Seven good things to know about the book of Jeremiah

This past Sunday we launched a new Series called "Shake Down", a study of the prophet Jeremiah. Beginning a study through a massive Old Testament book like Jeremiah takes an understanding of the history surrounding it, otherwise it makes about as much sense as a pop tart without frosting. Jeremiah being complicated and our podcast didn't record last Sunday night, I wanted to provide a resource for those who missed last Sunday or may jump into Jeremiah as the year goes on.

7 good things to know in order to makes sense of the book of Jeremiah.

1. Jeremiah is the second largest book in the Bible (behind Psalms) by words. The book of Jeremiah is 21,835 Hebrew words of messages, prophecies, poetry and narrative of his life. The book of Isaiah has more chapters but Jeremiah is significantly larger. Jeremiah is known as the weeping prophet and apparently the long-winded prophet as well.

2. We know very little about the birth, childhood or death of Jeremiah. All we known about the prophet Jeremiah is what is written in his book covering the 40 years of faithful service to God, to the people of Judah. The first verses of Jeremiah tell us he grew up in Anathoth about 3 miles from Jerusalem and his dad was a local priest. Based on dates and the Old Testament story we can guess that Jeremiah was born in 642, called as a prophet by God in 627/626 (he was 16 years old), the last of his recorded public ministry was 586 with his obscure death in Egypt after that.

3. Jeremiah's main theme is covenantal (promise). The Hebrew people are God's people and therefore were to live as God's people. Over and over God, through Jeremiah will remind his people and those in authority over them of the covenant he made with their forefathers. This is also one of the reasons we should take seriously the words of Jeremiah for our own life. God condemns the covenant breaking sins of his people specifically in idolatry, self-dependence, and broken human relationships. Can we relate here? Loving and giving worth to idols, depending on our own strength/talent or on someone else's.

4. Like every word on the pages of the Bible, Jeremiah is God's words to a nation ultimately God revelation of himself to those people and to us. The story of Jeremiah tells us about God through the life of Jeremiah. Jeremiah as a man, prophet, servant of God and help us understand and know God's desires, nature and purpose.

5. In the government of God there are three main roles; king, prophet, priest. The king was to be the authority of God over the people. Lead them where God would lead. Establish the kingdom of God on earth over the chosen people by God. The king was to bring the justice of God to his nation and consequently to all the nations. The priest was to bring the people before God. The priest would administer sacrifices, atonement, pronouncements of clean and unclean, rituals and rights for the people. Without the priests the people could not approach God, have their sins forgiven and be considered clean and consecrated. The prophet was to be God for the people and for the kings. No single position has all authority. These three roles were representatives of God, not self given authority. The king was to lead where the scriptures dictate and God leads, the priests were to administer grace and the prophet was to be the confirming word of God. However, the pride of the human heart would often cause kings to be self motivated, priests to be position seekers and prophets to be marginalized. Jeremiah was a prophet, he was called and commissioned by God to be a voice to the authorities, people and greedy priests. Unfortunately, like the prophets gone before him, he was ignored at best and severely mistreated at worst.

6. Knowing the kings of Judah during Jeremiah's ministry is essential to understanding the book. First to know is the nation of Israel is in a divided state. After King Solomon died the nation of Israel divided into a northern kingdom (Israel) and southern kingdom (Judah). This was motivated mainly by strong family ties and selfishness. So the unified covenant people of God, were no longer unified and in many ways became like estranged brothers and sometimes enemies. The book of 1st and 2nd Kings is the history of the kings of both Israel and Judah. Jeremiah is a prophet to the kings of the southern kingdom (which contains Jerusalem).

The Kings of Jeremiah

King Josiah became King at age 8 in 640 BC. The mark of his ministry was leading national spiritual reformation in his 18th year as King, ultimately ending a vassal situation with the Assyrians. He was killed in battle against the Egyptians in 609BC.

The people installed Jehoahaz, Josiah's son to be the next king. Three months into his rule he was "recalled" by the Assyrians who then installed Jehoiakim, thinking Jehoiakim (also King Josiah's son) would be more useful for Assyrians.

Jehoiakim reigned for 11 years (598AD) along the way becoming a tool for Babylon. King Nebuchadnezzar the new ruler of the Babylonian empire appreciated the taxes from Judah and the puppet King Jehoaikim. Jehoaikim suddenly brave, revolted against King Nebuchadnezzar, causing the Babylonian army to come knocking. While the army was at the gates of Jersualem, the scriptures tells us King Jehoiakim died. Convenient. Jehoachin yet another son of Josiah had a short reign of 3 months after which King Nebuchadnezzar replaced him with Zedekiah. Zedekiah revolted as well leaving the Babylonians no other choice but to destroy Jerusalem and assume all the Hebrew people into Babylonian culture.

7. How to approach this book? First, we should approach Jeremiah as if it was mirror. The culture, the people, the message, the story, the rebellion, etc. all reflect our culture, our selves, our rebellion and the message we should be told, especially how it relates to Jesus. As we work through we should ask questions of ourselves.

God told Jeremiah early on his message would fall to deaf and dumb ears. However, God still sent Jeremiah (at a huge expense to him personally) to lead the people back to the covenant. Jeremiah's first 25 chapters is judgement. I'm not going to lie it's rough and depressing. The bottom line is God knew his people wouldn't listen but he sent Jeremiah anyway. God still offered grace to the people in spite of intentional rebellion. Jeremiah is grace. The message of judgement is grace. The book is God's grace and every page gets us to Jesus who is our grace.