Today, I am reading and commenting on  Jeremiah 36-38.

The first thing I thought about when I read today’s passage was that everything in this book up to this point would have been first written down when Jeremiah dictated the scroll to Baruch.  My second thought was that most of this book was derived from the second scroll which Jeremiah dictated to Baruch.  The next part I want to comment on gives us an insight into the political divide in Jerusalem.  When Baruch read Jeremiah’s scroll at the temple, Micaiah heard everything he read and went to the “all the officials” and told them what he had heard.  The officials sent for Baruch and had him read the scroll for them.  When they heard what Jeremiah had dictated to Baruch, they were frightened.  They were frightened because they feared the Lord.   They knew the king would react badly, but they knew that they had to tell him what Baruch had read to the people.  So, they told Baruch that he and Jeremiah should go somewhere to hide and tell no one where they were going.  Then they went to tell the king about what Baruch had read in the temple.

Which brings us to the other political faction, the king and his attendants (note this king was King Jehoiakim).  Unlike the officials, the king and his attendants were completely unmoved by the words of Jeremiah’s prophecies.  Perhaps unmoved is the wrong word, Jehoiakim burned the scroll upon which Baruch had recorded Jeremiah’s prophecies, almost as if by doing so he could erase them.  Then the king sent someone to arrest Jeremiah and Baruch, but they were unable to locate them.  Later in this passage we see the same divide after Zedekiah became king.  In fact, we see the same divide today.  Those who read Scripture and fear the Lord from those who dismiss the Scripture and try to make it not exist.  The former seek to protect those who speak God’s word while the latter seek to persecute them.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Jeremiah 33-35.

I want to start with something of which I only want to make a short mention.  Jeremiah prophesied that as long as night follows day, God will not reject the descendants of Jacob.  He may from time to time inflict disaster upon them when they fail to follow His commands, but He will always restore them again in due time.

Now to the part of this passage which speaks to me more today.  King Zedekiah sought to respond to Jeremiah’s prophesies (and likely other prophets giving similar prophesies) and restore a level of justice to Jerusalem and Judah by getting the “elites” to free their Hebrew slaves.  I suspect that there was a lot of popular support for this movement.  So, in the face of popular outcry, the “movers and shakers” of Jerusalem very publicly entered into a covenant to free their slaves, and even did so in the face of the public view.  However, as soon as the glare of public attention turned to something else, they found ways to quietly re-enslave those they had freed.  I believe that some of those who freed, and then re-enslaved, their slaves believed they were doing a good thing when they released their slaves, and justified re-enslaving them as doing what was best for “everyone”.  However, many of them did so to receive the accolades of being righteous, with no intention of changing their ways.  There are two lessons for us here.  First, such acts of “righteousness” have no lasting value.  If you are going to vow to change your ways, don’t find excuses to return to your old ways.  Second, God is not fooled when we act one way in public, but completely differently when we think no one is looking (and we should not be fooled by others who do likewise).

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Jeremiah 31-32.

Jeremiah had repeatedly prophesied that disaster would come upon Jerusalem and vehemently rejected as false prophets those who gave the people of Jerusalem cheery prophecies.  However, in today’s passage. Jeremiah does give a prophecy of hope.  He does not offer them a chance to avoid the disaster which he had previously prophesied, but he prophesies that the disaster will not be the end for the people of Israel.  God promised that He would call them back to Him.  He would establish a new covenant with His people.  Under His new covenant, people would be held accountable only for their own sins, not for the sins of their parents and other ancestors.  More importantly, God promised that He would put His law and instructions into the hearts and minds of those who turned to Him under this new covenant.  If we repent and seek God, He will directly teach us His laws and we will not need to rely on anyone else to know them, or to know Him.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Jeremiah 28-30.

In today’s passage, Jeremiah addresses false prophets in both Jerusalem and among those already exiled to Babylon.  Apparently, these “prophets” were telling their audiences that Babylon would fall in a short time; the prophet in Jerusalem whose prophecies were, at least partially, recorded here said that the power of Babylon would be broken within two years time.  Jeremiah responded that historically, the prophets whom God had sent prophesied war, disaster, and plague.  Therefore, he said, those who prophesy peace must be held suspect until their prophecies were fulfilled.  A corollary to the false prophecies of peace for Jerusalem was that those already exiled would soon return.

However, Jeremiah prophesied that those already exiled should reconcile themselves with remaining in exile because God was not going to bring them back until seventy years had passed.  Further Jeremiah told the exiles to seek the peace and prosperity of the city in which they found themselves, even though they were living in exile.  They were foreigners living in a land which was not their own, but God told them to seek the peace and prosperity of the land to which He had sent them.  In the same way, we who serve Christ are foreigners in a land which is not our own.  Yet we also should seek its peace and prosperity.

The final point I want to make is that the people in Jerusalem, and even the exiles themselves, thought that the exiles were abandoned by God.  But the message God gave them through Jeremiah said that nothing could be farther from the truth.  God had plans for them, plans for them to prosper and have a future.  God has similar plans for us.  He told the exiles that they would seek Him, and that when they did so with all of their heart, they would find Him.  So, God has plans to prosper us.  Seek Him, seek Him with all of your heart.  No matter how far you think you are from Him.  He is closer than you can imagine.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Jeremiah 26-27.

I was struck by the similarity between what happened in this passage and what happens all too often today.

• Jeremiah: “If you don’t listen to the prophets God sends and do the right thing, this nation will be destroyed.”
• The people to whom he was prophesying: “How dare you say that this nation will be destroyed, you should be executed.”

Notice that Jeremiah did NOT say, “This nation will be destroyed.”  Instead, he said, “If you do not change your ways this nation will be destroyed.”  The people refused to consider changing their ways, instead they blamed Jeremiah for telling them that their actions would lead to their destruction.  In the same way today, many people will call Christians hateful for telling them that what they are doing is self-destructive.  It is also important that we not be hateful, that we not tell people that because they have sinned they are doomed. (I was going to start that sentence with “Of course”, but I realized that all too many people needed to be told this for it to be “of course”.)  God calls on us to give up our sinful, destructive (of ourselves, and, all too often, of others) behaviors.

You may be called on, as Jeremiah was, to call others to change their ways, but make sure you have examined your own life and begun allowing God to change those of your ways of which He does not approve.

I use 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 condemned the leaders of the people for scattering the people and driving them away from God.  In particular, he focuses on religious leaders who  commit adultery and live a lie.  He condemns them for encouraging evildoers to continue in their wickedness rather than calling them to turn to righteousness.  They tell people to continue in their sin.  God tells Jeremiah that because of this no one is to say they have “a message from the Lord.”  Jeremiah tells us that true prophets tell us to turn from our evil ways and evil practices.  When God sends a prophet, that prophet does not tell us to keep doing what we are doing.  God sends prophets to tell us to change our ways.  Those who tell us that we can do as we please are false prophets.  If the people you hear speaking for God do not make you uncomfortable, do not make you feel like you need to change things about your life, they are false prophets.  When someone speaks God’s word, it should make you uncomfortable.

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

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

God sent Jeremiah to prophesy that He was going to smash Jerusalem like a clay pot.  Jeremiah told the leaders of the people this was going to happen because they and the people had turned to worshiping other gods, going so far as to sacrifice their children to those gods.  It seems to me that Jeremiah was pointing out to them that the sacrifice of children should have made them realize that these gods were bad and that worshiping them would lead to destruction.  I believe we should heed the same warning regarding belief systems who have “prophets” who speak of abortion in sacramental terms.

Later in today’s passage. Jeremiah prophesies against the rulers of Jerusalem.  Once again, Jeremiah has previously prophesied that the coming destruction cannot be avoided, but here he prophesies that if the leaders obey God’s commands the destruction will be forestalled.  The context of the passage implies that the rulers of Jerusalem were doing the opposite of what God called them to do.  In the same way, I fear that most of our political leaders, and even most of our religious leaders, are violating the commands which God lays out here.  And we must call on them to do what is just and right, to do no wrong or violence to the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow.  I believe that most of those in positions of leadership on both sides of the illegal immigration debate in this country are guilty of violating these commands.  Those who oppose enforcing immigration laws do so because they benefit from the suffering inflicted on those who sneak into this country against the law.  Some benefit because they can hire them to work for a lower wage.  Some benefit because they earn money from trafficking them.  On the other side, many of those who seek tighter enforcement of immigration laws have no concern for the suffering of those in other countries.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Jeremiah 16-18.

For the most part, Jeremiah prophesies that an unavoidable disaster is about to come upon the people of Jerusalem.  The people to whom he spoke feigned ignorance as to why God would allow that to happen to them.  Jeremiah pointed out that their ancestors had forsaken God’s law and that they had behaved even more wickedly than their ancestors, stubbornly following their own wills rather than obeying God.  Jeremiah goes on to condemn them for putting their trust in human beings while turning away from God.  He tells them that if they would put their trust in God and depend upon Him they would be able to face the coming disaster without need to fear.

So, even now, as bad as it seems, and how inevitable disaster appears, God promises that if we, each of us, turn to Him, He will rescue us from the disaster our actions deserve.  As Jeremiah told the people of Jerusalem, we must return to keeping the Sabbath holy.  We must return to the days when we did not work, or do business, on Sunday.  Or, whatever day of the week you choose, just pick a day and spend it worshiping the Lord.  It might even be different days each week, but there should be a system to how you select the day.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Jeremiah 13-15.

I struggle with today’s passage.  For most of this passage, Jeremiah prophesies destruction upon the people for their sins.  He reports that God has told him not to pray for the people because He (God) is going to destroy them with famine, plague, and the sword.  Jeremiah defended the people by saying that the prophets were telling them that they would not see the sword or suffer famine.  God responded that those prophets were lying because He (God) had not sent them.  Further God told Jeremiah that those prophets would perish by famine and the sword, as would the people who listened to them.  The point here being that we should be very careful about listening to people who claim to speak on behalf of God, especially when they tell us that our sins will not lead to our destruction.  Then God tells Jeremiah that even if Moses and Samuel were to stand before Him, He would not relent on the suffering and destruction which was coming to this people.  I believe we are fast approaching a time, if we are not already there, when Jeremiah’s prophecy here will apply to our society today.

So far, the passage is clear, if very scary; people have been so sinful for so long that the suffering which God warned would result from such sinfulness cannot be turned aside.  However, after having told Jeremiah that such is the case, God tells him

If you repent, I will restore you
that you may serve me;

Which tells us that Jeremiah, at least, can avoid the coming suffering (avoid is probably not quite the right word, but I am going to go with it for today).  I believe that God’s message here was not just for Jeremiah, but for anyone who would listen to it, but God knew that few would actually do so.  And that is where we stand today, our society is going headlong  down the road towards suffering and destruction and time to turn aside is running out, if it has not already run out.  However, God will use and protect those who repent and speak worthwhile words, instead of the worthless words so many today speak.  If we wish to serve God, we must speak His words so that people are drawn towards us (insomuch as that draws them to God), but we must be careful not to be drawn towards the sins of our society.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Jeremiah 10-12.

I have been trying to figure out how to approach today’s passage for awhile now.  Today’s passage begins with God telling us not to learn the ways of the “nations” around us nor to be terrified by “signs in the heavens”.  When I read the word “nation” (or its plural) I think of a group of people with a shared culture.  So, I take that part of this passage to mean that we should not adopt the ways of non-Christian cultures.  That does not mean that we cannot learn from other cultures, only that we must be careful not to adopt practices contrary to what God teaches us through the Bible.  In this particular case, the culture we must be most cautious about is the one by which we are surrounded.  As for the :signs in the heavens” by which we should not be terrified, I believe that refers to things like global warming, genetically modified organisms,  or any of the other things which we are told we must act on immediately without taking the time to cautiously debate.  All of these things create terror in those around us, but we serve the true God, the one who made the heavens and the earth.  Those around us believe that we must serve their idols in order to avoid the terrors which they imagine will come if we do not do so.  However, the objects and the organizations which they worship can do us no good, nor any harm, if we do not give them power over ourselves.  God controls the earth and the heavens.

What I wrote above does not mean that none of the terrible things of which our society demands we be fearful  are of no importance.  Merely that we should calmly and clearly identify the risks and choose actions in response which are commensurate with those risks.

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