The pottery mountain…

 

A pottery mountain…

In Romans 9, Paul talks about the potter and his clay..

“Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?”

Rom.9.21

My notes went on to say…Paul’s used this “illustration from daily 

life to express God’s sovereignty. Everyone in the Roman world used pottery,no matter his or her economic level, used pottery….there stands still today a artificial hill, 100 feet high made entirely from broken Roman-era pottery….the mound is estimated to contain the remains of 53 million olive oil storage vessels(amphorae)shipped to Rome…” Archaeology Study Bible…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Testaccio



Vessels containing oil couldn’t be reused because of the residual oil, whereas other pottery could be crushed and reused…

God’s sovereign choice…he is the potter…we are the clay…

The potters of those vessels containing oil, chose to make them oil containing vessels and others, contained other stuff…

The potter is the molder…the former of the clay…the clay doesn’t tell the potter what to do…

I have to say, I surely don’t understand it all, but I don’t need to…I take it by faith…God is, after all, the Creator, the Potter…He formed me…as a vessel for His use…

Thank YOU…. 

  But now, O Lord, you are our Father;we are the clay, and you are our potter;we are all the work of your hand.

Isa.64.8

 The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: “Arise, and go down to the potter's house, and there I will let you hear my words.” So I went down to the potter's house, and there he was working at his wheel. And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter's hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do. Then the word of the Lord came to me: “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done? declares the Lord. Behold, like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it. And if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, and if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will relent of the good that I had intended to do to it.

Jer.18.1-18

The Potter’s Hand…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TleYjvNqKGo

He didn’t throw the clay away…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRbWAtU6LPw

The canvas and the clay…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcDRp0zWGIw