God’s Word for You

2 Timothy 2:20-21 honorable and dishonorable

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Saturday, June 27, 2026

20 Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable. 21 Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from these things, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, and ready for every good work.

Readers who have any sense of history might wonder here whether Paul is talking about kitchen utensils, pots, pans, and so forth, or a chamber pot? Some commentators wonder the same thing, but I believe that Professor Habeck is correct when he takes us no further than the comparison between the kitchen of a small home, and the kitchen of a villa or large house. In a little home, an ordinary home, like the one that I live in, there is no upstairs, no hidden chambers, and just a little kitchen that is crowded and constantly lived in. There are many tools there, one or two are even silver, but unused since my own childhood. Most everything is of a cheaper metal, or plastic, or even wood. But in a large house, a villa, the owner keeps the cheap and inelegant dishes and utensils “in the back.” Guests would only see silver or gold. But Paul isn’t making a case for fine dining or beautiful cutlery. He’s making a comparison between the true church and those who truly oppose Christ.

The utensils “in the back” that the guests don’t see are necessary for preparing the meals, and also disposing of the garbage, scraping pots and plates, and so forth. No honor is attached to those more ordinary tools. In the Law of Moses, if a clay pot became ceremonially unclean, it was smashed and forgotten about (Leviticus 11:33). The point Paul makes is that the church is always going to be a mixture of the bad with the good. Jesus made the same point with the parable of the weeds, which ends with this judgment: “Let both (that is, both the wheat and the weeds) grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn” (Matthew 13:30). There is a similar parable about good fish and bad (Matthew 13:47-48).

We should not apply this verse to believers or servants of the gospel who have different gifts, some more lovely and others more ordinary. That isn’t what Paul is saying at all, because we would never want to separate ourselves from fellow Christians. And that isn’t how we are to treat people with lesser gifts. Remember that Paul told the Corinthians that “the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special modesty” (1 Corinthians 12:23). What the Apostle is telling us to do is to separate ourselves from such truly dishonorable men as the false teachers Hymenaeus and Philetus, who were stirring up trouble throughout the Christian church. Such things will happen; such men will come to disturb the peace of the people. But we should avoid them, as Paul teaches in Romans: “Watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them” (Romans 16:17). They are vessels, utensils, that we should “cleanse ourselves from.” That means, we should not use them, not obey them, not work together with them. We should separate ourselves from them.

This will also mean separating ourselves from their followers, and this can be a struggle that is more painful than any other cross a Christian can bear. Like a pan or spoon that has come into contact with something rotten, we need to cleanse it or get rid of it. Under the law of Moses this was true of yeast, and also of contact with unclean animals that might scurry into the kitchen like lizards and such. But Paul is talking about false teachers, and we should treat their teaching like the footprints and feces of lizards and rats, and what we cannot cleanse or scrape clean, we must discard and avoid ever after. There was an incident when Dr Luther had to encourage the people of Livonia to avoid the preaching of a self-called minister who was disturbing their little region. He told them: “Both you and your preachers should diligently seek to promote unity and to hinder this work of the devil, because God appoints [that is, permits] the devil to do this [disturbing] in order to give us occasion to prove our unity and in order to reveal those that have stood the test. For in spite of all our efforts, enough factions and disunity will remain…” (LW 53:49).

When we do these things because we are led to by our pastors, this is a good thing. They are called to point the flock to good pastures and guard the flock against bad ones. But when we can, as individuals, see these things for ourselves, then we become truly “useful” (εὔχρηστον, compare Philemon 1:11) to the master, and do good service at all times.

This passage is also a preaching of the gospel for us because it implies and demonstrates that we, sinners that we are, often make mistakes. But we can, through the preaching of the Word of Christ, be cleansed of our mistakes, for he who is to purify himself must beforehand have been impure and therefore a vessel of dishonor. “St. Paul testifies with clear words,” our Confession proclaims, “that God’s power and operation can transform the vessels of dishonor into vessels of honor when he writes, ‘if anyone cleanses himself from these things, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, and ready for every good work’ (2 Timothy 2:21).”

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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