Jeremiah 26-29

[wolfpurplemoon]

Jeremiah is put on trial because everyone thinks he is a false prophet, they are rather easily convinced that he's really talking to God when he repeats what he'd already been saying with more emphasis on the 'God told me to say it' and because a previous prophet who was killed also prophesied Jerusalem becoming an uninhabitable wasteland because of the sins of the people.

God wants all nations to submit to rule under the king of Babylon, until Babylon is destroyed by other enemies. Not sure what anyone is achieving through this temporary submission, but God will destroy anyone who refuses, so the benefit is to avoid getting destroyed. Nice motivation there.

A prophet who predicts that the servitude will only last two years is killed by God for lying. Jeremiah says that if you predict good things then it has to come true, because I guess if you predict bad things you can say that it was averted because God relented.

God tells Jeremiah to write a letter to the exiled people in Babylon, which begs the question that should have occurred to me earlier in this book, why is God only talking to Jeremiah when Jeremiah is alone? And telling him to go out and spread God's message. Why doesn't he tell everyone himself? This is part of why I am so sceptical about the truth of these prophesies, but mainly because they could easily have been written after the fact or the events that were predicted were only recorded in the pages of the bible.

Comments

Not a Bible scholar

[chiknfarmer.livejournal.com]

I don't understand some of the stuff in the Bible, but I do want to throw this out there. God is holy. Sin/sinful persons cannot abide in his presence. Maybe that is why prophets are called by God to point out sin and encourage people to repent and come back to a relationship with God. His mercy is shown in that He does offer forgiveness. Even in the fall of man when Adam and Eve ate the fruit, mercy is shown when God makes them clothes of animal skins. And in the making of the animal skins there is a sacrifice. Animal(s) die to provide for fallen man. Sacrifice is in the Old Testament as a provision for forgiveness of sin. Then later, God sent His only Son Jesus, to become the final blood sacrifice, ending all others. I enjoy reading the posts I have read so far. I like your honesty. I encourage you to look also for the threads of grace and mercy as God reaches to restore the relationship He longs for with man. It's there.

Re: Not a Bible scholar

[wolfpurplemoon]

Thankyou for your thoughts. I do struggle with seeing God as loving, there just doesn't seem to be any benefit for the people of Israel to follow his rules apart from avoiding the dreadful punishments he likes to deal out, this doesn't seem like a good or healthy relationship to pursue.

Re: Not a Bible scholar

[chiknfarmer.livejournal.com]

Well, hang in there on the reading. Old Testament is the old covenant. The old ways. When the Messiah, Jesus, came, He brought in a new covenant between God and man. Should you choose to pray during readings, God is capable of handling our skepticism.