God’s Pressure Cooker
Practical Help from 2 Corinthians 4:7–18
As a child, I well remember the sound of a whistle blowing to indicate that dinner was almost ready. It was the release valve on one of my mom’s favorite cooking utensils, her pressure cooker. Pressure under controlled circumstances produces greater effectiveness and productivity, making water do what it cannot naturally accomplish.
Most of us feel as though we have spent time in the pressure cooker. Why must life be so painful? We might wish to escape the pressures of this world by abandoning our responsibilities or fleeing our circumstances, but God has a purpose in applying the heat in our lives.
The Premise of God’s Pressure Cooker — 2 Corinthians 4:7
Paul called the gospel a “treasure.” The word is the source of our word “thesaurus” and originally spoke of the place where one kept his most valuable possessions. Where has God chosen to store this most valuable possession? Amazingly, Paul writes, in “earthen vessels.” Only in dire extremities would one entrust his most valuable possessions to a common household pot. God, however, has done just that, choosing us as the vessels to whom the glorious gospel has been committed. Why? So that “the excellency of the power” would obviously reside in God. If God has called us to the ministry of the gospel (and every Christian is called in some sense), where will the power come from to accomplish this work? God has entrusted this gospel ministry to plain clay jars so that He will get all the glory for what is accomplished.
The Process of God’s Pressure Cooker — 2 Corinthians 4:8, 9
To illustrate the fact that the power is God’s and not ours, Paul shifts his metaphor a bit in verses 8 and 9. These verses reflect Paul’s normal expectation for the life of ministry.
First, the gospel minister is “troubled on every side.” The word means “to press in upon.” God is allowing heat to be applied to the earthenware vessel, but Paul triumphantly says, “Pressed, but not distressed!”
Second, the gospel minister is “perplexed.” Paul almost seems to contradict himself here, for he uses a word that implies one is cut off from resources and in perplexity as to where to turn. Paul used a strengthened form of the same verb to give the triumphant answer: “Perplexed, but not in despair.”
Third, the gospel minister is “persecuted,” a word that literally means to hunt down and attack. Paul had quite literally been persecuted, but God never abandoned him. “Persecuted, but not forsaken.”
Fourth, the gospel minister is “cast down, but not destroyed.” God is still in control.
You may wonder, though, whether any of this really applies to you. Maybe you are a housewife, a chemist, or a school teacher. The trials you face are not persecution; they are gall stones, unruly children, a hectic calendar, or neighbors who ignore your testimony.
Two things, however, incline me to think that Paul has a wider application in view. He is clearly describing all Christians in verse 7. God has entrusted every Christian with the Great Commission ministry of proclaiming the gospel so that the lost will be saved and the saved edified. Furthermore, God is at work in every Christian doing His work of sanctification. As the believer involves himself in ministry, however, God will inevitably allow obstacles, pressures, and even persecution to befall him.
The Purposes of God’s Pressure Cooker — 2 Corinthians 4:10–15
As Paul continues the sentence begun in verse 7, he expresses the first purpose of God in applying heat to His saints: that they might better manifest Christ to those around them (vv. 10, 11). Paul introduces this idea by using a powerful paradox: the gospel minister is simultaneously bearing about the dying of Christ and manifesting the life of Christ.
To bear about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus is equivalent to always being delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake (v. 11a). Paul was always willing to die because of the hope of eternal life. At the same time, Paul was manifesting the life of Christ. The union with Christ that he enjoyed in his sufferings was enabling him to show others what Christ is like. Never does the Christ-life in believers shine out with more startling distinction from this world than when believers respond in a Christlike way to pain and pressure. The crucible revealed the gold in Paul—gold in a clay pot!
Paul’s second purpose is to mature our faith (vv. 13, 14). Believers get to know Christ better when they are driven to their knees by adversity. In Psalm 116 the psalmist was encompassed with the sorrows of death, finding only trouble and sorrow, but he called out to God for deliverance. God heard the psalmist’s voice, inclined His ear, dealt bountifully in grace, and delivered the suffering man’s soul from death, his eyes from tears, and his feet from falling. Our faith is strengthened during suffering; those are the times that stretch us beyond our natural capacities.
A third purpose is that our suffering enables us to minister to others. Nothing can cause us to be self-absorbed more than pain. As the heat increases and pressure is applied, we can easily lose our focus on both God and others and become preoccupied with our own troubles. Christ, however, modeled a suffering that was entirely unselfish. When the women bewailed Him, He turned the tables and urged them to weep for themselves and their children (Luke 23:27–31); when the soldiers drove nails into His hands, He forgave all who were persecuting Him (Luke 23:34); while hanging between two thieves, He showed compassion on one of them, assuring him of imminent rest in paradise (Luke 23:39–43). In all of Paul’s sufferings, he sought to imitate Christ.
Suffering enables us to minister more effectively to those around us. When we suffer for the gospel, we are giving evidence of the reality of the thing for which we suffer. Suffering humbles us and makes us more sympathetic to those around us who are hurting. Our sufferings are pathways to more effective ministry to those around us. Paul indicates a fourth purpose for suffering—magnifying God’s grace (v. 15). God grants abundant grace in suffering. God does not turn up the heat and then leave us. Paul’s sufferings were the occasion for grace to extend to more and more people. Just as God used Paul’s sufferings to introduce the gospel to the Corinthians, so He is continuing to work through the afflictions of His saints to add daily to the church those who should be saved.
The result is abounding thanksgiving. It is difficult to feel thankful (although we are commanded to give thanks) when the heat is applied. But when the meal is cooked and the results of the heat are evident, then we rejoice and overflow with thanks.
The promise of God’s pressure cooker is that
- nothing important will boil off,
- the result will far outweigh the process both in quality and duration, and
- it is exactly what we need to best worship God and enjoy Him forever.
May God give us a Biblical perspective on the pressure cooker that is Christian ministry. It may be hot, but it’s worth it!
Dr. David Saxon is professor at Maranatha Baptist Bible College, Watertown, Wisconsin.
(Originally published in FrontLine • July/August 2012. Click here to subscribe to the magazine.)