Today’s passage: Jeremiah 37:1-21
Helpful thoughts:
- The leadership and the people did not want to obey God, but they wanted God to obey them. What was worse, when the Chaldeans/Babylonians left Jerusalem (Temporarily), they probably thought what they were doing had “worked.”
- The double-mindedness of the people is on display in wanting Jeremiah to be imprisoned (Even if on false charges) and yet to be available to communicate the word of the Lord to them.
- God is not manipulated.
Questions to consider:
- What is the major problem on display when verse 2 and verse 3 are compared? What wouldn’t the king, the king’s servants and the people of Judah do? What did they want God to do? How does that happen? How might that happen in our own lives today?
- When what we want the most is relief from pressure, what all will we do to achieve it? What all will we decide is “good” if the only qualifier is whether it relieved the pressure? How do we compare that with Romans 8:28-29? Is pressure always “bad?”
- What had brought the pressure on Judah in the first place? What did they actually need to do? Why is verse 2 so important in understand the downward spiral of Judah? If there is a downward spiral in your own life, or the life of someone you love, is the main problem a pressure coming from the outside? What might we need to do that would allow us to have hope even in the midst of pressure?