03 April 2024
"For I know what I have planned for you," says the LORD. "I have plans to prosper you, not to harm you. I have plans to give you a future filled with hope." (Jeremiah 29:11 NET)
The next section of the book chapter rehashes the warning not to pull passages from their context, like Jeremiah 29:11. Worse, we tend to read God's promises to His people collectively as a promise to each individual within the group. That is frankly dishonest exposition. Two generations of Judeans languished in captivity in Babylon, and the third generation was reluctant to come back.
Jeremiah 29 starts off with a message sent to the captives already on their way to Babylon. The Lord says to settle in and know that His blessings for His people will come in the form of prospering their enemy, Babylon. The Judeans were commanded to seek the welfare of the pagan cities where they were held, to pray for the leaders over them. The warnings not to resist in any way continue after that.
How many thousands of Judeans died in the Fall of Jerusalem and deportations? If you misread verse 11 in that chapter, then you cannot hope to claim the promise. It's given to the nation as a whole. The same goes for the promises given in the New Testament. Unless the context is clear about blessings for individuals, then they are promises made to the whole Kingdom of Heaven. Your individual part in that broader vision may well be quite unpleasant, but what really matters is the message -- the people are the message, the people as a whole.
Your individual part is written in your convictions, not so much in the Bible. We tend to misread Romans 8:28 the same way.
And we know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose...
It's used in grief counseling an awful lot. We make it mean "all things are good" which is not what it says. Not everything that happens in a good thing. The context of that verse is discussing the proper way to understand the very bad things that happen in this fallen world.
Once again: It's all about the message, not the individuals. It is no more accurate to say "everything is God's will" than it is to say that we all do His will all the time. It's too easy for a whole nation to be evil and responsible for the evil in your life. Handling sorrow is not improved by a false reading of God's promises. Nor can we use the example of Job, who had more afterward than before his dark experience. Don't tell me that somehow makes up for the loss of his first family.
Paul was saying that God makes everything work out for His glory, and that His glory always reflects back on His Kingdom. It's not a promise that God makes everything work out for you individually, unless your expectations are shaped by an otherworldly commitment.
I would be surprised if the authors were even aware of Dr. Heiser and his work on the Unseen Realm. Still, this all connects. Our ultimate purpose as humans is to glorify God, and thus honor Him in this fallen existence. We should not be focused on this life, but on the next. It can be a fun and adventurous ride, if we have the proper mindset, but the pampered attitudes and platitudes of way too many church folks is not from the Bible.
When the tribulation starts getting rough, I wonder how many snowflakes will melt because of bad religion.
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