Reading… and Thinking

“I have made you a tester of metals among my people, that you may know and test their ways. They are all stubbornly rebellious, going about with slanders; they are bronze and iron; all of them act corruptly. The bellows blow fiercely; the lead is consumed by the fire; in vain the refining goes on, for the wicked are not removed. Rejected silver they are called, for the LORD has rejected them.”

— Jeremiah 6:27-30 (ESV)

Most of the world’s silver, today as in ancient times, is found in ores that are predominantly some other metal—a lot of it lead. Lead has a few uses, of course, but there’s a reason it’s so cheap as metals go—it’s not good for very much except being heavy. The only good reason to mine it in large quantities is to get to the silver.

As you might guess, some ores bear more silver than others. Some of them you can smelt and smelt, and you won’t get anything valuable out of them—particularly using methods available in ancient times.

God tells Jeremiah here that Israel appears to be that kind of ore. The refining goes on in vain. The little silver that’s produced is still so full of impurities that it’s refuse. This is a gloomy picture, and if it were the only picture we had of God’s view of Israel, we would think that he had rejected them. From other passages we know that’s not the case. But this figure should make us stop and think.

The first point to notice is that even the best ores are mostly something else. There’s relatively little silver, mixed with a lot of lead, and a great deal of refuse rock. In this picture in Jeremiah, it is “the wicked” that God is trying to refine out. In Israel as a whole, it was the wicked people. But I think there is an application to the individual as well.

There is wickedness in us, which must be purged out. In fact, there’s more of that than there is of anything valuable. (This is why human pride is always out of place!) But God does recognize something of value in us. There is something that is worth saving, if it can just be drawn out.

This life is our smelter. There is no other purpose being served, from God’s perspective. He places us into circumstances that will purge “the wicked”, the natural tendencies of the flesh. If it’s not hot enough, He applies the bellows.

This process can get uncomfortable from time to time! When it does, it’s so important that we look at our situation from God’s perspective. His refining process is not intended to destroy us. It is intended to get rid of the refuse and leave us as pure silver.

Unlike a lump of ore, the amount of silver we can yield is entirely up to us. How much refining we need is also up to us. We can willingly get rid of the refuse and yield the precious metal God wants. Or, we can resist. God will go on smelting us, trying to work with us. But at some point, if all His purging proves to be in vain, He will give up and decide that we are reject silver, and cast us away. What use does He have for another lump of lead? There’s more than enough of that around.
 

P.S. If you pay attention, you will start to see that there are many references to the refining of silver in both Old and New Testaments. All have the symbolic meaning discussed here.