This is part two of a three-part series on the biblical theology of the pastorate: A unique role; Biblical definitions; and The pastoral team. Continue Reading…
Tag Archive - Jeremiah
Supersize me
I’m teaching through the 10 Commandments at OTCC, and this weekend was the 2nd one – no carved images. You can listen to the audio here.
Anyway, although I got through the teaching on the commandment itself, there were a couple of things I didn’t have time to elaborate on, so I am going to do that in this post. Here is the passage in Exodus 20:4-6
You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is on the earth beneath or that is in the water below. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God, responding to the transgression of fathers by dealing with children to the third and fourth generations of those who reject me, and showing covenant faithfulness to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.
The commandment is pretty straightforward – don’t downsize God by trying to represent him by making something that could never represent him. That draws our focus away from him and kicks him out of his rightful place at the center of our lives.
His reason is because he’s “a jealous God”. In our small group this afternoon, we discussed that God couldn’t be jealous if our worship didn’t belong to him in the first place. He could be envious of our devotion to someone or something else. But jealousy means that we are giving away something that is rightfully his – our worship.
With this in mind, God makes two statements about how he deals with his people. (Listen to the first message in this series to understand why these apply only to those people who already have a relationship with God.)
First, for “those who reject me,” God promised that he would deal “with [their] children to the third and fourth generations”. Now some take this to mean that God places generational curses on families from which they cannot be freed.
I take issue with that because God clearly spells out in Deuteronomy 24:16 and Ezekiel 18:19-24 that each person is responsible for his own sins. This principle is carried throughout the New Testament, as well, in passages like Romans 14:12 and 2 Corinthians 5:10.
Here he is referring specifically to those who “reject” (some translations say “hate”) him. This is an intentional defiant attitude against God and his love and law by an individual person. What happens in a family when the parents reject God? The children suffer. They are not taught and do not experience God’s law or his love. What happens when the children grow up and do the same in their families?
Do you see how the effects of sin and rebellion can be passed down from one generation to the next? Not because God has cursed the family, but because the family has turned away from God, and God has to “deal with” those succeeding generations of rebels. Sin’s consequences always affect more than just the sinner.
Secondly, for “those who love me and keep my commandments,” God promised “covenant faithfulness to a thousand generations.”
Again, this doesn’t mean that as long as I do what’s right, my descendants can do anything they want, and God has to accept it. We are each still responsible to God for our own lives.
However, just like a person’s sin can affect a family for several generations, and person’s faithfulness to God can affect a family for generations. And according to this passage and others (Jeremiah 32:29, for example), the effects of our faithfulness to God reaches down through time far beyond the effects of our sin!
To those who love and obey God, he has promised his unending faithfulness. Consider: if a generation is 25 years on average (from the time a person is born until his or her first child), “a thousand generations” is 25,000 years! In human time, that’s pretty much forever! God promised faithfulness that humanity will never see end.
We don’t ever have to worry about God upholding his end of the bargain. When we faithfully keep him at the center of our lives, we can be sure that he will be faithful to guide us, protect us, provide for us, and so much more.
Don’t forget to be at OTCC (Twitter: @oaktreechurch) next week as we continue “Rewriting the Ten Commandments” with number three – “Don’t steal my identity.”
Jeremiah 50-51
It is important to learn to interpret the Bible correctly, especially when it comes to understanding Bible prophecy. Bible interpretation is both a science and an art. “It is a science because it is guided by rules within a system; and it is an art because the application of those rules is by skill, not by mechanical imitation.” (Bernard Ramm, Protestant Biblical Interpretation, p. 1)
In this section of Jeremiah, we find an excellent example of one of those rules for interpreting the Bible: the law of double reference. Basically, “double reference” says that a passage can have one meaning for the immediate hearers and one meaning for future hearers, while saying the same thing at the time of writing.
In Jeremiah 50-51 we find God’s promise to destroy Babylon because of their wickedness. At first glance we assume that it simply refers to the overthrow of Babylon by the Medo-Persians in October 539 B.C. (see Daniel 5 for the account of what happened).
These are the clues that tell us that this is the overthrow described:
- the specific references to King Nebuchadnezzer – the then-current king of Babylon (50:17-18)
- the reference to the Medes coming against Babylon (51:11)
- there was a message given to the Israelites who were in Babylon at that time (51:45-53)
This is what the Israelites needed to hear – Babylon was going down, and God was going to do it. And that happened, but not the way they expected.
In 539 B.C. when the Medo-Persians did conquer Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar was no longer the king of Babylon, and the Israelites who were exiled there were not allowed to escape. So we are left with an apparent contradiction. Does this passage refer to that event or not?
Enter the law of double reference. This rule of interpretation says that the 539 B.C. conquering of Babylon was definitely anticipated here, but it is not the only conquest meant. Here are some clues that tell us that Babylon is going to be conquered again:
- multiple references to complete devastation – no one will live there again after the final conquest (50:3, 12-13, 39-40; 51:29, 37, 43); this has not happened yet
- this conquest will be done by a army of many nations, not just one (50:41; 51:27-28); this has not happened yet
- parallel references to the future fall of Babylon in Revelation (51:7 and Rev. 17:2; 51:41 and Rev. 18:1-2); this has not happened yet
- Israel’s complete forgiveness and restoration (50:20); this has not happened yet
Paul encourages us to “accurately handle the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15). That includes growing our skills in the “science and art” of proper Bible interpretation. The better we have an accurate handle on God’s Word, the better God’s Word will have a handle on us.
Generational poverty
I heard someone recently talking about generational poverty. Basically, it’s when kids who grow up in poverty stay impoverished as adults and grow up a new generation (their kids) into poverty. Left unchecked it becomes multi-generational – one generation after another never moving out of poverty.
Something in my reading this morning reminded me of that. I’m just about done with Jeremiah. The last few chapters contain a lot of doom prophecies against nations around Israel. But one caught my attention this morning.
To the nation of Ammon, Jeremiah wrote:
You are proud of your fertile valleys, but they will soon be ruined. You trusted in your wealth, you rebellious daughter, and thought no one could ever harm you. Jeremiah 49:4 (NLT)
Why so interesting? Because of a parallel I see here. Let me see if I can walk through the thought process that made it stand out (none of the commentaries or notes I read mentioned it):
- Ammon was the nation descended from Ben-Ammi. Ben-Ammi was the son of Lot and his youngest daughter (Genesis 19:30-38).
- The reason Lot had that daughter is because he left Abraham and settled in the fertile Jordan Valley near Sodom, and finally ended up married to a woman of Sodom and a politician in the city (Genesis 13:10-13; 14:12; 19:1-2).
- The reason they left Sodom was because of God’s destruction of the city and the entire valley. Lot’s wife could not leave her wealth and family behind and was caught up in the destruction (Genesis 19:15-26).
Do you see the parallel? Fifteen hundred years after Ben-Ammi was born into a spiritually impoverished family, the Ammonites were still opposing God. Like in Lot’s day, their “fertile valleys” of which they were so proud would “soon be ruined”. Like Lot’s wife, they “trusted in [their] wealth,” but it could not save them. Like Lot’s daughters, they were still “rebellious”.
None of us want our families to be impoverished. Most work hard to make sure it never happens. Let’s be certain to work just as hard so we do not allow our families to enter a spiritual poverty that could affect many generations.
On a mission from God
A few days ago I read Jeremiah 47. Overall it’s a short prophecy against Philistia – nothing really exciting or what you might consider applicable to me in South Bend.
However, a theme from the last two verses (6-7; told you it was short) have stuck with me for these past few days. Look:
Now, O sword of the LORD, when will you be at rest again? Go back into your sheath; rest and be still. But how can it be still when the LORD has sent it on a mission? For the city of Ashkelon and the people living along the sea must be destroyed. Jeremiah 47:6-7 (NLT)
Do you see it? The response to the request to rest was, “How can it be still when the LORD has sent it on a mission?” That’s powerful!!! When God gives us a mission to do, how can we just sit back and rest before it is complete?
It reminds me of Nehemiah, when he was building the Jerusalem wall. (This is one of my two favorite parts of Nehemiah.) When his attackers asked him to come to a conference, Nehemiah said, “I am doing a great work and I cannot come down” (6:3).
I love that line! “God has given me a mission, and I’m not going to stop until it’s done.”
This is not to say that we should never rest. God commanded us to Sabbath (Hebrew: shabbat, “rest”). But He also commanded us to “make disciples of all the nations…in Jerusalem [local], and in all Judea and Samaria [national and cross-cultural], and even to the remotest part of the earth [international]” (Matthew 28:19; Acts 1:8).
We all have a mission from God. My immediate mission is to “equip the saints for the work of ministry, to the building up of the body of Christ” (Ephesians 4:12). This is done primarily through Oak Tree Community Church, Hope Rescue Mission of South Bend, this blog, and anything I write for teaching (books, papers, pamphlets, internet chats, etc.).
How can I be still when the LORD has sent me on a mission?
