"I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope"Mmmm, we love that. We put it on Bible covers and posters and artwork. We put it up at home and remind ourselves at work. The simple, straightforward notion that God has plans for my welfare that gives a future and a hope? Wonderful.
Of course, there are no small numbers of genuine, Bible-believing Christians who will tell you, "That's not for you." Why? Well, in every instance it is important to examine context for the proper understanding of any text. The context of this one?
For thus says the LORD: "When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you My promise and bring you back to this place" (Jer 29:10).Oh, now that's interesting. It is God speaking. He gives the context for the next verse. The context is "when 70 years are completed for Babylon." Ummm, that's not now. That's not here. That's not us. It is absolutely clear that the context of this statement from God is a promise to the Jews in captivity in Babylon and the "welfare" in view is specifically to bring them back to their homeland. And He did. Promise fulfilled. End of sentence.
That is clear, but I think it is short-sighted, even dangerous to understand Scripture that woodenly. With that kind of reasoning the Great Commission, for instance, doesn't matter to us. It was spoken to a specific group of men at a specific time under specific conditions and it could even be argued that it was accomplished. Paul told the Romans "Your faith is proclaimed in all the world" (Rom 1:8) which suggests that the gospel had already reached "all nations" (Matt 28:19). Mission accomplished. End of sentence. Of course, I don't believe that and neither does anyone I know. I would argue, then, that although the Jeremiah verse is said in context to a specific people at a specific time with a specific fulfillment, the principle is still applicable today to God's people.
So we have this promise that God has plans for good for us. That's actually not found just here. It's found in another favorite: Romans 8:28. We have this certainty that God works all things together for good to those who love God, who are called according to His purpose. Same promise as the Jeremiah promise to the exiles in Babylon ... only better. It's better because their promise was just to get back home but ours is "all things."
The mistake we make, then, occurs in our interpretation of the Jeremiah passage. We read it and we see "plans for welfare and not for evil" and "to give you a future and a hope" and we interpret this through our earthly lenses. We read "welfare" as "things I like" and "evil" as "things I don't like" and "a future and a hope" as "pleasant," perhaps even "health and wealth." (It's a popular verse for the "name it and claim it" folks.) This, dear reader, is a lie from Satan. We are interpreting God's Word from a 21st century American perspective rather than ... God's perspective.
First, the word for "welfare" there is shalom. Do I need to tell you what that word means? It is "peace" -- not "lots of money." It isn't like our "welfare" as in the free handouts from the government. God's plan is for our peace, not our comfort. The word for "evil" there is the same word used by God when He claims, "I make well-being and create calamity" (Isa 45:7). It is, in fact, the very same two terms -- well-being (shalom) and calamity (evil). God claims both. He is not promising that bad things won't happen because He makes bad things happen. He is promising that His plan is for our best, even if that is going through bad things. It is the idea of Joseph's words to his brothers: "You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good" (Gen 50:20). God allows the unpleasant, the uncomfortable, the trials for our benefit (James 1:2-4). That's the idea from God's Word. That's the idea from the Jeremiah passage.
Note, in fact, the outcome that God is promising to the exiles in Babylon. After He tells them that He plans good things for them, He tells them the good that He plans:
"Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will hear you" (Jer 29:12).After Paul tells us that God works all things together for our good, he tells us the good that He plans. He works all things together for good according to His purpose. What purpose?
For those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers (Rom 8:29).That's God's purpose. That we would be conformed to the image of His Son. That we would call upon Him and pray. That we would be connected to Him as His children, His adopted.
Plug that back into God's promise to the Jews. "I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD. What plans? For their best. What best? That they would turn to Him, talk to Him, have a living relationship with Him. His plan for them; His plan for us. It kind of makes "health and wealth" pale in comparison. "In Christ God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation" (2 Cor 5:19). God's plan is reconciliation with Him. There is no better "welfare," no better promise for a future and a hope. I think the Jeremiah promise remains for us. We just need to avoid expecting a pitiful human notion of a pay off instead of the rich one God intends.
17 comments:
Thank you Stan for this explanation.
i have often wondered; how do i plug myself into old testament promises, that were made to others. it is plain in literary narrative to see the origins of the context, as in the case of Jeremiah. Paul made that case that we were graphed into the true vine, we were made recipients of all the promises of God. we are thru Christ, partakers of all the family benefits. so now when i read Isaiah, i can enjoy the comfort of knowing that i too; share the fruits of God's abundant provisions.
I agree that the plan is to be "conformed to the image of His Son."
But aside from talking to God and having a living relationship with God, what is our promised shalom? Is that it? Health and wealth you exclude. Any things you include?
Leaving us kind of empty in terms of tangibles.
Israel got their land back. Their homes. Their places of safety and community. Wholeness and cultic identity.
What is our analogic equivalents?
(By the way, the term for "evil" in Jeremiah is not the same as in Isaiah. In Jeremiah ra means bad thoughts: intentions to hurt. I Isaiah, l'ra'a is more enduring misery, an ongoing state of evil.)
Bob, I think sometimes we make this stuff harder than we need to. "How do I apply Old Testament stuff to my life?" I think sometimes we dismiss this stuff too easily. "That's Old Testament; that doesn't count." I think you're right; I think if we examine the principles presented in the text, careful to account for text and context and the rest of Scripture, we'll find what to keep.
I've found it interesting lately reading in Hebrews where, in a number of places, the author quotes Scripture saying "He says" referring to God when we wouldn't have noted them as actual words of God. For instance, "For He has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: "And God rested on the seventh day from all His works" (Heb 4:4). Now, that's not a direct quote from God (unless God is speaking about Himself in the third person), and, yet, the author of Hebrews regards the text (from Genesis, of all places) as actually spoken by God. Today's world -- even among Christians -- is quick to dismiss the Bible as God's Word, but God's Word doesn't appear to hold the same idea.
Feodor, what would you accept as "tangibles"? Being given a home with Christ, a family in God, actual spiritual wholeness, an entirely new identity in Christ ... these seems tangible to me. Do you have something more you'd like to make it "tangible"?
(I suppose you have better information than I do on the actual original Hebrew for the two passages. Every source I've examined says that, while there are slight differences, they are basically the same word with the same meaning. I suppose your version makes the Jeremiah passage less intense than the Isaiah passage? Since the two have the same root and hold the same Hebraic construction of contrast with shalom, it would seem that the two share the same idea. On the other hand, that's all an aside, so I don't much care.)
Move and remove appear to be marginally different to non-English readers. For us they have completely different connotations.
Tangibles are felt things, generally speaking.
Peace could be a felt thing or the absence of felt things, depending on what one means by peace. Absence of strife? Thus, enduing calm. Freedom from anxiety? Thus, total non-distraction, being present in the moment as a habit of gentle being. A deep surety that, as CS Lewis said somewhere and Budhism says everywhere, nothing is certain but everything is safe?
I'll take your lead, but I'd rather you offer more than spiritual rhetoric.
On "move and remove," the two are obviously not the same. The two words in Isaiah and Jeremiah, on the other hand, mean the same thing -- "not shalom".
I apologize I can't help you with more tangible things. I am a firm believer that we are only visitors here, strangers in a strange land, just passing through. The momentary feelings, comforts, pleasures, even pains are just that -- momentary. I am far more concerned with the long-term. I realize that puts me out of the norm, where "here and now" is the important and "you're only pie-in-the-sky" is bad. On the other hand, knowing I have "a home with Christ, a family in God, actual spiritual wholeness, an entirely new identity in Christ" provides me here and now with genuine comfort and long-term, tangible profit.
True peace resides in the heart and mind of the mature believer. this is because peace is only a byproduct of perusing the author of peace. perusing peace in of itself; is an empty esoteric quest the usually ends poorly. the strangest thing is the presence of quiet calm in thee midst of clamor of ciaos. we are the children of the promise. we are the children of Abraham. it is fitting that we should share in the promises of Isreal. what a wonderful privileged that we might be called the children of God....
Bob, John wrote, "See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God" (1 John 3:1). I wouldn't accuse John of being overly spiritual. I consider that tangible. I'm good with that.
Etymologically, move and remove are absolutely kin. Both are Middle English: from Old French moveir, from Latin movere. Remove simply has a Latin prefix.
If a Chinese person were using the same sorts of lexicographical volumes you use for Hebrew, they would think the words. are kissing cousins.
That you and I think they are obviously not the same shows how language use is vastly different from lexicography.
OH! And the Hebrew words I am referring to are the ones used for evil as in misery, state of evil vs evil as in hurtful intentions.
Of course Shalom is the same.
Feodor, in the post I said that Isaiah and Jeremiah used "the same two terms." In the Strong's world both have the same number applied. In actual terminology both have the same root. In your definitions of the two both had the same import. One was "bad thoughts or intentions" and the other "enduring bad", but the same import -- something "bad." I'm not at all sure why you feel the need to argue the point when I didn't make a big deal of it in the first place, I said it was an aside in the second place, and don't much see your point other than the specific, actual, Hebrew words are not identical. Do you disagree that both Isaiah and Jeremiah intended to contrast shalom with their word for some sort of "bad"?
You are a true son of radical protestantism, Stan.
I am not. I grew up that way, but have long fled to a more embodied faith. Christ's incarnation was the divine act of taking flesh so we of flesh can take on divinity. This short sentence sums up the 1700 year long eastern theology of Christianity which also influences some groups of western faith.
from 2 Peter 1: "His divine power has given us everything needed for life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Thus he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust, and may become participants of the divine nature. For this very reason, you must make every effort to support your faith with goodness, and goodness with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with endurance, and endurance with godliness, and godliness with mutual affection, and mutual affection with love. For if these things are yours and are increasing among you, they keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For anyone who lacks these things is short-sighted and blind, and is forgetful of the cleansing of past sins. Therefore, brothers and sisters, be all the more eager to confirm your call and election, for if you do this, you will never stumble. For in this way, entry into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be richly provided for you."
Doesn't sound like we should be waiting to believe that we are "conformed to the image of His Son." Snooze you lose seems to be what Peter is saying.
"Radical protestantism." I like that. What has been "mainstream Christianity" for 1900 years is now "radical protestantism." Okay, fine.
I am never quite sure. Given the frequency at which I am thoroughly and completely misunderstood and falsely accused, I tend to think that the problem is on my side. Communication error, poor choice of words, whatever. If you understood me to say that we are simply "waiting" to be conformed to the image of His Son, then either you misunderstood or I failed to properly convey my thoughts. I'll grant the latter.
No, no, I simply meant that God's plans for our good are not merely emotional or comfortable or certainly not physical -- not simply earthly. I meant that His plans for our good transcend the current, actually trivial version of "good". We are being conformed to His image daily, constantly, continually. As I indicated, it's part of that "all things" that "work together for good." In the lingo, it's "sanctification." I believe wholly that this process is a circular process described in that 2 Peter text that continually builds on itself, making us new in spirit, mind, actions, motivation -- our whole being. Is that acceptable as "tangible" by your definition? Because I didn't think it was while, to me, there isn't anything more tangible than that.
I use radical protestantism and radical reformation interchangeably. Perhaps I shouldn't. Either way, I'm talking about the 16th century movement and its development to today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_Reformation
As we are made in the image and likeness of God, I take cooking, dance, poetry, cattle herding, philosophy, fashion, rap music, sailing, etc. to be divinely inspired things to do.
The incarnation frees us to do all things we can do divinely. Clearly it is grossly panglossian concept. But when God comes to be one with human personhood, the sky is the limit.
"The incarnation frees us to do all things we can do divinely"
Except sin, of course. I'm sure you meant that. But you included "rap music," so ...
I'm kidding, of course (about the rap music thing).
I wish sailing wasn’t so expensive and exclusive. That!’s a sin.
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