Most Misused Verses Jeremiah 29:11-13

Introduction

My first exposure to this vs being misused was when I was a new believer

I’m listening to a testimony on the radio and at the end when they guy was offering his final thoughts and presenting the gospel he quoted Jer 29:11 and made the comment “God has a wonderful plan for your life, you just need to seek him”

I’m in college at the time, living in a 600 sq ft apartment, getting “beat up” daily in my Multicultural Ed class, making $5/hr washing dishes in a dive of a restaurant... and I thought, “I’m not sure it’s a wonderful life”

And through the years, this vs comes up in sermons but most often I see it on wall hangings, coffee cups, tee shirts, etc.

And yet, the majority of people never bother to read the full text of Jer 29:11-13 or ask themselves, “Does this vs really mean God has a wonderful plan for me life?”

Statistically speaking at least ___ of you have this verse floating somewhere around your house

Historical Background

By the time of Jer 29, the Jews had been through 4 phases of captivity

722 - Assyrians capture the Northern kingdom (2 Ki 17)

605 - Babylon captures the Southern kingdom (2 Ki 23:36–24:6); Daniel taken

597 - Jehoiachin and the majority of southern Isr was taken captive; Jeremiah stays behind

586 - Jerusalem and the temple are destroyed and most of the remaining Jews were taken(2 Ki 24-25)

Throughout Isr history, the majority of kings were anything but good and most of them went out of their way to be deliberately disobedient

They had broken God’s covenant with them at almost every point and God had had enough

As God told Elijah there is always a remnant of faithful people but as a whole the nation turned their back on Him and God’s patience had run out

And yet He always showed mercy to them by sending prophets to warn them about coming judgment

In rare cases it worked but most often they disregarded the warnings

God promised He would send judgement on them for continued disobedience

Enter Habakkuk and Jeremiah (as 2 examples)

Habakkuk told of the coming destruction and 2 Chr 36:20-21 tell us why (failed to give the land it’s Sabbath rest every 7th year - Lev 25:3-5)

Jeremiah also prophesied of a coming captivity where the land would be desolate for 70 years to punish them for their disobedience (25:1-11)

Yet Jeremiah had to contend with false prophets giving people a false hope and telling them their stay would be short

(i.e., Hananiah (Jer 28) - was all about telling the people what they wanted to hear)

Jer 25, historically, took place in 605BC and Jer 52 recounts the captivity in 586BC - Jer 29 takes place after the deportation in 597BC

And as God always does, even in the midst of punishment, He offers them hope

Context

What are the 3 most important rules in real estate? (location, location, ...)

So in Bible study the 3 most important rules are context, context, …

For any passage, we must look at the context before we move to any type of interpretive process

In a majority of cases the context alone can help us determine what a passage means (or doesn’t mean)

As I mention in my hermeneutics class, there are potentially 4 types of context we should be aware of - historical, cultural, grammatical, Biblical

Inside the Biblical context, there are 6 different contexts to look at - immediate, passage, chapter, book, testament, whole Bible

The immediate context will be 1 or 2 vs before and after the verse we are studying

Passage context goes out to the paragraph before and after (and so on)

In our passage the immediate context would include vv 10 & 14

Passage context would be 1-23 (and so on)

When we do Bible study, we always start with the immediate context and work out

Since our immediate context is vv 10-14, we will start there and then back up when we need a bigger picture

The first thing that should force us to go back to preceeding vss is that word at the beginning of v 11 - “For”

For is a connecting term which tells us this vs is part of a larger thought (so we go backwards)

v11 - “For”, v10 - “For”, v9 - “For”… This takes us all the way back up to v4 - “Thus says the Lord...”

Ultimately we go all the way back to v1 to get the context of the whole passage

V1 tells us this is part of a letter

Written by? Written to whom?

Thus when we start in the proper place in the passage (the beginning), the context gives some important insight on how vv 11-13 should be properly understood

Understanding the context helps us to realize a couple of important points to guide us into what this vs does and doesn’t mean

1) This a corporate message (v1, 4)

This letter was to communicate God’s message to the nation of Judah, not any specific individual (to the… elders, priests, prophets, etc.)

In general Jews differ from almost every other ethnic group in that they are corporately minded (they think nationally, not individualistically) so while we like to pluck out vv and make our own application, Jews would have understood this as it was intended - a message to the entire exiled population

2) The promise would not occur for another 70 years (v10)

The majority of the exiles who hear this message will not see it fulfilled in their lifetime

Therefore, the exiles hearing this message should not expect to “live their best life now”

They are in store for 70 years of hardship before God’s promise is realized

So while this is a verse of prosperity and hope, but it was a promise for a future generation (children and grandchildren of the current generation)

3) The promise is one of return (v13)

The end of vs 13 says God’s plan is to return them from where they were taken from

Because of their disobedience, God forcibly removed them from the promised land

Yet that didn’t mean the land would never be inhabited again

This promise from God makes it clear that they would be returned to the land they were taken from

They would get back to the land promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob

What It Doesn’t Mean

Based on the historical and biblical context, does this mean we can latch on to this as a life vs and expect God to give us riches and good health?

You certainly can if you want to ignore the entire context of ch 29, the message of Jeremiah as well as most of the rest of the Bible

Many, in their mind want to take this vs as a personal promise to them and think God has to give them a good job, good health, etc.

Yet, no one in Jeremiah’s day would have gotten anything close to that when they heard this letter

They were just forcibly removed from their homes and country and would remain there another 70 years (literal 70)

And aside from all the other reasons we just mentioned, if it couldn’t be used as an immediate promise to those who first heard it, what makes us think we can make it an immediate promise to us?

God has a plan for your life, but humanly speaking it certainly may not be a wonderful plan

What It Does Mean

Historically, this promise was fulfilled beginning in ca 538bc when the first exiles were allowed to go back under King Cyrus

2 years later (536bc) Ezra and ca 40K exiles returned to start rebuilding the temple (completed in 516bc)

The meaning is pretty straight forward - God’s punishment of Judah will not last forever, and in the end God will bless them restore them to the promised land

A couple grammatical things to point out:

The word welfare is the Heb word “shalom” (peace) so while many read welfare as prosperity it has more intention of peacefulness or safety (cf v 7)

The phrase a future and a hope is likely to be taken as a single thought (i.e., “a hopeful end”) - thus God will bring them from hardship and desolation to safety with the expectation of hope

Application (So What?)

So is there anything we can take from this passage? (Of course)

1) God knows His plans for us

This is something that applies to every nation and individual

God does have a plan for every one of us

For the Jews this would provide hope for them knowing that God is in control and has everything planned out

No matter how desperate things seemed, it was never outside of God’s plan

So regardless of what we are going through, we can know that God has a plan for us as well and that if we are going through difficult times, it will not last forever

2) God’s promises are certain

Just like for the Jews, God promised after 70 years He would return His people from exile and that is exactly what happened

When God makes a promise we can be 1000% certain He will fulfill it just like He says

3) Ultimate peace is coming

Just like Jeremiah’s prophecy about God promising peace and hope was yet future, the Bible assures us that we have an ultimate hope to look forward to

If we are going to latch on to this promise, we must look at it in light of eternity and not immediacy

Our future and hope will be realized fully in eternal life with God

Our true and full restoration of God’s promises to His children

While we were never taken into captivity, the Bible does say we are exiles and one day we will be fully restored to our true home w Christ

The prosperity God promises is never guaranteed in this life

Just look through church history, read Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, or just look around as what is happening to Xians around the world

Our true prosperity, peace, and hope, like the Jews in Babylon is yet future (2 Cor 4:13-18)