Jeremiah 29:1-9
Jeremiah 29:1-9 (Boldly Live)
Food for Thought:
Live Like God Hasn’t Left You Behind • Jeremiah (one of the Old Testament prophets) is writing from the city of Jerusalem to all of God’s people (not just the other prophets, priests, and elders) who have been carried away by their enemies. And he’s writing not simply because he has words to say, but because the LORD of Armies, the God of Israel has things to say to them.
Put yourself in the place of the exiles. Imagine being captured and carted off to a foreign land to live out the remainder of your days. On top of that, you’ve been separated from the place where God lives, you worship, and your people gather (the temple in Jerusalem). What would you have to figure out? What questions would you have? What would you have to learn to go without?
Then imagine how might you feel if one day messengers from the king arrived with words from the Lord for you. What thoughts and feeling would that evoke? How would you treat those words?
Consider your own situation today. How is different from the exiled Israelites in some major ways? How is it exactly the same in others?
From your perspective, does this diminish or elevate the significance of having ways you can hear the Lord’s words today?
Live Like God Is in the World • The words in Jeremiah’s letter paint the picture of a very hopeful, “normal” life for his exiles among strangers in a strange land. Without calling them to idolatry, he also calls them to seek the good of the city, because when the city thrives, they’ll thrive.
If you have a bunch of God’s people being held captive by the enemy, what might you expect God to tell his people? Go to war? Find a way to escape? Refuse to participate in anything they do?
What might that say about the way you think God has called you to live in the world today?
Read the words of the letter. Describe how God’s calling them to live. Is the “normalcy” of exiled life surprising to you? Or is it stranger for you to think of yourself as an exile / alien / foreigner in this world? Why?
How did / can God continue to work and fulfill his promises through generations of “ordinary” life in a strange place? Does that make you think differently about the way you think about, live in, and hope for your community?
Live Like Enemies Exist (In Your Midst) • The one warning God sends in this letter isn’t about their captors, but about their “prophets” who live among them. It seems that the most imminent threat to them while exiles in a strange land isn’t actually the strangers, but the “friendly fire” from inside their ranks who would leave them away from the truth and promises of God for the sake of telling them what they want to hear.
Are you a naturally trusting person or a naturally skeptical person? Are you bent towards gullibility or cynicism? Does that change from person to person (or kind of person to kind of person)?
What does healthy skepticism look like? What does healthy trust look like?
How do you discern who to let shape you spiritually? Practically, what questions do you ask yourself, where do you turn, etc. to give yourself confidence in what the Lord wants or says?
How does this letter as a whole influence the way you think about the people “in here” versus the people “out there?” How does it shape the way you think God thinks about those groups? How are those helpful distinctions? How can we let them mislead us at times?