Information technology has go increasingly popular in recent years for teachers of the Bible (myself included) to disparage people who apply Jeremiah 29:11-13 to their lives. "You lot're not paying attention to the context!," they loudly protest ( … as I accept). This mail volition explore whether such disparagement is appropriate, and conclude that ofttimes information technology is not. I promise to model something about how to interpret the Bible at the same fourth dimension.

Jeremiah 29:11-xiii are favorite verses for many people:

For I know the plans I take for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and non for evil, to give you lot a time to come and a hope. And then you volition telephone call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me when you lot seek me with all your heart (Jeremiah 29:11-13 ESV).

People honey these verses because they find encouragement in the thought that God has good intentions for them even in the midst of suffering. They are heartened when they read that God hears their prayers. They are strengthened with the thought that when they seek the Lord with all their heart they will detect the Lord.

But teachers of the Bible sometimes point out that the immediate literary context pertains to God's promise to bring back the people of Israel from Babylon afterward lxx years in exile (Jeremiah 29:10). Thus, these verses apply only to the exiled Israelites living in the sixth century B.C. — not to us, or so it is claimed. "Pay attention to the context!" is the reminder they offer, and, truthfully, a reminder that all of us demand to hear.

But I think that there is a bit more to consider in biblical estimation. The dissenters are correct that the literary context (the verses surrounding these verses) connects the reader to a detail historical context, that is, return from the Babylonian exile. Information technology can exist terribly frustrating (maddening, actually) to heed to people interpret the Bible who glibly ignore literary and historical contexts. But are those two contexts (the literary and historical contexts) the just ii contexts you need to pay attention to when reading Scripture?

No, at that place is some other context that is crucial if you want to read the Bible well. That context is the canonical context, or, labeled differently, the whole-Bible context. The whole-Bible context is the context yous work with to identify patterns and themes that run through (y'all guessed it…) the whole Bible and pay attention to whether such themes are also present in the verses you are trying to interpret. If whole-Bible themes run through the verses to which you lot are attention, then it is proper — even necessary — to call out such patterns and themes — not equally the main meaning of the verses, but every bit a proper broadening of the pregnant that connects specific verses to the overall narrative and teaching of the whole Bible.

Are in that location such whole-Bible patterns and themes that appear in these verses from Jeremiah 29? Yes. At that place are at least four.

  1. God makes promises that are good, and intends to fulfill them (verse 11) (compare 1 Kings 8:56; Psalm 105:8-10; Jeremiah 32:42; Luke 24:49; Rom xi:29).
  2. God listens to his people when they pray (poesy 12) (compare 2 Chronicles vii:12-sixteen; Psalm 34:15; Matthew seven:xi; James 5:fourteen-18).
  3. God allows his people to find him when they seek him (verse xiii) (compare Deuteronomy 4:29-31; 1 Chronicles 16:11-17; Isaiah 51:i-3; 55:6; Matthew seven:7).
  4. God repeatedly rescues his people out of exile (verse fourteen) (compare Exodus 2:23; Psalm 144:11; Ezekiel 34:10-22; Colossians one:13; 1 Peter 1:one).

Any fourth dimension we fail to pay attention to the literary and historical contexts of Jeremiah 29:11-13, we deserve the wrist-slap we've been getting from teachers who complain that we take been misinterpreting these verses. Nevertheless, it turns out that the main ideas found in these verses are consequent with the approved (whole-Bible) context. Consequently, these verses do communicate words of encouragement that God's people can draw upon for encouragement in their daily lives, not because the verses offer such encouragement straight, but because they practise and so in conversation with patterns and themes that form their way throughout the whole Bible.[1]

Notes

[1] Now, if people take this passage to mean that they individually volition prosper (say, materially or vocationally), then that is a dissimilar kind of error altogether. I have left that consequence out of today'due south post to make the signal about the need to pay attending to the broader approved context of the Bible.

This mail service and other resources are bachelor at Kindle Afresh: The Blog and Website of Kenneth Berding.