For a full description of the (Y3) reading plan, see the “About” page.
- What attributes of God’s character does this passage reveal?
- How does the passage point to Jesus?
- How should the truth of this passage change me?
- How do the events of today’s reading help you better understand the grand narrative of Scripture?
Jer. 7
God makes everything new, but He has not changed. Thus, what He requires today is what He required from the beginning. Paul wrote to the Christians in Rome, “What should we say then? Should we continue in sin so that grace may multiply? Absolutely not! How can we who died to sin still live in it?” (Rom. 6:1-2). It seems some people believed God’s grace was a free ticket to do whatever they wished. Turns out God addressed this same issue with the Jews through Jeremiah. God’s people did whatever they wanted because they believed His temple and the sacrifices that went with it covered them. They would go to the Temple and say, “We are rescued, so we can continue doing all these detestable acts.” (Jer. 7:10b).
The one command God has given from the very beginning is, “Obey me, and then I will be your God, and you will be my people. Follow every way I command you so that it may go well with you.” (Jer. 7:23b). He has never changed. What He changes is us and how we go about meeting His requirement for obedience. When we recognize that we can’t do it ourselves, He gives us His grace to bring us to the obedience of faith. He provided The Way for us to die to sin and self so that we could take on the righteousness that He requires. It is not our own, but a gift from our merciful God.
Jer. 8
Something else that never changes are those who refuse to accept God’s offer to make them new; those who reject His word. God called out Judah’s leaders through Jeremiah for this very thing. They considered themselves wise because they studied God’s law. However God said of them, “They have rejected the word of the LORD, so what wisdom do they really have?” (Jer. 8:9b). The same was true of the Jewish leaders of Jesus’ day. Jesus is the ultimate Word of God; the Word made flesh, as John tells us in his gospel. But many, including most of the leaders, rejected Him. So, as Paul also said, “Claiming to be wise, they became fools.” (Rom. 1:22). There is no wisdom in opposing God.
Jer. 9
The more familiar I become with the Bible, the more I see that the New Testament teachings are the same as the Old. Jesus said that He came to fulfill, not replace, the law and the prophets. Luke verifies this with his comment concerning Jesus’ post-resurrection appearance to the two men on the road to Emmaus. Luke said, “Then beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted for them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.” (Lk. 24:27). What Jesus and His apostles after Him taught was nothing new. The only thing that changed is that we now have proper context through Christ.
What we have seen already just in today’s reading is that God does not desire religious pretense. Going through the motions is meaningless. What He desires is our obedient hearts. We have also seen that rejecting God and His plan for us is foolishness. The wisdom of man is not wisdom at all. In this chapter we see the concept of circumcised hearts, which we also saw the other day. And we see that, “the one who boasts should boast in this: that he understands and knows [God]” (Jer. 9:24a). Boasting in God alone is something Paul consistently taught. Jesus gives clarity to everything we find in the Old Testament.