This morning in my daily Bible reading, I came across a very that most Christians have seen hanging on someone's wall at some point. It is Jeremiah 29:11, "I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope."
My question for you is what does this verse mean for us? Can we / should we take this verse as a promise for us? If so, what kind of promise is it.
I raise this question as a way of challenging you to think about how you interpret and apply scripture to your life, because if you have in mind when you read that verse or see it on someone's wall that God is promising you a long life, good family, and lots of good things, then you are misapplying and misusing the verse.
So let me take you through the verse and the passage to see what if any promises we can glean from the passage.
First, we need to understand that Jeremiah 29 is written to a specific group of people at a specific time. Jeremiah is a prophet of God writing at the end of the independent kingdom of Judah about 600 years before Christ. They have already been captured by the large kingdom of Babylon and some of the people have been exiled over to Babylon, while some of the people remain in Jerusalem and Judea. Jeremiah is given this prophecy to both sets of people. In the first part of chapter 29, he is writing to the people in captivity and telling them that God has not abandoned them, and that they have a future and hope. This is a specific prophecy of future blessing in this world when they will be brought back to the land. In the second part of the chapter God warns the people who remain in Judah that if they resist and rebel against Babylon that they will be destroyed, so they should obey him and not rebel. They did rebel and they were destroyed. Likewise, the Jews in Babylon were returned to the land after a 70 year exile. So we see in this passage a prophecy of blessing and destruction, and we find out from later historical writings that these prophecies were fulfilled.
So one of the clear lessons that we can take from this passage is that God keeps His promises, both for blessing for those to whom He promised blessing, but also for cursing to those He promised cursing.
But are there any specific promises in this passaged for anyone besides the Jews that we should count on? Well, not exactly in this passage, but if we continue to read the context in the next couple of chapters, we see some promises for Israel that were not fulfilled in the immediate context of the people returning from Babylon 70 years later.
“This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel
after that time,” declares the LORD.
“I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
No longer will they teach their neighbor,
or say to one another, ‘Know the LORD,’
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,”
declares the LORD.
“For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more.”
This is what the LORD says,
he who appoints the sun
to shine by day,
who decrees the moon and stars
to shine by night,
who stirs up the sea
so that its waves roar —
the LORD Almighty is his name:
“Only if these decrees vanish from my sight,”
declares the LORD,
“will Israel ever cease
being a nation before me.”
This is what the LORD says:
“Only if the heavens above can be measured
and the foundations of the earth below be searched out
will I reject all the descendants of Israel
because of all they have done,”
declares the LORD.
“The days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when this city will be rebuilt for me from the Tower of Hananel to the Corner Gate. The measuring line will stretch from there straight to the hill of Gareb and then turn to Goah.
In context, this passage seems to be a continuation of the blessing talked about being promised in chapter 29. Since the eternal types of blessing did not seem to be fulfilled, we can and should look further out for what God has done and will do.
Did God give a new covenant where His people wrote His law on the hearts of His people? Yes, we can say that in fact, that has happened through the work of Christ. His people are no longer just the physical descendants of Abraham, but all those who Christ has saved. Can we then claim some of the goodness of the promise in chapter 29 has already been fulfilled by what God does for those who trust Jesus? Yes if you are a Jesus follower.
Furthermore, we can also say that the promises of an everlasting kingdom of peace are promises that we can look forward to. We have repeated promises like this in the New Testament where the saints are to look forward to the eternal kingdom.
But I want to warn you about a couple of bad uses of this passage. One use would be to think that God is promising any current believers earthly blessing right now. The promised earthly blessings from Jeremiah 29:11 are not even fulfilled for the current generation of Jews living at that time. Yes, God does promise to bless them in Babylon if they submit to the leaders there and try to bless the kingdom, but they current generation not only did not have hope to be brought back to Judah, but were told to expect a delay of 70 years for fulfillment, so none of the original readers of the passage should have expected the kingdom to get fulfilled right then. And those physical fulfillments were for a specific group of faithful Jews who would get to come back to their homeland. That's not us.
In fact, what are we promised as far as physical blessing in this life? Well, if we look at various proverbs and consequences of living according to God's laws, then in general, we should be have better outcomes. Faithful, trustworthy, loving people generally have more stable families, better jobs, and make better neighbors. As we let the Holy Spirit write God's laws on our hearts, we should becoming more and more like Christ, so in some respects our lives and the lives of those around us should improve.
But, what happened to Jesus in this world? He got killed. What does He promise will happen to us if we follow Him? Matthew 5:10-12 says, "Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you."
Many times in the New Testament, followers of Jesus are warned that they will face trouble and persecution simpy for following Him. Not only will our lives not necessarily be blessed, but in this life, we should expect trouble. Our hope, our blessing is not to be found in the things of this world. We were made and are being remade for the next world.
So if you see Jeremiah 29:11 hanging on someone's wall. I want you to remember that the true fulfillment of those promises even for the Jews was not in some partially restored kingdom 70 years later or some blessing that you are hoping for next week, next year, or next decade. Rather the true plans God has for His children are much bigger and much longer than that.
A couple nights ago, Traci, Abigail and I watched a movie called,
"I still believe," which is a story about Christian singer Jeremy Camp and his first wife Melissa. It tells the story of how Jeremy and Melissa met in college dated and even got engaged rather young. Very soon after they got engaged Melissa found out she had cancer, and they began to pray earnestly that she would be healed. Miraculously she was healed of all of her cancer right before going in for major surgery. They got married 6 months later, but on their honeymoon, Melissa found out the cancer had returned. Again they prayed for healing but the cancer was spread too far that they did not even go in for treatment. Right before she passed away, she declared the pain was gone and that God had healed her. Then she died.
She was right. God did heal her. In the most complete way. In a way that matched God's plan for her life. A plan that He has for all of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. A plan for good and not evil. A plan for hope and an eternal future.
That's what I think of when I read Jeremiah 29:11, and I hope you will too.
