Any archeologist who digs in Israel can be sure to find some pottery. It’s amazing that something so useful and beautiful can be made out of earth. And that’s precisely why God chose to use pottery in an object lesson to the nation.


God told the prophet Jeremiah to go to the potter’s house. Jeremiah watched him recycle the soft, misshapen pots, scooping them off the potter’s wheel and reforming them. It was just earthen clay, and the potter had the right to shape it into anything he wanted. That was what God had in mind for Israel. If they continued to be disobedient, He would scoop them out of their place and reshape them as He wished.


It’s easy to judge the Israelites for their calloused attitude toward God. But our age is no different in its arrogance. We – also formed from the earth – should be more inclined to remember the lesson of the potter’s house. And we cling to knowing “we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us” (2 Corinthians 4:7).