such a way that will mark them for destruction. When the glorious King, Christ Jesus, comes for judgment, such dishonorable vessels will include all obstinate goatlike humans who will, as Matthew 25:46 states, “depart into everlasting cutting-off.” But sheeplike “righteous ones,” those molded for an “honorable” use, will inherit “everlasting life.”
The potter’s authority over the clay is used illustratively to show Jehovah’s sovereignty over individuals and nations. (Isa 29:15, 16; 64:8) To God the house of Israel was “as the clay in the hand of the potter,” He being the Great Potter. (Jer 18:1-10) Man is in no position to contend with God, just as clay would not be expected to challenge the one shaping it. (Isa 45:9) As an earthenware vessel can be smashed, so Jehovah can bring devastating calamity upon a people in punishment for wrongdoing.—Jer 19:1-11.
In the Scriptures vessels are often referred to as people. (Ac 9:15) Christians are frail earthen vessels entrusted with a glorious treasure, the ministry. (2Co 4:7) Women are designated as the “weaker vessel.” Therefore, Christian husbands, by taking into consideration their wives’ physical and biological limitations, as did Jehovah in the Law given to Israel (Le 18:19; 20:18), act “according to knowledge, assigning them honor as to a weaker vessel, the feminine one.”—1Pe 3:7.
An individual should keep separate from those vessels “lacking honour” (persons who do not conduct themselves aright) pursuing a course in harmony with Jehovah’s will. Thus he can be “a vessel for an honorable purpose, sanctified, useful to his owner, prepared for every good work.” (2Ti 2:20, 21) Jehovah’s refraining from bringing immediate destruction upon “vessels of wrath,” wicked persons, serves to spare righteously disposed ones because it gives them time to be molded as “vessels of mercy.”—Ro 9:17-26.