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 31-32.

Through Jeremiah God promises to enter into a new covenant with the people of Israel (from other passages, both in Jeremiah and elsewhere, we learn that this covenant extends to all people).  This new covenant was necessary because the people of Israel were unable to keep the original one (no one would have been able to do so).  The new covenant which God made does not require teachers who have been extensively trained to understand what God commands and how those rules fit together.  God has provided simple and basic rules which anyone can understand for themselves if they so desire.  Further, He has placed His Spirit in those who wish to follow this new covenant to explain to them from within what He desires.  This does not mean that there is no place for teachers of God’s will.  It means that you can go to Scripture for yourself, and with the aid of the Holy Spirit, determine if what the teacher is teaching matches what God has said through Scripture.  

On a slightly different note, Jeremiah was accused of being a traitor to his people because he prophesied that Jerusalem would fall and that the people of Judah should submit to the Babylonians.  This accusation was wrong on several counts.  First, Jeremiah also prophesied that Babylon would be destroyed for what it did to the people of Israel (including Judah).  Second, we have today’s passage where Jeremiah demonstrated his belief that the nation of Israel would one day be restored.  Jeremiah purchased land from a relative and sealed the deed and other ownership documents in a clay jar to preserve them against the time when the Jewish people would once more be able to buy and sell land in the Land of Israel.  He had told the people of Jerusalem that they would go into exile, but he had also told them it would only be for 70 years.  In today’s passage, he put his money where his mouth was by buying land.