Exhortation, June 19

In our sermon text, an indebted widow appeals to Elisha for deliverance from creditors, and he responds by telling her to fill vessels with oil from a single jar. The supply of oil lasts as long as she has vessels to fill. She sells the oil and with the proceeds is able to make enough money to deliver her sons from debt-slavery.

Like many of the miracles in Scripture, this story is both a literal event and a parable. It is a parable about faith. Throughout Scripture, human beings are symbolized by vessels. Unclean vessels symbolize various forms of human defilement, the temple vessels symbolized the people of Israel gathered at the house of Yahweh, and Jeremiah compared Yahweh to a potter making and breaking the vessel

of Israel. In the New Testament, Paul says that God endured with much patience “vessels of wrath prepared for destruction.” When God created Adam from earth, He created him to be a vessel. When God created Adam, He created him to be filled.

Specifically, God created Adam to be filled with the Spirit, and the Spirit is symbolized by oil. Jesus was anointed with the Spirit, as kings and priests were anointed with oil, and in Zechariah’s vision two olive trees provide an endless supply of oil to keep the lamps of a great lampstand burning.

From the miracle of oil, the widow, and we, learn that God’s supply is inexhaustible, always and everywhere. He never runs short of resources. The Spirit is infinite, able to fill us again and again, with more and more of Himself, as long as we bring ourselves as empty vessels, asking in expectation for God to fill us.

As we face the various complicated challenges of life – challenges in marriage, in raising children, in our work, in our friendships – we are well aware of the limitations of our strength and wisdom. But if we focus our attention on our limitations, we are not acting in faith.

The limitations of our resources are never on God’s side. He is able, and He is willing to fill us to the brim with His Spirit of power, His Spirit of Wisdom, His Spirit of discernment and might. Open you mouth wide, and I will fill it. No, the limitations are from our side: We lack because we do not ask, and when we do ask we ask in unbelief or for wrong motives. Trust him. Keep the empty vessels coming. He will not deny His Spirit to those who ask.

posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, June 19, 2005 at 08:55 AM

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