Blog 2645 – 01.25.2023

The Significance Of Clay

In the creation story we are told that God took clay and fashioned it into a body and breathed into it the breath of life when He made Adam. The Hebrew word for Adam literally means “son of the red earth” just like the read clay of Tara in Gone With The Wind.

Later in the Bible we are told that we have feet of clay, meaning that we are fallible and prone to mistakes, misdeeds, and missteps. We can all say Amen to that.

There is the story of Jesus taking dirt and his own spittle and making clay to anoint the eyes of a blind man to restore his sight. The recorder of the story goes on to inform us that the spittle of a good man was thought to have healing properties. Jesus seemed to think the most important ingredient to healing was not spittle, or clay but faith. Many doctors still find healing is enhanced by belief and often in drug trials the placebo given to the control group has positive results to revival the new drugs because those taking it believe they are taking something with healing properties.

Another Bible reference to clay is the one where the writer asks, “Shall the clay say to the potter, ‘Why have you fashioned me thus?’” The meaning of this one seems to imply that we should as the children say realize that “God don’t make junk.”

One more Bible reference to clay, my favorite, likens us to clay lamps, “We have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency might be of God.” Whether that excellency is described as the breath of life or the light of the world it is housed in clay. We are indeed fearfully and wonderfully made.

“This is the day (and body) that the Lord and I have made. We will rejoice and be glad in it.”

The ole joke says the husband was proud when he overheard his wife telling a friend that he was a model husband till he looked up model in the dictionary and read the definition, “a small clay representation of the real thing.” We are each of us small clay representations of the “real thing.” Even so we have within us the great “I am.” Descartes’ famous line comes to mind, “I think therefore I am.”

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David White

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1N3YS3l2xRm8dlQJOA3HVAxPqjJ0Flg10/view?usp=drivesdk

Junk