20 IN A LARGE HOUSE there are articles not only of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay; SOME ARE FOR NOBLE PURPOSES AND SOME FOR COMMON USE. 2 Timothy 2
Paul then uses a metaphor of a LARGE HOUSE to highlight a spiritual truth. The first thing to notice is that there is ONLY ONE HOUSE and it’s the Master’s house. None of this applies to any other house. Within this large house there are two groups of articles; some are used for Noble purposes and the others for common use.
21 THOSE WHO CLEANSE THEMSELVES from the latter will be instruments for special purposes, MADE HOLY, USEFUL TO THE MASTER and prepared to do any good work.
Within the Master’s house there are two groups, but one group has been active in getting rid of unrighteousness from their lives and so have become useful/cleansed for Noble purposes.
A vivid example of this is Jesus cleansing the Temple after His Triumphant entry into Jerusalem.
12 Then Jesus went into the temple of God and DROVE OUT ALL those who bought and sold in the temple, and OVERTURNED the tables of the money changers and the seats of those WHO SOLD doves. 13 And He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’ ” Matthew 21
We see a picture of the anger of God in human form, because of the profaning of His Father’s House. The common had displaced the Holy, along with blatant dishonesty. Jesus was determined to restore the Holy calling in the House of God, ‘My house shall be called a House of Prayer’, Isaiah 56:7 ‘but you have made it a den of robbers’. Jeremiah 7:11 Isaiah pronounced the Holy Calling on God’s House and Jeremiah foresaw the Lord’s Ruthless cleansing of the Temple.
What does this speak to the Church of today and to us as members of the household of God? We can still cleanse our own hearts and lives and be used in a greater measure in the coming times. May the Lord help us to honour Him in the Church and in our personal lives.
God bless and keep you today.