This scripture is often quoted in Christian circles. It has provided me with comfort during times of uncertainty and reminds me that God has my back. If it is one thing that I've learned while in seminary is how to better interpret scripture. What has been most rewarding is learning how to read/'preach' the Old Testament as Christian Scripture. That doesn't mean that OT is not read as Christian scripture but often times stories/scriptures from the Old Testament are taught like "fables" or "character" stories: "Do this like Ruth! Don't do this Like Adam." What's often missing is how does this relate to the center and frame of reference of the Bible: The person and work of Jesus Christ.
Often times I think Christians (including myself), read into scripture themselves as the point of reference. Most times when I hear my friends referring to this scripture it usually is like the peanut butter spread on their dreams or their plans. I've done it also. Don't get me wrong I still think that there is hope in this verse and implicates Jesus as this hope. However, that verse was given at a time where the people of Judah were threatened exile and were in political despair...not during a time where they were in school or branched out unto a new business or were pursuing a new relationship.
Jeremiah throughout the book seems to KEEP warning the people against impending judgment and to urge the people of Judah to come back to a complete dependence in the Lord. Jeremiah 29 brings the reader back to the Hope that is found in the Lord and gives the people a glimpse of restoration at this point in the text. I would like to think if we compare the context of when this was written to a present day application more than likely we would most often see "the peanut butter spread (or what ever spread you'd like) over our lives. Here it seems that God is motivating them not toward whatever "dream" or "plan" that they have to elevate themselves will come to pass but most importantly the peanut butter spread is the "new covenant" (Jer.31). In this book, a true reform needed to take place politically and in the hearts of the people. This hope and promise of wholeness and future could refer to freedom from the exile and destruction that Jeremiah had been prophesying. God was playing no games! Telling them they will see horror, destruction, famine...its not a good picture. But God also displays his mercy and compassion. The people needed a DIVINE intervention literally.
Yes, this text provides us with an assurance for those that are in Christ. But more than any plan, or hope in the future can be taken as a security that we have been forgiven as sinners because we were in need of a Savior and our eternal destination secure. We hold to the promise that He shall return and sin will be no more.
I am sorry but more than my future success, or idea of marriage, thought of children, vocation, career, travel, what I'll eat for dinner tonight or any of MY plans that I want God to see through doesn't compare to the hope found in Jesus. He knows the plans he has for me and that is (Jer 29: 12-14 " you will call upon me and come and pray to me and I will hear you. You will seek me with all your heart, I will be found by you, declares the Lord..." ) compared to ( Jer 24:10 " and I will send sword, famine, and pestilience upon them, until they shall be utterly destroyed from the land that I gave to them and their fathers.") It just places things into perspective and I am most certainly reading Jeremiah 29:11a little differently!
Hebrews 9:15, 24-27:
15Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant.....24 For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. 25 Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, 26 for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. 27 And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, 28 so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.
Often times I think Christians (including myself), read into scripture themselves as the point of reference. Most times when I hear my friends referring to this scripture it usually is like the peanut butter spread on their dreams or their plans. I've done it also. Don't get me wrong I still think that there is hope in this verse and implicates Jesus as this hope. However, that verse was given at a time where the people of Judah were threatened exile and were in political despair...not during a time where they were in school or branched out unto a new business or were pursuing a new relationship.
Jeremiah throughout the book seems to KEEP warning the people against impending judgment and to urge the people of Judah to come back to a complete dependence in the Lord. Jeremiah 29 brings the reader back to the Hope that is found in the Lord and gives the people a glimpse of restoration at this point in the text. I would like to think if we compare the context of when this was written to a present day application more than likely we would most often see "the peanut butter spread (or what ever spread you'd like) over our lives. Here it seems that God is motivating them not toward whatever "dream" or "plan" that they have to elevate themselves will come to pass but most importantly the peanut butter spread is the "new covenant" (Jer.31). In this book, a true reform needed to take place politically and in the hearts of the people. This hope and promise of wholeness and future could refer to freedom from the exile and destruction that Jeremiah had been prophesying. God was playing no games! Telling them they will see horror, destruction, famine...its not a good picture. But God also displays his mercy and compassion. The people needed a DIVINE intervention literally.
Yes, this text provides us with an assurance for those that are in Christ. But more than any plan, or hope in the future can be taken as a security that we have been forgiven as sinners because we were in need of a Savior and our eternal destination secure. We hold to the promise that He shall return and sin will be no more.
I am sorry but more than my future success, or idea of marriage, thought of children, vocation, career, travel, what I'll eat for dinner tonight or any of MY plans that I want God to see through doesn't compare to the hope found in Jesus. He knows the plans he has for me and that is (Jer 29: 12-14 " you will call upon me and come and pray to me and I will hear you. You will seek me with all your heart, I will be found by you, declares the Lord..." ) compared to ( Jer 24:10 " and I will send sword, famine, and pestilience upon them, until they shall be utterly destroyed from the land that I gave to them and their fathers.") It just places things into perspective and I am most certainly reading Jeremiah 29:11a little differently!
Hebrews 9:15, 24-27:
15Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant.....24 For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. 25 Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, 26 for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. 27 And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, 28 so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.
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