Month: July 2024

Week 31  Jeremiah 30

I must punish you; I cannot let you go unpunished. That’s Jeremiah quoting the Lord.
For a reader who’s reading through the bible it’s impossible to miss this basic idea. There’s two types of actions: a) punishable actions and b) non-punishable actions. The two are treated differently.
A non-punishable action doesn’t require any punishment. It’s a ‘non’ and so by definition no punitive action is taken against it.
On the other hand a punishable action doesn’t get to go unpunished. Punishable acts have to be punished. It’s the way things are set up. It’s how things work.
In the regular world there are work-arounds for this where my punishable actions might not get punished. For instance here in the regular world my punishable can get reassigned – shifted over from the Penalty Column into the Non-Penalty Column just because we decide to. Penalty metamorphizes into Non-Penalty. Punishment is unnecessary. Jeremiah verse can now say: “I can let you go unpunished”.
In the regular world the system seems to be able to handle this kind of adjustment in the short-run. But over time there’s going to be degradation. One of the bibles repeater ideas is that punishables & nonpunishables are incompatible. Mixing them fouls the system.
So I can do something wrong and temporarily get-away with it. But eventually the I Cannot Let You Go Unpunished Rule will apply. It’s inevitable.

Note: quote from Jeremiah 30:11 (NLT). End-of-month reading report: 801 chapters. 67% of the bible read in 58% of the year.

Week 31  Jeremiah 29

A big chunk of chapter 29 is Jeremiah’s letter to the (formerly) proud citizens of Jerusalem who had been conquered & captured & exiled to Babylon. They were now suppressed and second-class strangers in a strange hostile foreign oppressor state.
The whole letter is pretty interesting but one thing I noticed was Jeremiah’s recommendation to the captives: work for the peace and prosperity of the city where I (the Lord) sent you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, for its welfare will determine your welfare.
It’s a piece of advice with two-parts:
1) work for the peace & prosperity of the antagonists
2) pray for the antagonists.
There’s nothing about labour strikes. Or passive resistance. Or insurrection. Or revolution.
The basic recommendation was: in your day-to-day life you should be acting and working and praying for the peace & prosperity of the state. National peace and civic stability give you the best chance for being safe & secure & getting along and just living your life. Be satisfied with that. It’s the best you can hope for. You’re exiles.
There’s a cross reference in my bible from Jeremiah to the NT: pray for kings and all others who are in authority, so that we can live in peace and quietness, in godliness and dignity. It’s a completely different set of circumstances but it sounds like Jeremiah. Pray for your controllers. Pray for peace & security & prosperity. Live your life.

Note: quote from Jeremiah 29:7 & 1 Timothy 2:1-2 (NLT)

Week 31  Jeremiah 16

At the end of the chapter Jeremiah prays a short prayer with a question (and an answer):
Q: can people make their own gods?
A: the gods they make are not real gods at all.
If Jeremiah had been talking to actual people (not the Lord) it’s possible he might have asked ‘can you people make your own gods?’ and then he might have waited for an answer. (There were two possible answers. Either A) Yes we can make our own gods or B) No we can’t make our own gods.)
It’s also possible Jeremiah wouldn’t have waited for an answer because he knew most people would choose Answer A.
But either way I think what Jeremiah was actually asking was: can a guy make a real god? (that explains his comment: the gods they make are not real gods at all).
The gods that people were making were real-enough. But in the end they were still real-enough artificial gods. Genuine authentic honest-to-god fake gods. Fakely realistic substitutes.
Anyway the Lord told Jeremiah: now I’ll show them my power and might. This tips me off that Power and Might are a couple of key differences between a real-fake god and a real-real god.
The Lord has vast strength & Niagara’s of power and he’s not creatable or controllable by people.
By contrast the maker of a real-fake god gets to create & control whatever god he wants. Which seems like a nice advantage.

Note: quotes from Jeremiah 16:19-20 (NLT)

Week 30  Jeremiah 14

Jeremiah records a prayer that the people of Israel prayed:
Our wickedness has caught up with us, Lord, but help us for the sake of your own reputation. We have turned away from you and sinned against you again and again.
O Hope of Israel, our Savior in times of trouble, why are you like a stranger to us? Why are you like a traveler passing through the land, stopping only for the night?
Are you also confused? Is our champion helpless to save us? You are right here among us, Lord. We are known as your people. Please don’t abandon us now!
I don’t know if anyone has developed a Quality of Prayer Measurement Scale – a test instrument to help me rate prayers on a scale of – let’s say: Poor or Medium or Good.
I’ve never seen one so all I can do is look at a prayer and try to judge it on its merits. And this prayer looks like a pretty good one to me:
It’s a looking-for-help prayer (“we’re in trouble and need a bail-out”)
It’s an admission-of-wrongdoing prayer. Abject. Repentive. Down-in-the-dumps. Pleading.
What’s really surprising is the Lord’s reply: I will no longer accept you as my people. I will remember all your wickedness and will punish you for your sins.
I would have given Israel maybe an 8.5 out of 10 for this good-sounding prayer.
But it looks like the Lord gave them 0.

Note: quotes from Jeremiah 14:7-10 (NLT)

Week 30  Jeremiah-Acts

When I’m reading through the bible I have one thing I hope and one thing I know.
I’m hoping that I’ll learn something useful. Gain some insight.
But one thing I know is that lots of times I’ll be left with questions.
So yesterday I had that question about the nations of the world having chunks of land that they say is their country. A country has country and it’s theirs to control and use and exploit and manage and protect and defend. Things like that.
Jeremiah knows that countries / jurisdictions / territorial-states / empires are gained on the one hand when settlers move in and stay or maybe when land is taken over militarily. But he’s more interested in the Main Reason that countries get their land assignment – it comes to them as a grant/gift from the Lord. That’s why a state has country.
Anyway one of the questions I had yesterday was that if that was going on in the OT then what about today? Do modern countries have assigned geographies too?
I didn’t find the answer to the question but I did find a cross-reference where Paul said something interesting. He said the Lord: created all the nations throughout the whole earth. He decided beforehand when they should rise and fall, and he determined their boundaries.
So Paul agrees with Jeremiah. The Lord determines national boundaries.
Which didn’t answer yesterday’s question. But it added another piece that’s worth keeping in mind.

Note: quote from Acts 17:26 (NLT)

Week 30  Jeremiah 12

The OT is mostly about Israel. And about the land of Israel. Abraham was promised land. Israel spent time in Egypt but came back to the their land. They spent time in exiled. But returned to their land.
The OT is mostly an Us & Them book that’s very heavy on the Us (Israel) and light on Them (all the others) (I’d say that the ratio of content between Israel & Everyone Else is at least 90:10. Maybe higher.)
But something the LORD says catches my attention: I will uproot from their land all the evil nations reaching out for the possession I gave my people Israel. And I will uproot Judah from among them. But afterward I will return and have compassion on all of them. I will bring them home to their own lands again, each nation to its own possession.
The phrase each nation to its own possession sounds like foreign states had geographic regions assigned (I guess) by the Lord. They were uprooted from their lands but eventually they came back: each nation to its own possession.
So I’m wondering:
Am I reading this right? Did Assyria & Moab & Ammon actually have assigned territories?
Was that a common practice in the OT?
What about after the OT? For example did Rome have assigned territory?
What about today? The USA. Malaysia. Brazil. Russia. China. France. Do modern countries have assigned geographies?
This was a question day for me.

Note: quote from Jeremiah 12:14-15 (NLT)

 

Week 29  Jeremiah 12

Jeremiah asked two questions (actually it was the same question asked in two different ways):
Why are the wicked so prosperous?
Why are evil people so happy?
I think Jeremiah asked the two questions because he thought that bad people should be unsuccessful and that good people should be successful.
Jeremiah’s mental Rule Book seemed to frame things this way:
Rule #1: Bad People Shouldn’t Succeed
Rule #2: Good People Should Succeed.
Jeremiah likely knew very well that bad people succeeded for the same reasons any successful person succeeded: if you’re smart & hard-working & focused & diligent & lucky & aggressive & self-centered (and maybe ruthless & dishonest) then chances are you’ll succeed.
Jeremiah also likely knew it’s generally true that:
Some evil people are successful
But some evil people aren’t successful
And some good people are successful
But other good people aren’t.
I can understand Jeremiah’s question and I think it makes pretty good sense. It doesn’t seem fair if a good guy suffers and a bad guy doesn’t. But unfair happens and Jeremiah (technically-speaking a Big Picture Guy) should have realized that success / failure are short-term & non-permanent conditions. In the long-run they don’t even count.
Jeremiah knew that the real question was: is a guy Good or is he Evil? Whether cash & friends & power go along as part of the mix makes a short-term difference. But they aren’t fixtures. They’re all here-today-gone-tomorrow. And that doesn’t help much in the long-term.

Note: quote from Jeremiah 12:1 (NLT)

Week 29  Jeremiah 10 & Proverbs

Yesterday I was thinking about one of Jeremiah’s comments: our lives are not our own. We are not able to plan our own course. This is a counter-intuitive idea since I generally have a pretty strong feeling that I’m planning my own course. I feel like I’m doing that all the time.
Anyway my bible has a cross-reference in the margin at Jeremiah’s your-life-is-not-your-own verse. So I turned to it and saw this:
We can make our own plans, but the Lord gives the right answer.
Right beside that verse I had penciled-in several more references that I had found and recorded (it must be several years ago now and I must have  been thinking then about whose my life was):
We may throw the dice, but the Lord determines how they fall
You can make many plans, but the Lord’s purpose will prevail
The Lord directs our steps, so why try to understand everything along the way?
People may be right in their own eyes, but the Lord examines their heart
The horse is prepared for the day of battle, but the victory belongs to the Lord.
The verses I found in Proverbs aren’t all saying I can’t plan my own course. But – like Jeremiah – they’re all aware of the Lord’s input. His involvement & direction & purpose & plans.
It’s easiest to think of myself calling-the-shots. Meaning that if the Lord is calling them too then things get more complicated.

Note: quotes from Jeremiah 10:23 & Proverbs 16:1 33 19:21 20:24 21:2 31 (NLT)

 

 

Week 29  Jeremiah 10

There’s a short prayer at the end of the chapter. I guess it’s best to read the whole prayer but I stop after the first two sentences: our lives are not our own. We are not able to plan our own course.
There’s two main ideas: a) my life is not entirely my own and b) I don’t have exclusive capability to plan my own way. Neither idea conforms to how people normally think. For instance I tend to think that in the regular day-to-day course of events I think & plan & decided & do.
Sometimes I decide to do something and then I do it.
Sometimes I decide to do something but then decide differently and don’t do it (in a case like that I still figure I’m making a decision – a kind of negative decision).
Sometimes I decide not to do something and so I don’t do it.
Sometimes I decide not to do something but in the end I might actually do it.
Anyway the point is that one-way-or-the-other I feel like I’m pretty much in the driver’s-seat when it comes to deciding and doing.
That’s why the verse slows me down. According to Jeremiah my way – what I decide & do – is not exclusively in me to freely decide & do. For instance when I decide to go somewhere it’s not me who’s deciding the trip.
It’s not like I’m doing nothing. But I’m not doing everything either.

Note: quotes from Jeremiah 10:23 (NLT)

Week 28  Isaiah 58

One of the standard ways to differentiate between the OT and the NT is something like this:
A) the OT is out-of-date & irrelevant & legalistic & – basically – of no value
B) the NT has some useful & beneficial things to say.
So anyway I was looking at some of the things Isaiah listed in this chapter.
• Don’t oppress your employees
• Treat your employees fairly & equitably
• Don’t tyrannize helpless people
• Quit your interpersonal bashing
• Don’t fake your religious practices
• No legal malpractice
• No two-tiered justice system (same justice for everyone)
• Help poor people
• Help people who are in trouble
• Look out for the welfare of your family
• Don’t lie
• Don’t treat the Lord’s day like just-another-day
• Don’t do just the things you want to do
• Watch your language…watch the way you talk
And there’s a cumulative wrap-up: honor the Lord in everything you do.
I look back over Isaiah’s list. Since they’re all in the OT I wonder if it would be possible to discard all of them. But I don’t think it’s as simple as that. Q#1: what can I get rid of? Q#2: can I toss any of them?
I can understand that a case can be made for the OT being different from the NT. But with a reading like today’s it’ll be hard to argue that “different” is equivalent to having-no-value.

Note: Isaiah’s list is in 58:3-13. It’s his ideas but my words (and it’s slightly reordered). Quote from 58:13 (NLT)