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Can we, in this time, claim the promise given in the verse?
StrongNChrist 1991-2011 Use the chatroom! It's been active for a year, and most of you are missing it.
"Every time I start banging rocks together to make a beat, I feel all guilty and I need to repent for my sinful ways. " - Jelly
"I actually want to see this happen... the controversy would be legendary. " - American Eagle
":hilarious: This ladies and gentlemen is the founding of: 'The Awkward Club!'" - Steve
"Happy birthday, big Mercy! " - Whitty Whit
I wasn't yelling. I was talking with vehemence.
No we can't claim this promise because the letter is addressed to those who were carried away captive, to the priests, the prophets, and all the people that Nebuchadnezzar carried away captive from Jerusalem to Babylon. This letter is not addressed to us in the present time or anytime but that time and to those specific people.
Well technically all the prophets were addressed to a certain people at a certain time...the whole Bible for that matter. Yet perhaps it wouldn't be a stretch to say that every word in there applies to believers in Christ to some extent?
DanP740 wrote:Can we, in this time, claim the promise given in the verse?
The 'promise' is that God knows the plans he has for us...and by inference, we don't.
His plans are for our welfare, not on this earth at this time, obviously, but in the long scheme of things.
I wouldn't call it so much a promise as a statement, which is how people should view it. Not a "I promise I'll work it all out for you," but a "I'm working everything out, even if it doesn't seem that way."
I think we as the Church can claim this for ourselves, being the New Testament fulfillment of the Old Testament shadow of the nation of Israel. But we can't use it for unbelievers, as has become very popular in evangelism today.
This verse fits with Romans 8:28, so even though it was addressed to Israel originally, it can still be applied to us today, because other portions of Scripture say the same thing. While things may not go very swimmingly for us in this life, God has prepared an eternal home in heaven for us. He plans to prosper us, not harm us in any way. And He plans to give us hope and a future.
I think it would be a stretch to say every word in the Old Testament applies to us today. As Christian said Romans 8 has a similar message that is written to believers so why does this message to a specific people in a specific situation also apply to us? I mean if you want to apply ever word of the Old Testament to us then are we applying all the parts of this letter? "This is what the Lord Almighty says: “I will send the sword, famine and plague against them and I will make them like figs that are so bad they cannot be eaten. I will pursue them with the sword, famine and plague and will make them abhorrent to all the kingdoms of the earth, a curse and an object of horror, of scorn and reproach, among all the nations where I drive them. For they have not listened to my words." Are we to understand this promise still applies to non-Christians?
@Christian I'm not sure what you mean when you say this verse can't be used for unbelievers. Could you maybe clarify what you mean by that?
John Chrysostom wrote:I think it would be a stretch to say every word in the Old Testament applies to us today. As Christian said Romans 8 has a similar message that is written to believers so why does this message to a specific people in a specific situation also apply to us? I mean if you want to apply ever word of the Old Testament to us then are we applying all the parts of this letter? "This is what the Lord Almighty says: “I will send the sword, famine and plague against them and I will make them like figs that are so bad they cannot be eaten. I will pursue them with the sword, famine and plague and will make them abhorrent to all the kingdoms of the earth, a curse and an object of horror, of scorn and reproach, among all the nations where I drive them. For they have not listened to my words." Are we to understand this promise still applies to non-Christians?
It applies to us to some extent. Meaning we can learn something from it.
I totally agree we can learn something from every word of Scripture, however the question posed at the beginning of this thread was whether we can claim the promise made in Jeremiah. And my answer was no, that specific promise was made to the captives in Babylon.
John Chrysostom wrote:I totally agree we can learn something from every word of Scripture, however the question posed at the beginning of this thread was whether we can claim the promise made in Jeremiah. And my answer was no, that specific promise was made to the captives in Babylon.
And I would say again that it's not a promise but a statement, and it holds true for God's people throughout history.
I believe that this verse applies to everyone. He wants welfare for everyone, not evil. He wants to give us a future and a hope. Like ric mentioned, He knows the plans that He has for us, and we don't. Therefore, every person must individually be willing to yield our life to God. We must be willing to die to self, and yield to the perfect plan that God has for us. He simply cannot work His perfect plan in our lives if we are trying to be the "master" of our own body.
In this case, we see that in Romans 8:28 God promises to work all things "for those who love God."
Now I must admit to you all that I'm really not the best at discussing these sort of things, but it does interest me. In Romans 8:28 it says that "for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose." It goes on to say in verse 29, "For those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers." So, God wants good for all, but somehow He already knows who will and won't follow Him... er, something like that. I'm going to make myself go in circles. (I don't think that anyone understands that in full.)
As far as promise or statement, I believe it as a promise for all those who believe and are saved through Jesus Christ.
"For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope." (NKJV)
We do have a future and hope through Christ. While we may not have literal peace around us, we do have supernatural peace because Christ lives in us.
Last edited by Sunshine on Wed May 08, 2013 11:10 am, edited 1 time in total.
John Chrysostom wrote:@Christian I'm not sure what you mean when you say this verse can't be used for unbelievers. Could you maybe clarify what you mean by that?
Well, what I meant by that was, we can't just go up to anybody on the street and say, "God has a wonderful plan for your life!" as is so popular in modern evangelism. The fact is, if an unbeliever hears that God has wonderful plans for them, they think, "Oh, cool! So God wants to make my life awesome? I've been having a hard time doing that myself, so I'll just try God out for size and see what He can do for me." Obviously, that's not what they should be coming to God for. We come to God for forgiveness of sins, not life-improvement or materialistic gain.
That's why, technically, this promise is only supposed to be directed toward the believer. Because it's not even talking about this life; it's talking about eternal life. God has a plan to prosper us after death. And really, Christians can't hope for a great life this side of heaven. Being a Christian usually means a harder life, due to persecution and suffering. So it's really not a promise that should be willy-nilly spouted off to unbelievers.
Why are we so fond of taking verses out of context in the name of inspiration?
10 This is what the Lord says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place. 11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12 Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.”
This is very, very specific, for a specific time and a specific place and a specific people. Even if you want to take out the time/space restrictions and choose to believe that it's 'timeless', you're still contending with the fact that it was written for the Jewish people. And if you decide to ignore that... well, you're so far out of context that the verse no longer means anything close to what it was intended to mean, and you might as well not pretend it's Scripture anymore.
But hey, I agree with ric, and I think any part of scripture can still inspire revelation and truth, but only if you're properly informed of the context. Though, why we choose to focus so heavily on this one random verse from Jeremiah is beyond me... there lots of other cool verses to take out of context.
Last edited by jelly on Wed May 08, 2013 8:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Fallacy of false continuum. // bookworm Any cupcake can be made holy through being baptized in the name of the Butter, the Vanilla and the Powdered Sugar. // Kait
So the reason I started this topic was because this verse was the subject of a question by someone who called into the Stand To Reason radio show, and so I decided what you guys thought. I'm only bringing this up now because of what Jelly just said. The host of the show, Greg Koukl, says many times "Never read a Bible verse," meaning always read the context, and many questions of "does this verse really mean that?" can be cleared up by reading the context. And a lot of verses get taken out of context.
StrongNChrist 1991-2011 Use the chatroom! It's been active for a year, and most of you are missing it.
"Every time I start banging rocks together to make a beat, I feel all guilty and I need to repent for my sinful ways. " - Jelly
"I actually want to see this happen... the controversy would be legendary. " - American Eagle
":hilarious: This ladies and gentlemen is the founding of: 'The Awkward Club!'" - Steve
"Happy birthday, big Mercy! " - Whitty Whit
I wasn't yelling. I was talking with vehemence.
While it's true we mustn't claim a promise that was not made to us, I believe we can claim the very character of God, which we can see behind the promise. In other words, God didn't just make a promise on a whim; He made it because of who he is
. If we look at the dealings of God with people through the ages, I think we can see the same patterns in the promises that do apply to us, despite the particulars being different.
I am one of the biggest proponents of keeping verses in context, but I actually disagree with all the dismissal of this verse. I think it’s a bad example. Because while it’s true that particular exact promise was not made to us and technically we couldn’t hold to it in that regard, the message of it still does apply to us because the specifics aren’t as important as the message. God wants good things for us. All of us.
So, why bother quoting Jeremiah to begin with, if that verse in Romans essentially gives you what you want?
I wouldn't deny that the promise in that verse is true, even taken out of context, but I really dislike bad theology, and taking a verse out of context even if it's justified in your mind is bad theology. Like Dan said, it would be far better for us to simply stop reading verses on their own, and instead devote more time to studying the words of Scripture as a whole.
Fallacy of false continuum. // bookworm Any cupcake can be made holy through being baptized in the name of the Butter, the Vanilla and the Powdered Sugar. // Kait
I agree with Jelly. There's really no need to use that verse out of context, when Romans 8:28 says the same thing. I mean, if you're preaching through Romans 8, and you get to Verse 28, and you'd like to have a cross-reference, fine, mention Jeremiah 29:11, but other than that, there's really no reason to use it, other than to re-phrase the same promise given in Romans.
Did I ever say to take the verse out of context? I could have sworn I said I am against doing that. I did not say ‘The meaning is true, go pull the verse out and use it!’ I said ‘That promise was not made to us, but a similar one was.’
I’m not saying if the message holds true then it’s fine, all I said was that the message does hold true. My post was in response to people who seemed to be saying ‘We can't say God wants the best for us because that verse wasn't said to us.’
Edit:
In other words (so my angle doesn’t get misunderstood again like it did in the Nazi assignment thread) I am not saying because this verse is similar to another one take it out of context and apply them both. Absolutely not. Use the one that doesn’t need taken out of context; of course!
But what I got from this thread was people saying ‘No, we can’t apply that verse to us because it wasn’t written to us.’ which is a completely different thing. That’s not ‘Don’t take verses out of context when there are ones in context that can be used.’ That’s ‘No, we can’t say God wants good for us because He wasn’t writing that line to us.’
Last edited by bookworm on Fri May 10, 2013 2:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
To clarify my own position I wasn't saying God didn't want good for us just that the verse didn't apply for us anymore than the verses later in Jeremiah about sending sword, famine and plague against others applies to us today. The verse in Romans is given to us in the proper context and says to us today that God wants good for us not the verse in Jeremiah, we can look at the Jeremiah verse and look at the history of God's promises but why stretch the context to include us when it doesn't?
John Chrysostom wrote:but why stretch the context to include us when it doesn't?
Again, I'm not saying we should. I was only making sure that you, and the others echoing you, meant what you said in the previous post because your rejection of the verse was broad enough to be ambiguous.
" - American Eagle
In Romans 8:28 it says that "for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose." It goes on to say in verse 29, "For those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers." So, God wants good for all, but somehow He already knows who will and won't follow Him... er, something like that. I'm going to make myself go in circles. (I don't think that anyone understands that in full.)
