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 23-25.

    Jeremiah spoke out against false prophets, condemning them for claiming that their own thoughts and words were those of God. He compares the prophets of his day to the prophets of Samaria. He says that the prophets of Samaria prophesied in the name of an idol and encouraged people to sin, but the prophets of Jerusalem were worse because they encouraged those who do evil and committed adultery themselves. I have noticed throughout the book of Jeremiah that he speaks of adultery as a terrible sin which will lead to God’s judgment. Some of the time, he is using adultery as a metaphor for idolatry, but I have become convinced that his condemnation for adultery is not just a metaphor for idolatry. I believe that Jeremiah is telling us that adultery is a form of idolatry. It is a form of putting one’s self, one’s happiness, pleasure, desires ahead of God. People commit adultery because they put themselves ahead of being faithful to God.

    I was not sure where I was going with this when I started writing. I knew I wanted to speak about the false prophets who Jeremiah is condemning and those like them in our day and age, but I was not sure what this was making me think. I, also, wanted to write what I did in the first paragraph about adultery and Jeremiah’s condemnation of it. Now that I have written that I know where to go. The one thing that false prophets have in common is that they encourage us to worship either ourselves or the prophet. In some cases, their teaching is a combination of the two. Further, Jeremiah warns us against claiming God’s authority for our own proclamations. We should ask, “What is God’s answer?” or “What does God say?” but we should not say “This is a prophecy of the Lord!” I believe that while we should seek God’s will, we should never be 100% sure that we have discovered it.