June 7th
Electrifying poetic imagery, startling public stunts, breathtaking evil, astonishing mercy: Isaiah was just the beginning. Get ready for more Hebrew Bible prophetic literature! Today, we meet Jeremiah, a prophet who lived during the twilight years of the Southern Kingdom. Jeremiah opens with a direct accusation against the people. Instead of staying faithful to Yahweh, the Israelites are like adulterers, having affairs with Canaanite idols. This gut-wrenching metaphor for Israel’s unfaithfulness shows up over and over again in the latter prophets. In Israel’s ancient Near Eastern context, it packed a particularly powerful punch. Back then, women had very few ways to find food, safety, and shelter outside of their families. Ancient marriages involved mutual care and commitment, but they also functioned as women’s primary social and economic safety net. This combination of love, loyalty, and security is precisely what we find in Yahweh’s covenant commitment to Israel. God has cared for his people like a devoted husband cares for his beloved wife. He rescued them from Egypt, protected them in the wilderness, and settled them in a rich garden land. Now, Yahweh’s covenant partners are loving and trusting other gods, trying to get food and security from wooden blocks carved into statues. Yahweh sends Jeremiah with a severe warning: The Israelites’ lifeless lovers will give them nothing but exile and ruin. Watch the video to learn about the prophet’s mission to the adulterous kingdom of Judah in the book of Jeremiah.
June 8th
The people of Judah have a problem: Their affairs with Canaanite idols have filled the land with violence, corruption, and chaos. In today’s reading, Jeremiah tries to warn the Southern Kingdom that their actions will bring severe consequences. He uses intense imagery to startle them out of their adulterous apathy. Apocalyptic disaster will march down from the north, the prophet warns. It stalks the world like a lion, pouncing on nations and tearing them apart. It howls like a wild desert wind. Its warhorses plunge forward like eagles diving for prey, chariots kicking up a storm of dust behind them. Jeremiah hears the blast of its trumpets and weeps. Jeremiah sees more than an invading army when he looks north. He sees his world’s very foundations give way. The mountains teeter unsteadily on their granite feet. The lush, green plants carpeting the land will shrivel and fall, leaving a barren desert in their wake. The skies blacken to a gaping void that bears down on the empty world. Nothing remains but wild and waste—the pre-creation state of emptiness and chaos described in Genesis 1. Not even the end of the world gets the Israelites’ attention. They close their eyes and ears to Jeremiah’s grim message. They instead choose to listen to false prophets and their flattering chorus of positive assessments, always promising prosperity and peace, when neither is real. The fiction of the false prophets is simple and cheap, easily molded to provide comfort. Truth is complex and costly, often exposing uncomfortable realities. Fake news was as popular back then as it is today. The false prophets craved the social favor they could gain by falsely comforting people with positive-sounding fiction. What will it take for the people to turn their attention away from falsehood, toward the truth God is speaking through his prophetic messenger?
June 9th
It looks like the people of Jerusalem are dead set on breaking every law God gave them. They murder. They steal. They burn incense to gods like Ba’al. They cheat on their spouses. They lie in court. They set up idol statues in Yahweh’s temple. They abuse and oppress their vulnerable neighbors. They even sacrifice their children to foreign gods. Then, with blood-stained hands and hardened hearts, they swagger into the temple and announce that everything is just fine. Brandishing Yahweh’s sacred space like an oversized lucky charm, they insist that Jerusalem is safe as long as the temple stands. They think, “If we have Yahweh’s house, then we have Yahweh’s presence and protection.” The most glorious temple and high-ranking priests don’t matter if you use the whole system for evil. Through Jeremiah, God says that is what they’re doing. As you’ll learn in the video, misusing the sanctity of Yahweh’s temple is a persistent problem in the biblical story. In Jeremiah’s day, crooked religious leaders said the still-standing temple proved God was present with Israel. They believed God’s presence implied that he favored Israel and supported its actions. Jeremiah rebukes such deception. He tells them the presence of a temple won’t secure them in the land; only their willingness to change course and start listening to Yahweh can bring that kind of safety. In today’s reading, Jerusalem’s corruption moves Jeremiah to tears. Centuries later, Jesus too will weep at Jerusalem’s gates, grieving the injustice that rips through the city like a gaping wound. Like Jeremiah, Jesus will declare that the temple has become a haven for robbers, not a house of prayer as God intended. The whole story invites modern readers to think deeply about the life-and-death difference between actually following the ways of God versus putting on a religious show that earns social status. The former brings true peace; the latter only brings suffering and decay.
June 10th
As you may have learned while reading through Isaiah, Yahweh’s prophets love to talk trash about idols. Jeremiah is no exception. Today’s reading features one of Jeremiah’s particularly colorful tirades against idolatrous statues and those who worship them. Jeremiah first argues that idolatry is just plain dumb. Something along the lines of, “You’re telling me you cut down a tree, slapped some shiny metal on it, and are now trusting that material to rescue you and provide a good life? Wood chunks cannot see or speak. How do you expect it to save you, especially from a superpower like the Babylonian army? Are you going to lay your idol down in the road and hope their horses trip over it? That might work … but probably not.” What’s more, idolatry is treacherous. By bowing down to idols, the Israelites are violating their agreement with Yahweh and their commitment to uphold it. This adultery is not a minor issue in need of a little tweak; this willful disregard of their agreement with Yahweh will result in experiencing all the curses that Moses warned them about in Deuteronomy 28. Disaster is coming—a disaster so humiliating that Yahweh has Jeremiah play it out through a prophetic sign act. Judah will become so corrupted and useless that it will be like a piece of clothing left to decay in the dirt. This ruinous fate, Jeremiah says, is conditional and not guaranteed. They can still change course, and choosing to change course will lead to goodness, not corruption. Jeremiah pleads with them to repent of their foolish and faithless idolatry before it is too late. Will they listen?
June 11th
The story of the Bible begins under two trees in Eden’s unique garden. The tree of life offers humanity an opportunity to trust God’s definition of good and bad. This trust would lead to Yahweh’s generous gift of ongoing life. The tree of the knowledge of good and bad offers human beings the choice to define good and evil on their own terms. When we choose our own definition of good and bad over God’s, we reject God’s gift of life. The Satan, a deceiver, tells the humans this won’t be a problem. However, God guarantees that rejecting his life leads to one outcome—”dying, you will surely die” (Gen. 2:17). When humans eat from the tree of knowing good and bad, God exiles them from Eden. As you’ll learn in today’s video, trees, along with other woody plants described by the Hebrew word ‘ets, continue to represent Eden-like places outside the garden. Trees represent places of blessing, abundance, and intimacy with God. So when the authors write about the Israelites’ “affairs” with idols under the land’s trees, they’re creating a hyperlink to the Earth’s original trees in Eden. Israel’s behavior is like an extra-strong slap in the face for Yahweh. His people are cheating on him, doing what’s right in their own eyes, and therefore, dying. They do this in the very places they’re supposed to be doing what’s right in God’s eyes and living. Every time the Israelites build an altar to Ba’al under a cedar’s branches or carve an Asherah pole from the gnarled trunk of an olive tree, they repeat humanity’s first failure in the first garden. They snub Yahweh’s gracious offer to receive true life. Instead, they attempt to take life from a tree that surely leads to death. Like Adam and Eve, who did not have the power to survive in themselves, the Israelites are now powerless to stop the waves of violence, drought, famine, and disease that will soon wash out the Southern Kingdom, leaving desolation in its wake. Yahweh does not stop Adam and Eve from making the poor choice. He allows them to experience the natural results. Similarly, Yahweh allows Israel to continue chasing other gods. He allows the natural consequences to unfold. They’re going to lose their life in the promised land and end up in Babylonian chains.
June 12th
Humanity’s history began when Yahweh formed the first adam, that is, “human,” from the adamah—the dust or dirt or clay of the ground. In today’s reading, Yahweh returns Jeremiah to this moment by taking him on a field trip to a potter’s house. The potter’s goal is to shape his clay into a useful vessel. When his first pot twists into a useless wreck on the wheel, he presses the clay back into a rough lump and keeps trying. When the clay dries in a malformed state, the potter smashes the distorted pot and starts over. So it will be with the people of Israel, Yahweh explains. Like he first molded humanity from “clay,” God forms Israel between his palms. He wants to sculpt them into a glorious jar, one he can use to generously pour out his blessing on the world. But now, idolatry and injustice have deformed the Southern Kingdom beyond hope of repair. As a prophetic sign of Judah’s fate, Yahweh tells Jeremiah to buy a clay jar from the potter and smash it to pieces in front of Jerusalem’s priests and elders. This unpopular message gets Jeremiah arrested, beaten, and thrown into a cage meant for livestock. It’s only the latest setback in his spectacularly unsuccessful ministry. Jeremiah wrestles with confusion and frustration in his prayers. Despite his bruises, Jeremiah continues to speak up for justice in Jerusalem. Watch today’s video to learn about the radical justice God requires of his people.
June 13th
As Abraham’s family multiplies into a great nation, Yahweh appoints leaders—prophets, priests, and kings—to guide and protect his people like shepherds caring for sheep. But these shepherds of Israel, prophets included, are failing to tend their flocks. Rather than protecting and nourishing the people with God’s instruction, they are abusing and consuming the people for their own gain. Yahweh’s prophets are supposed to be something like covenant lawyers, holding the Israelites accountable to Yahweh’s instruction or law (Hebrew: torah) and reminding them of their agreement to obey it. As you’ll learn in today’s video, God gave instruction to lead people into life and flourishing. But Israel’s corrupt prophets misuse Yahweh’s name to lead the Israelites down the deadly path of idolatry and injustice. Judah’s ruling officials, meanwhile, have become rotten like a basket of putrid figs. So Yahweh promises to raise up a good shepherd for his people, a new king from David’s line who will gather his people and lead them into freedom along a new exodus way. His righteous staff, meaning his strong leadership that promotes right relating with each other and with God, is what will keep the people thriving in their garden land. As for the false shepherds of Israel? They now have a furious lion at their throats. Yahweh roars disaster from his throne, sending his thunderous judgment from Babylon. Jeremiah envisions the Babylonian army as Yahweh’s cup of just anger. It’s the loving kind of anger parents feel when their children are being deceived and harmed. It may be loud and intense, but its aim is kind, intending to nourish good life and protect from harm. Judah and all the nations will experience this divine, loving anger until they finally bend their knees and accept reality—Yahweh alone is the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to goodness and safety by doing what’s right in their own eyes or by trusting material things. The shepherds have led their flock astray. Now both shepherds and sheep stagger under Yahweh’s fierce judgment.