Verse He Knows the Plans He Has for You
Jeremiah 29:11-thirteen: "For I know the plans I have for you…" Practice these verses apply to us or not?
It has become increasingly popular in contempo years for teachers of the Bible (myself included) to disparage people who use Jeremiah 29:11-thirteen to their lives. "Y'all're non paying attention to the context!," they loudly protest ( … as I have). This mail will explore whether such disparagement is appropriate, and conclude that often it is non. I hope to model something about how to interpret the Bible at the same time.
Jeremiah 29:xi-thirteen are favorite verses for many people:
For I know the plans I take for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to requite you a time to come and a hope. Then you lot will telephone call upon me and come up and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart (Jeremiah 29:xi-13 ESV).
People dearest these verses because they observe encouragement in the thought that God has good intentions for them fifty-fifty in the midst of suffering. They are heartened when they read that God hears their prayers. They are strengthened with the idea that when they seek the Lord with all their eye they will observe the Lord.
Only teachers of the Bible sometimes betoken out that the immediate literary context pertains to God's promise to bring back the people of State of israel from Babylon after 70 years in exile (Jeremiah 29:x). Thus, these verses apply only to the exiled Israelites living in the sixth century B.C. — not to us, or so it is claimed. "Pay attention to the context!" is the reminder they offer, and, truthfully, a reminder that all of u.s.a. demand to hear.
Simply I think that at that place is a flake more to consider in biblical interpretation. The dissenters are right that the literary context (the verses surrounding these verses) connects the reader to a particular historical context, that is, return from the Babylonian exile. It can be terribly frustrating (maddening, actually) to listen to people interpret the Bible who glibly ignore literary and historical contexts. But are those two contexts (the literary and historical contexts) the only two contexts you need to pay attention to when reading Scripture?
No, there is some other context that is crucial if you want to read the Bible well. That context is the approved context, or, labeled differently, the whole-Bible context. The whole-Bible context is the context you work with to identify patterns and themes that run through (yous guessed it…) the whole Bible and pay attention to whether such themes are too present in the verses you lot are trying to interpret. If whole-Bible themes run through the verses to which you lot are attending, then information technology is proper — fifty-fifty necessary — to telephone call out such patterns and themes — not every bit the main pregnant of the verses, just as a proper broadening of the significant that connects specific verses to the overall narrative and teaching of the whole Bible.
Are there such whole-Bible patterns and themes that appear in these verses from Jeremiah 29? Yes. There are at least four.
- God makes promises that are skillful, and intends to fulfill them (verse 11) (compare i Kings viii:56; Psalm 105:8-10; Jeremiah 32:42; Luke 24:49; Rom 11:29).
- God listens to his people when they pray (verse 12) (compare ii Chronicles 7:12-16; Psalm 34:15; Matthew 7:11; James 5:14-eighteen).
- God allows his people to find him when they seek him (verse 13) (compare Deuteronomy 4:29-31; one Chronicles 16:11-17; Isaiah 51:one-3; 55:6; Matthew 7:7).
- God repeatedly rescues his people out of exile (verse 14) (compare Exodus 2:23; Psalm 144:11; Ezekiel 34:10-22; Colossians 1:13; i Peter ane:1).
Any time we fail to pay attending to the literary and historical contexts of Jeremiah 29:11-13, we deserve the wrist-slap we've been getting from teachers who complain that we take been misinterpreting these verses. Nevertheless, it turns out that the main ideas found in these verses are consistent with the approved (whole-Bible) context. Consequently, these verses practice communicate words of encouragement that God'southward people can describe upon for encouragement in their daily lives, not because the verses offer such encouragement direct, but considering they practise then in conversation with patterns and themes that course their way throughout the whole Bible.[1]
Notes
[i] Now, if people accept this passage to mean that they individually volition prosper (say, materially or vocationally), then that is a unlike kind of error altogether. I have left that issue out of today'due south postal service to make the signal virtually the need to pay attending to the broader canonical context of the Bible.
This post and other resources are bachelor at Kindle Anew: The Blog and Website of Kenneth Berding.
Kenneth Berding
Kenneth Berding is a professor of New Testament at Talbot School of Theology. He is an author of various books, some academic (such equally Polycarp and Paul), some semi-academic (such as What Are Spiritual Gifts? Rethinking the Conventional View), others for-the-classroom (such as Sing and Larn New Testament Greek or The Apostolic Fathers: A Narrative Introduction), and withal others for-the-church (such equally Walking in the Spirit or Bible Revival: Recommitting Ourselves to One Book). He has published articles in such journals every bit the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Gild, Vigiliae Christianae, New Attestation Studies, and Journal of Early Christian Studies. He is the manager of Bible Fluency: Sing Information technology, Run across It, Study It . Before coming to Talbot, Berding was a church building planter in the Eye East and taught at Nyack College but northward of New York Urban center. He has a eye for God and ministry, has written many worship songs, and has served as a worship pastor in local church ministry.
Verse He Knows the Plans He Has for You
Source: https://www.biola.edu/blogs/good-book-blog/2021/jeremiah-29-11-13-for-i-know-the-plans-i-have-for-you-do-these-verses-apply-to-us-or-not
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