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(Originally posted Sunday, April 20, 2014)
Overview Jeremiah 17:1-27 - "How Can It Be Wrong If It Feels So Right?" As we read through Jeremiah 17 this week, let us be sure we're keeping a close guard and a tight leash on our heart, or we just might regret where it leads us.
(Originally posted Monday, April 21, 2014)
Jeremiah 17:1-4 - "What's Wrong With THIS Picture?". Today's reading should strike us oddly, as if we were watching a gory scene in a film, so it would probably serve us better to think of tattooing and the permanence of that body art when reading today. That is how God's people's behavior is sticking on them--like a tattoo. And not only that, but it will adorn their children as well.
None of us live in a vacuum; when we obey Yahweh, people are benefitted whether they realize it or not, and when we disobey Him, they are damaged by our actions as well.
So what's wrong with this picture?
(Originally posted Tuesday, April 22, 2014)
Jeremiah 17:5-8 - "As For Me And Mine, We'll Choose To Be Blessed." We should be advised as we read today's portion that the genre has changed from yesterday. Yesterday we read a passage that was prophetic, that is, forth-speaking, explaining what definitely had happened and what will be happening. Today we read a passage that is proverbial in its genre, that is, it lays out possibilities to the reader as well as the consequences--good and bad--of the choices made.
Given the choice between cursed and blessed, I'll choose to be blessed.
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(Originally posted Wednesday, April 23, 2014)
"The Heart Of The Matter". Today, let's read it together:
9
And is desperately sick,
Who can understand it?10
I test the mind,
Even to give each man according to his ways,
According to the results of his deeds.11
[So is] he who makes a fortune, but unjustly;
In the midst of his days it will forsake him,
And in the end he will be a fool."
We in western culture have a particularly hard time with passages like this because we have been so swept off our feet by romance. We see the word or a symbol for "heart" and we automatically think "love".
But true love is not actually warm, fuzzy feelings; that is infatuation. Love actually is active, activity that benefits the recipient of the activity--and that "benefits" doesn't mean warm, fuzzy feelings either!
God is the True Love, and that qualifies Him to judge whose actions are truly loving and whose are not.
(Originally posted Thursday, April 24, 2014)
Jeremiah 17:12-18 - "A Treasury And A Hidden 'Treasure' ". As we read today's section we should notice the genre (or style) has changed again, and now we are reading a psalm of lament. By now you should be seeing a pattern that seems random in the style changes.
An observation: the Hebrew Old Testament is divided in three sections: the Law (Torah), the Prophets (Naviim), and the Writings (Kittuvim); the three sections together are called the Tanakh, taken from the sections' first letters (tav, nun, kaf [TNK]).
As we have been reading Jeremiah 17, the first style represented was the prophetic, the style found chiefly in the Naviim; the sections following were proverbial, ecclesiastical and psalmic, respectively--styles all found primarily in the Kittuvim; and the passages we'll read tomorrow, God willing, will re-present the covenantal style found mainly in the Torah.
Now, nun [N] for Naviim, kaf [K] for Kittuvim, and tav [T] for Torah, in that order [NKT] is the Hebrew root for the word "treasure".
Our God Yahweh's Word is to be treasured. Not buried.
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(Originally posted Friday, April 25, 2014) Jeremiah 17:19-23, 24-28. "Jesus Is Our Sabbath Rest." As mentioned yesterday, today's passages have a covenantal style, so as we read, we might for a moment feel like we're reading something out of the Law section of the Old Testament--Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The first passage looks back; the second looks forward. So with the Ten Commandments and hundreds of other sundry laws in the Old Covenant, why THIS one? This commandment when obeyed would immediately IDENTIFY the individual with Yahweh AND would impede commerce on Saturday. And you WILL upset people if you start messing with their pocketbooks! Just sayin'... Nowadays, we are living in the time of the New Covenant. As Christians, JESUS is our Sabbath. In a sense, we "keep" Him! He told us to come to Him, and HE would give us rest. The writer of Hebrews (Apollos is a delicious possibility, btw) tells us in chapter 4 that Jesus is our rest. Identifying ourselves with Him is costly. But in that rest we are free EVERY. DAY. So, with that said, Shabbat Shalom! |
(Originally posted Saturday, April 26, 2014)
The Jeremiah Project, Week 17, day 7: Review Jeremiah 17:1-28 and REST in the understanding thatShould an artist be cunningly bereft of his muse,
Subjects get brushed aside as there's no time to gain.