I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Jeremiah 19-22.

    Throughout the Book of Jeremiah the prophet says that it is too late for Jerusalem to avoid the coming disaster. Yet, he also says that if the people and the rulers turn from their sins and begin obeying God it will not happen. This is not a contradiction. Jeremiah knows that not enough of the people of Jerusalem, especially among the ruling class, will turn from their sins. He points out that many of the people of Jerusalem, again, especially among the ruling class, publicly worship God while practicing idolatry in private. Among those in the ruling class, they worshiped God as part of their public duties, but worshiped idols with their friends and neighbors in their private life. The key thing in Jeremiah’s condemnation of the people of Jerusalem was that their worship of God was purely ceremonial. Jeremiah points out that there is a connection between the idolatry of the ruling class and the way in which they oppress the rest of the people.

    Repeatedly the prophet addresses those among the people of Jerusalem who were sure that God would never let Jerusalem fall. The argument that God would not let Jerusalem fall was based on the idea that the ceremonies which God called His people to perform needed to be performed at the Temple (or, at least many of them did). One of the themes throughout the Book of Jeremiah is that those ceremonies are less important to God than for people to live righteously. Jeremiah repeatedly told the people that they had it wrong. The ceremonies (singing praise songs, reading Scripture, offering sacrifices, etc) were not ends in themselves. They were extensions of leading a holy life, of treating our fellow man the way God intended. The people thought that as long as they practiced the ceremonies which God had directed they were, more or less, doing the most important part. It was OK that they were performing ceremonies to other gods on the side and using their power to lord it over others. It is the same mentality that led Mafia bosses the think they were good Christians because they went to mass every Sunday, while ordering people beaten up or murdered during the week. The same mentality that leads certain businessmen to think they are good Christians because they teach Sunday School, while bribing government inspectors or cheating their customers during the week.