One of the challenges I’ve wrestled with in Jeremiah,
Is that it is so distant and unpleasant that it seems irrelevant or offensive
- distant, because we are out of sync with that period of time and culture
• we don’t share their norms, values, or kinship structures
◦ their geopolitical context was nothing like ours today
◦ their hardships are not our hardships
• their language is foreign, their names are foreign, their cities are foreign
◦ moreover, they had ruined their relationship with God
◦ Israel had violated and broken God’s covenant
And many nations will pass by this city, and every man will say to his neighbor, “Why has the LORD dealt thus with this great city?” And they will answer, “Because they have forsaken the covenant of the LORD their God and worshiped other gods and served them” (Jer. 22:9)
- it’s unpleasant, because hell-fire preachers have capitalized on damnation
Chuck Fromm, “There are lots of angry men behind pulpits”
• they shout at us like abusive parents who take their anger out on the children
• this has left us with an unpleasant taste in our mouths
◦ we’ve become sensitive to these passages of doom
◦ on other hand, do we want a God who has no anger?
a God who doesn’t grieve? Doesn’t react? Doesn’t care?