What contrasts accompany the earthen-vessel image?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

Paul links sincere ministry and God’s power with affliction contrasts, faith, daily inward renewal and unseen eternal glory.

Chapter breakdown

Having ministry according to received mercy, Paul says they do not faint. They renounce hidden dishonest things, craftiness and adulteration of God’s word, manifesting truth to every conscience before God. If their gospel is hidden, it is to the lost; the god of this world blinded unbelievers’ minds against Christ’s gospel glory, Christ being God’s image. They preach Jesus Christ as Lord rather than themselves and are readers’ servants through Jesus. God commanded light from darkness and shone in hearts for knowledge of glory in Christ’s face. No named skeptical group, precise primeval scene or personal prestige motive is narrated.

Treasure is in earthen vessels so power’s excellency is God’s, not theirs. The printed contrasts are tribulation but not distressed, straitened but not destitute, persecuted but not forsaken, cast down but not perishing. Straitened and destitute should not be silently replaced by a foreign perplexed-and-despair wording. Bearing Jesus’s mortification in bodies is so Jesus’s life may manifest there. The living are delivered to death for Jesus’s sake so life may manifest in mortal flesh; death works in them and life in readers. These statements do not give individual injury diagnoses, a bodily healing promise or an unrestricted guarantee that every person survives persecution.

The shared spirit of faith is illustrated by the written believed-and-therefore-spoken statement; they likewise believe and speak. The one who raised Jesus will raise them with Jesus and place them with readers. All is for readers’ sake so grace abounding through many abounds in thanksgiving to God’s glory. They do not faint: although outward man is corrupted, inward man is renewed daily. Present momentary light tribulation works an exceedingly immeasurable eternal weight of glory, while they look to unseen rather than seen things, temporal versus eternal. No physiological model of progressive decay or schedule for visible things quickly vanishing is given.

The story inside

The printed straitened/not-destitute words remain intact; bodily imagery is not a medical guarantee, and no extra decline mechanism is supplied.

Lessons worth keeping

1
Power’s excellency belongs to God.
2
The source says straitened but not destitute.
3
Seen things are temporal and unseen things eternal.

Test your recall

Which contrast follows tribulation but not distressed?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 131029–131048
4:1. Therefore seeing we have this ministration, according as we have obtained mercy, we faint not. 4:2. But we renounce the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness nor adulterating the word of God: but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience, in the sight of God. 4:3. And if our gospel be also hid, it is hid to them that are lost, 4:4. In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of unbelievers, that the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not shine unto them. 4:5. For we preach not ourselves, but Jesus Christ our Lord: and ourselves your servants through Jesus. 4:6. For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Christ Jesus.
Lines 131050–131065
4:7. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency may be of the power of God and not of us. 4:8. In all things we suffer tribulation: but are not distressed. We are straitened: but are not destitute. 4:9. We suffer persecution: but are not forsaken. We are cast down: but we perish not. 4:10. Always bearing about in our body the mortification of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be made manifest in our bodies. 4:11. For we who live are always delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake: that the life also of Jesus may be made manifest in our mortal flesh. 4:12. So then death worketh in us: but life in you.
Lines 131077–131086
4:16. For which cause we faint not: but though our outward man is corrupted, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. 4:17. For that which is at present momentary and light of our tribulation worketh for us above measure, exceedingly an eternal weight of glory. 4:18. While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal: but the things which are not seen, are eternal.