Day 224 (Jeremiah 18-22) - Year 4
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Hey, Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for The Bible Recap. Today, God sends Jeremiah on a little field trip. He has him stop in where a potter is making jars. As the potter is shaping one of them, things get a little wonky with it, and he reshapes it into something new. Same lump of clay, different outcome. Then God tells Jeremiah, here's the message I want you to take away from this. I'm the potter. The people are clay. I can do whatever I want with them.

Let Jerusalem know that because of their evil, my plan for them involves disaster. Then call them to repent. But just a reminder, before you do all this, they are not going to repent. They're going to keep doing whatever they want, making their own plans and following their own hearts. They've forgotten me. I can almost hear the heartache in God's voice when he says the last part. My people have forgotten me.

What's also interesting about this metaphor is how obviously engaged the potter is with the clay. This isn't a computerized assembly line. This is hands-on creative work. It's fitting because according to Genesis 2-7, God formed man out of the dust of the earth, then breathed life into him.

God has always been uniquely involved with humanity in ways that are different from everything else he made. We're made with his hands, not his commands. We're made in his likeness, unlike his other creations. We are indeed the clay to his potter. And in fact, this is a common biblical metaphor. We saw it three times in the book of Isaiah alone. And the common theme is that the clay doesn't get to argue with the potter. Isaiah 45.9 puts it this way.

After this, the people start to plot against Jeremiah again, and he's finally had enough. He's been so compassionate toward the people up to this point, pleading their case even when God told him to be quiet. But he's reached his breaking point.

One of the things that makes Jeremiah so relatable to me in this moment is that it takes things getting personal for him before he can understand God's point of view. He doesn't get on board with God's plan of destruction based on the people's opposition to God until they oppose him. He's an imperfect prophet, as they all are. He prays and asks God to deliver them up to the things God said awaited them back in chapter 14. Famine, sword, and pestilence.

In chapter 19, God sends him to perform a bit of theater in front of the people in order to present a message. God wants him to buy a clay flask and smash it in front of the elders and the priests. Then tell them that it's symbolic of how God is going to break this people in a way that they can't be mended. We've encountered some ideas here that have the potential to be confusing, so I want to try to clarify in case they aren't obvious.

God has called Israel and Judah his people. But scripture has also shown us repeatedly that God's people are made up of people from among every nation. Anyone whose heart turns to follow Yahweh, including foreigners like Rahab and Ruth.

And as far as natural-born Israelites, God has said that being born into the lineage of Abraham doesn't mean they're his children, because his family is comprised of people with new hearts, not just circumcised flesh. So technically at this point, God's people, whom he calls Israel, includes some people who aren't genetically Israelites and also doesn't include some people who genetically are. It all comes down to their hearts. Here's a modern parallel in case it's helpful.

We probably all know people who go to church either routinely or regularly, but who don't love God. They're in the church, but they're not in the kingdom. Or as I've heard it described, they're in the church visible, but not the church invisible. Jesus even addressed this directly in John 8 and generally in Matthew 7. So what we're starting to see here, especially through God's words in this book, is that some people who are called his people aren't really his people at all. They don't love him or obey him.

It seems that his plan is to preserve the ones among Judah who do love him, the remnant, and judge those who don't. And truly, only God knows people's hearts. So God can be trusted to make this kind of delineation among the people of Judah when his judgment comes to them via Babylon. After Jeremiah destroys the flask, one of the wicked priests beats him and puts him in stocks overnight.

Can you imagine how Jeremiah felt when this was happening? He's being obedient to God and he's getting tortured for it. The next day when the priest releases him, Jeremiah laments to God again. He says, "'Oh Lord, you have deceived me.'"

This is just another example of why we can't take scripture out of context. We know God didn't deceive Jeremiah. Jeremiah is devastated by how things are going, but God has told him all along that this would not be easy and people would reject his message. As much as Jeremiah hates his calling, he feels a fire in his bones and can't keep his mouth shut. He's lost his reputation and his friends, but God is with him.

He hates his life, but he persists in God's calling. He's not the first to feel this way. This reminds me of Job and Moses and Elijah. Jeremiah wishes he'd never been born. But of course, we know God had a plan for his life because we're reading his book.

In chapter 21, King Zedekiah, who was Judah's very last king, sends messengers to Jeremiah to ask him if they're going to be spared when Babylon's King Nebuchadnezzar invades. Just so you have an idea of where we're at in the timeline, the Babylonian captivity happens in 586 BC, so most commentators place this conversation one to two years earlier, around 587 or 588 BC, after Babylon had already started invading.

Jeremiah tells them, not only will God not stop Babylon, but he himself will fight against Jerusalem. Ouch. And God says the only way to survive is to surrender. Then in chapter 22, God sends Jeremiah with a follow-up message for King Zedekiah. Stop oppressing the poor and the orphans and the widows. Do justice and righteousness. That's your job. If you do this, I'll let your kingdom survive. But if not, that will be the end of this kingdom.

Then God recounts some of the sins of the final kings of Judah. They were wicked leaders, murdering and oppressing the weak. They've done nothing to prompt God to extend their kingdom. They've all disobeyed his rules. And this final chapter is where my God shot came from today. Verse 3 says,

Then verses 15 through 16 echo these ideas and end with a bold statement. They say, Did not your father eat and drink and do justice and righteousness? Then it was well with him. He judged the cause of the poor and the needy. Then it was well. Is not this to know me, declares the Lord? God says to know him is to do what he says. Jesus reiterates this in John 14. Our deepest intimacy with God is found in obedience.

Obeying God is where the joy is because obeying God is where we connect with God on the deepest level and we know for sure that he's where the joy is.

It's weekly check-in time, Bible readers. Major prophets can be challenging. It can feel redundant at times. But remember, we're not just in this for entertainment or an awesome plot line. We're in this to look for God's personality. I bet you've seen some things that surprised you or encouraged you so far. Keep leaning in. We'll keep seeing more of him every day. He's on every page.

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