Judges 7 describes the conquest of faith by Gideon’s band. Part of the victory was the use of empty pitchers. The pitcher is an earthen vessel. But while the pitcher was empty of the usual worldly things that pitchers normally contain it was filled with light. The pitcher was not to be spared in the advance but sacrificed and broken (v. 20), and the lamp held forth.

Paul says, “we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us” (2 Corinthians 4:7). Christians are meant to be vessels emptied of self and worldliness but filled with God's Word, the lamp (Psalm 119:105). We have to be ready even to be offered and broken in the warfare, all the while, “holding forth the word of life” (Philippians 2:16).