Information technology has get increasingly popular in recent years for teachers of the Bible (myself included) to disparage people who utilize Jeremiah 29:11-13 to their lives. "You're not paying attention to the context!," they loudly protestation ( … as I have). This post will explore whether such disparagement is appropriate, and conclude that often it is non. I hope to model something about how to interpret the Bible at the same time.

Jeremiah 29:11-13 are favorite verses for many people:

For I know the plans I take for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a futurity and a hope. And so you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your centre (Jeremiah 29:11-13 ESV).

People love these verses considering 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 find 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 later seventy years in exile (Jeremiah 29:x). Thus, these verses apply only to the exiled Israelites living in the 6th century B.C. — not to usa, or so it is claimed. "Pay attention to the context!" is the reminder they offer, and, truthfully, a reminder that all of usa need to hear.

But I think that at that place is a bit more to consider in biblical interpretation. The dissenters are correct that the literary context (the verses surrounding these verses) connects the reader to a particular historical context, that is, return from the Babylonian exile. Information technology tin be terribly frustrating (maddening, actually) to listen to people interpret the Bible who glibly ignore literary and historical contexts. Just are those two contexts (the literary and historical contexts) the merely ii contexts you need to pay attention to when reading Scripture?

No, there 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 you work with to identify patterns and themes that run through (y'all guessed it…) the whole Bible and pay attending to whether such themes are also present in the verses yous are trying to interpret. If whole-Bible themes run through the verses to which you lot are attending, then information technology is proper — even necessary — to call out such patterns and themes — non equally the main meaning of the verses, just as a proper broadening of the meaning that connects specific verses to the overall narrative and education of the whole Bible.

Are there such whole-Bible patterns and themes that announced 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 11:29).
  2. God listens to his people when they pray (verse 12) (compare 2 Chronicles 7:12-16; Psalm 34:15; Matthew 7:xi; James five:14-18).
  3. God allows his people to discover him when they seek him (verse xiii) (compare Deuteronomy iv:29-31; one Chronicles sixteen:11-17; Isaiah 51:1-iii; 55:six; Matthew 7:7).
  4. God repeatedly rescues his people out of exile (verse fourteen) (compare Exodus 2:23; Psalm 144:xi; Ezekiel 34:x-22; Colossians i:xiii; 1 Peter 1:i).

Whatever time 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 have been misinterpreting these verses. Nevertheless, it turns out that the main ideas found in these verses are consistent with the approved (whole-Bible) context. Consequently, these verses practice communicate words of encouragement that God'southward people tin can draw upon for encouragement in their daily lives, non because the verses offer such encouragement directly, just because they do then in chat with patterns and themes that grade their style throughout the whole Bible.[1]

Notes

[1] Now, if people accept this passage to mean that they individually will prosper (say, materially or vocationally), and so that is a unlike kind of mistake altogether. I accept left that issue out of today's mail service to make the bespeak about the need to pay attention to the broader canonical context of the Bible.

This mail and other resources are available at Kindle Anew: The Blog and Website of Kenneth Berding.