Today, I am reading and commenting on  Jeremiah 7-9.

Jeremiah prophesied against those who came to the temple to worship God.  They thought they were gaining God’s blessing by coming to the temple to offer sacrifices to God, without reforming their ways.  They thought that by offering sacrifices to God on the Holy Days, while stealing and murdering, committing adultery and perjury the rest of the time.  Jeremiah warned them that they were arousing God’s anger, but not because they were causing any harm to Him.  No, God was angry because they harmed themselves with their sins.  This passage presents two important lessons.  God does not give us commands arbitrarily.  He does not tell us “Do this, don’t do that,” just to make us jump to His tune.  He tells us “Do this” because He knows we will be better off if we do so.  And He tells us “Don’t do that” because He knows we will suffer if we do that.  God’s rules are not intended to limit our enjoyment of life, they are designed to enhance it.  But the prophet has a second message for us here: following the commands which cause other people to think we are righteous benefits us less than following those which no one notices us doing. Going to Church every Sunday won’t do you any good if you take advantage of people with limited options to save money.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Jeremiah 4-6.

I am going to write about two themes I read about in today’s passage, themes which I see applying to our society now.  On the one hand, the prophet calls on people to return to the Lord and give up detestable idols.  He calls for us to break up the unplowed ground of our hearts and plant a crop of righteousness so that nations and peoples throughout the world will invoke God and turn to Him.  On the other hand, he also tells us that instead of seeking God, everyone is greedy for gain and practice deceit.  As I read this I think of my friends who are quick to fall into “conspiracy theory” territory, blaming the ills of society on the deception and greed of the powerful, who work together to gain wealth and the expense of those without the connections to do likewise.  There is truth in what they say, but in many cases they are guilty of doing the same thing when they have the opportunity.  If you look around, everyone, from the least to the greatest, seeks to gain through fraud and deceit.  Those who should be calling people to account for their abuse of power, lie in order to favor their own interests, while those who should be calling people to serve God instead promote the behaviors which give them power and wealth.  Those who hold positions of authority apply bandaids where surgery is needed.  As a society we stand at a crossroad.  There are a few voices crying in the wilderness for us to follow the ancient path, tried and true, the path which has been shown to be a good way which leads to safety and rest.  But as a society we keep saying, “No, we don’t want to go that way. ”  And we do this despite the fact that anyone with eyes can see that the path we have chosen instead leads to disaster and those with ears can hear the disaster coming, because, as various Old Testament prophets prophesied, those with eyes do not perceive and those with ears do not listen.  Let us join with the prophet in pointing our friends and neighbors to the path which leads to righteousness, and let us walk that path, even if we must walk it alone.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Jeremiah 1-3.

When we read Jeremiah we tend to think of him prophesying to the people of Judah under the last few, wicked kings of Judah.  We overlook the fact that he began prophesying under King Josiah, who is recorded as having led a major revival in worship of God.  In fact,  Jeremiah begins to prophesy the year after King Josiah began his major reforms.  So, while King Josiah was busy having the altars to Baal and the Asherah poles throughout the land of Israel (including all of Israel, not just the portion which was the Kingdom of Judah), Jeremiah was prophesying against the people of Israel for worshiping idols and failing to worship God.  I believe that today’s passage is directed at those who embraced Josiah’s reforms without acknowledging their own sins; those who had happily worshiped Baal and other idols, in particular the gods of Assyria and Egypt, right up until King Josiah began his campaign to wipe out such worship, at which point they enthusiastically joined his campaign and became avid promoters of worshiping God.

Which brings me to another thing I noticed here: Jeremiah prophesied against relying on Assyria and Egypt.  I want to note the King Josiah died when he went out to prevent Pharaoh Necho from marching to support the Assyrian Empire in its battle against the Babylonians, who subsequently defeated the Assyrians.  It seems to me that perhaps Jeremiah was speaking out about the Assyrians and the Egyptians because there was a faction, a strong faction, in the court in Jerusalem which favored appeasing Assyria and Egypt, while King Josiah favored seeking to join the Babylonian alliance in its war against Assyria.  Jeremiah seems to be suggesting here that the faction which had previously backed being willing vassals of Assyria had now turned to being willing vassals of Egypt.  And that part of that vassalage was offering sacrifices to the gods of Egypt.

Finally, I want to point out that Jeremiah called the people of Judah, and all of Israel, to return to God and renounce their sins in genuine repentance.  His prophecy in today’s passage would have served to reinforce the revival which King Josiah was attempting to foster while rejecting those who embraced the revival for purely political reasons by taking up worship of God without truly rejecting idol worship.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Jeremiah 51-52.

It is worth noting that Jeremiah prophesied the fall of Babylon before Babylon had reached the peak of its power.  At the time, everyone thought that Babylon was a power which could not be challenged and would be never be held accountable.  Here Jeremiah tells us that God will hold them accountable for their sins, despite the fact that he had also prophesied that God was using them to punish other nations. In particular, God would hold them accountable for their mistreatment of the people of Israel.  Again, this was despite the fact that God had used them to punish the people of Israel for their sins.  One lesson of this passage is playing out on the world stage today.  In Afghanistan some people have learned that putting your trust in an earthly power will lead to heartbreak and suffering.  While the United States is not, at least, not yet, suffering the fate prophesied here for Babylon, those who put their trust in her, rather than in God, are paying the price for that.  There are other lessons in this passage which the current masters of Afghanistan should heed: those who inflict suffering on God’s people, even if God has mandated that suffering for His people, will themselves experience suffering in God’s time.  And one lesson for all those who think their power will last: God will bring down all earthly powers at the time of His choosing.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Jeremiah 45-48.

Baruch acted as a scribe and assistant for Jeremiah and we learn here that he desired to accomplish great things.  It appears that around the time that he wrote down Jeremiah’s prophecies to read on the Temple he realized that he would never accomplish the great things of which he dreamed.  Jeremiah tells him that he should not be upset by this because God was about to destroy all of the accomplishments of great men.  Instead Jeremiah told Baruch that God would reward him for his service by allowing him to escape with his life when destruction arrived at each of the places to which he would go.  This prophecy to Baruch always seems slightly out of place to me.  While there is the message for us to be satisfied with the level of accomplishment to which God calls us, there always seems to be a little more to it than that.  It occurred to me today that its presence here may be related to another passage concerning Baruch which always seemed strange: in yesterday’s passage, the leaders of the Israelites after the death of Gedaliah accused Jeremiah of lying at the behest of Baruch when Jeremiah told them God had said for them not to go to Egypt.    I have never read anything that adequately explains why they thought Baruch would benefit from the people staying in Judah, nor why they would think that Jeremiah was influenced by Baruch.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Jeremiah 42-44.

After the assassination of the governor appointed over Judah by the Babylonians, the people remaining in Judah were afraid that the Babylonian army would return to punish them for it. So, they decided to flee to Egypt.  However, first they went to Jeremiah to ask him to pray to God for guidance as to what they should do.  They phrased their request to Jeremiah as if they had not already decided what to do. The passage does not make clear why they requested God’s guidance, but the response which God gave through Jeremiah makes clear that neither God nor Jeremiah expected them to follow it.  In fact, the reply Jeremiah gave them from God seems to suggest that if they had gone to Egypt without asking for God’s guidance things would have gone better for them there.  I see two lessons for us here.  The more important one being: Ask God for guidance before you decide what to do, and then wait for His answer before deciding.  The second one being: do not ask God for guidance after you have already made up your mind as to what you are going to do.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Jeremiah 39-41.

First, I want to point out that in this passage we have a confirmation of what I mentioned yesterday: God sends word through Jeremiah to Ebed-Melek, the man who rescued Jeremiah from the attempt to kill him, that he (Ebed-Melek) would be saved during the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem.  Then we see that Jeremiah’s prophecy to Zedekiah was also fulfilled.  Zedekiah was afraid to surrender to Nebuchadnezzar, despite Jeremiah’s assurances that God had promised no harm would come to him if he did so.  Instead, King Zedekiah held out until the end and was captured.  The Babylonians killed his sons in front of him, then put out his eyes.  There is an important lesson in the fate of Zedekiah.  He was too afraid to do as God instructed him, and as a result suffered an outcome at least as bad as the one he feared.  Let us not make the same mistake of refusing to do God’s will out of fear.

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.

Under the threat of Babylonian conquest, King Zedekiah convinced the people of Jerusalem made a covenant with God and with each other to free all of their Hebrew slaves.  I will note that the impetus behind this command was the fact that they had not been keeping the requirement from the Law of Moses to free Hebrew slaves after seven years.  However, the elites of Jerusalem only entered into this covenant as a public relations move and as soon as they thought no one was looking they re-enslaved those they had freed.  This was the worst of the three things this covenant could have been.  The best option would have been for those who held slaves to recognize that they had done wrong and repent of their wrong doing by releasing their slaves and seeking other ways in which they could serve God.  Second best would have been for those who held slaves to recognize that freeing the slaves good press and do so, going on with their lives without those slaves.  In the first case, God would likely have forestalled the judgement He was in the process of pouring out on the people of Jerusalem.  In the second case, I think that God might have done the same.  However, the elites of Jerusalem chose a third option: release the slaves as a public relations move to appear righteous, but re-enslave them as soon as the general public was no longer paying attention.  If you watch, you see that this is often the choice made by the elites of society.  When public opinion turns against a particular practice, they make a very public show of distancing themselves from that practice.  However, as soon as the attention of the crowd moves on to some other issue they resume the practice which they had loudly condemned just a short time earlier.

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