Session #8 NDC Worshiping Series (Background Material) "Promises—'Getting... and God Said,' Right"

Teaching Backrgound for Pages on:      "Promises"

sub-title:  "Getting '..and God Said'  Right"

theme:       The Communal & Personal in Correctly Applying Biblical Truth 

Text: Jeremiah 29, Background Material from Lesson #8, 

            The reformation of a People of The Promise

         Jeremiah 30, The Prommise of Restoration

For: Worshiping Series #8 of Next Door Church (NDC), Prime Time Background Material for Lesson #8

Back Story to Explore:   "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." 

My pastor,  Rev. Paul Johnson, noted that Jeremiah 29: 11 is the second most popular Bible verse search on google.  He added an appropriate caution that we as a community (especially) and even as individuals should be careful to understand the original Biblical context and message of this promise. There is such hope inside these words for Israel and for us. But we will not hear its true depth or assurance until we first hear it through the eyes, ears, memory and intuition of the very people whom God 1st spoke. Otherwise, we may receive a Word, perhaps from God, but it will be a mystical assurance that does not give us any direction with meaning or worse an assurance that leads us in a direction God does not intend.

Focus: On the Personal Application of Revelation hidden within the Communal Experience of the Church; Illuminated as The Spirit re-interprets The Word's unfolding mysery into Our Personal Life Experience.  We shall explore:

• When a little 'Revivalist Fun' goes Wrong, and;
• Our need to 'hear God's voice, to see God's face', and;
• The nature of revelation itself or 'how we got what we got', and;
• The Prophetic and Emergent Spiritual Revelation, and;
• The Communal Nature of Revelation and the limits to Inter-personal, Personal Application, and;
• The Secret of Jeremiah's Prophecy hidden in plain sight, and;
• The validity of Divine, contemporary, even personal inspiration and re-interpretation or re-application when surrendered to the larger Jesus Narrative.

Note: You may use part or all of these teachings as you wish. 

This Weeks Devotional (Visual): "Promises"

sub-title:   "Getting '..and God Said'  Right" 

forcus:  The Communal & Personal in Correctly Applying Biblical Truth 

                                                  link:  "Promises"

Lesson #8 "Promises" 

(Back Story in the Events of Jeremiah 29)

Prime Time: Exploring when God's spoken Word to Israel have claim on us?

• When a bit of Revivalist Fun Goes Wrong

If memory serves we were in the middle of a very real sense of God moving among the students of our college.  It was back in the sixties, the summer air had been full of the usual tensions between students and the establishment.

The Kent State killings of its students were a distant memory. Vietnam still divided our body politic, but Vietnamization was slowly taking hold and the promise of a "honorable" resolution to America''s bloodiest war since WWII was in sight. Jesus was on the rise; even Hollywood was re-facing his

image, now dressed up in the pop musical "Jesus Christ Super Star". 

In the middle of this revival my hall mate came up with what he thought was an air-tight commitment on God's part to his financial well-being. He would follow Jesus with zeal, but the condition was that God had to keep his promise that if we asked for 'anything' in Jesus Name it was ours. He named money and was excited about the future plans of God to "prosper him". 

Revivals are communal experiences and so he joyfully testified to his upcoming move from our small college campus in southern Idaho to the prosperous future he believe was his for the taking.

I felt sad for him and for the emotional crash that would everntually follow if he held God hostage to his own Word. 1

• Our Need to 'hear God's voice, to see God's face

Our first parents walked in the garden of Promise in awe of its beauty precisely because they knew the One who created this 'paradise' and had placed them within, as part of its beauty. Grown from the same dirt, nurtured by the loving care of the gardner it was all familiar; yet somehow strange. They were part of the landscape and yet somehow beyond its mediated sensory fulfillment. They hungered for knowledge as they did the fruit that captured their sense of taste and smell.  It would be that hunger for knowing and desire's sweet reward that would one day change forever their sense of themselves, The Creator and their enviorn. 

Eve and Adam were invited by The Creator to become God's co-care givers, nurturing, naming, petting, gathering, and enlarging the potential of each plant, of every animal even as they themselves were being nurtured, named, gathered and mentored by the very Presence of The One who walked with them in the cool of the day. It was all so very personal, communal; God's voice and his kind eyes blending so perfectly with the beauty that surrounded each day's discovery.  That is, until knowing was darkened, their sense of themselves suddenly aware of separation; a growing and fearful alienation from each other, their perfect environment and The One from whom they now hid—ashamed. 

Adam knew the sound of His walk, long before he knew the curious, warm touch of Eve's hand upon him. But he'd never been afraid of His Creator as he was in this moment, too troubled to walk out into the open, 'naked'. It was all so strange, this feeling of dis-ease, this panic to run. Then came the call which brought a combination of dread and hope. Adam stopped cold, turning his head back, listening for the question his friend now asked of him. “Where are you?” (Genesis 3: 9b).

• The nature of Revelation itself or 'how we got what we got'

"God said it. I believe it. That settles it!"  We've all heard a version of this saying from within the heart of sincere Jesus followers who simply want to affirm God's Word as reliable and authoritative in all. What I like about it is its simplicity; cutting through the 'fog' of the Church's theology, trying to find a secure and ancient place beyond the reach of our questions, for the individual to stand, committed, unmovable. If only it were true. It's not ofcourse. The statement falls apart within each sentence or phrase. 

"God said it."  

What is especially unique in the Biblical Story is its human, historical, narrative describing, in one event after another, how God reveals in us, with us, around us, sometimes in spite of us, our Divine origin, purpose and promise.  This narrative is ancient, but emerges from within the experienced and interpretive memory of The People of God (Jewish and Christian). There is no Word or Tablets of gold fallen from the sky which pre-dates a human's perception and interpretation of what God says and does within this developing Story of Salvation. 

It is a truely God breathed collection of Books with an emerging narrative covering several hundreds of years, focused and shaped by God, as God's people experience, perceive, interpret, communicate and live into this narrative; A story of the earth's restoration, of God's present and future coming into the chaos of human social and personal sin and our broken, wounded, social and personal relations.  God does speak and in the multitude of particular moments with clarity, again, always received, perceived, interpreted and confessed by The Jewish and Christian Churches of God.

This Divine/human conversation begs for us to see and hear God's voice within the letters and books of The Story of God. Indeed, it is impossible to separate out God's voice from "The People of God" who are its main characters, protagonists, antagonists, and in whom all our communal and personal fears, longings, hopes and ultimate  purposes live. 

In The Book, at once human and Divine. we each and all find ourselves walking with God in the cool of the Day or perhaps the chaos of the night. It is the unfolding of salvation history that allows us to see God's face as well as the multi-layered enemies within and around us who threaten the ultimate fulfillment of The Story; to literally bring all God's children—who will—home to themselves, one another, their environment, to God.  In this purpose every hill and valley, each cliff and ocean still, is progressively worked out, until at last we all arrive home. If the late Jewish and early Christian hope is correct we will discover another Garden where shame and guilt are forever removed, the Creator having suffered us through our sin-filled wilderness to our renewed earth fully restored.

• The Prophetic and Emergent Spiritual Revelation 

If you pick up some sacred texts you will sense that within and behind it is a creative mind weaving a powerful set of stories, poetry, hymns written from within a focused time and culture. That is especially true of the Bible, with one important difference. In The Book of God it is a journey through many cultures over hundreds of years, emerging from within the Jewish communal experience with Yahweh; Over 1,000 (Jewish) to 1,500 (Jewish + Christian) years. 

This book is a narrative of God's coming into the human community to redeem, reconcile and restore all the peoples of the earth through the communal experience of God within the Jewish and Christian traditions. Rich in diverse experience and emphasizing the exilic alienation of the People of God, we witness in Israel and later the Church a sacrificial and communal pursuit of love and justice, mercy and holiness. Each of these form  interweaving threads that bind us to our Communal God and one another.

The primary hope, however, is not in the maturity or faithfulness of the People whom God calls. Quite the opposite. What emerges is the deep genuine love of a Communal Creator who, when faced with betrayal, responds in passionate redemptive anger, humor, patience, longing—all  enveloped in profound love, willing to sacrifice God's own Son to bring God's chosen to restorative health. History is the working out of God's invitation revealed in the wounded, broken lives of God's chosen people. Since, we are all wounded and broken peoples, we are all invited into this incredible Divine-human inter-active Story. (Romans 11: 32) It is therefore The Narrative that reveals God's heart, God's face. The sayings, wisdom and liturgical literature moves the Narrative ever closer to the day when all things are restored in a renewed heaven and earth. 

Apart from God's Presence before, within and after each event nothing of value would happen.  It is equally true that God's salvational Presence can only be revealed inside a relational, commual salvation.  While such salvation is never less than deeply personal, it is effectual in and through community. That is the mystery of the Jewish/Christian tradition. Hence The Book is the Story of originating events, prescient with God, as remembered and interpreted (often reinterpreted) by the People of God in new and evolving cultural contexts. 

Example: "The 1st Christmas," 2  Isaiah 7: 1-17

Context: OriginalEvent

"When Ahaz son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, was king of Judah, King Rezin of Aram and Pekah son of Remaliah king of Israel marched up to fight against Jerusalem, but they could not overpower it. Now the house of David was told, “Aram has allied itself with Ephraim”; so the hearts of Ahaz and his people were shaken, as the trees of the forest are shaken by the wind" (Isaiah 7: 1-2).

• Judah (King Ahaz) is being threatened by Israel (Samaria) and Aram (Damascus) with war.
• God reaches out to Judah's new King, Ahaz with a Prophetic Promise of Salvation.
• Ahaz refuses the revelation, the sign and God's Prophet Isaiah.
• Nevertheless (for King David's sake & salvation history's revelation) God declares through his prophet Isaiah:
  

     

Isaiah Confronts King Ahaz
13b "Hear now, you house of David! Is it not enough to try the patience of humans? Will you try the patience of my God also? 14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. 15 He will be eating curds and honey when he knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, 16 for before the boy knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, the land of the two kings you dread will be laid waste. 17 The Lord will bring on you and on your people and on the house of your father a time unlike any since Ephraim broke away from Judah—he will bring the king of Assyria” (Isaiah 7: 13-17).

Prophetic Promise & Fulfillment: (Original Circumstances as Interpreted)

What the King was told, in effect was, that before a virgin in Israel has time to get married, conceive and bear a child who will be the 'salvation' of Judah and before this child is old enough to understand the difference between good and evil God will have already delivered Judah from these two troubling Kings over Israel and Aram.

Ahaz soon marries a virgin and she delivers to the King a son, Hezekiah. The people of Judah saw in King Ahaz's son, Hezekiah, the immediate fulfillment of this prophecy. Other than Solomon, Hezekiah was the greatest to sit on David's throne. Isaiah 9 references a portion of the Inagural ritual that would have been part of his ascension to David's throne:  

            

"For to us a child is born,

    to us a son is given,

    and the government will be on his shoulders.

And he will be called

   

 Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,

    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Of the greatness of his government and peace

    there will be no end.

He will reign on David’s throne

    and over his kingdom,

establishing and upholding it

    with justice and righteousness

    from that time on and forever.

The zeal of the Lord Almighty

    will accomplish this."

(Isaiah 9: 6,7)

Spiritual Promise & Fullfillment: (Partial or delayed fulfillment and Re-interpreted by The People of God for new Circumstances) 

There is often in the Jewish and Christian traditions a later, spiritual, re-interpretation of a prophetic moment, such as Isaiah's promise to King Ahaz.
Certainly the Inagural ritual of King Hezekiah's reign becomes a foreshadow of the coming One appointed by God and as prophesied in the Babylonian exile through Daniel, a Son of Man. The Church clearly interprets Isaiah 7 and 9 as refering specifically to Mary and to Jesus, as the One chosen of God and through whom salvation is given.

• The Communal Nature of Revelation and the limits to Inter-active, Inter-personal,  and Personal Applications

The Trinity of God is Communal; Three Persons so united in Love as to be One in essential nature. This is the mystery that informs and shapes every moleculer moment of our narrative. God's deeply personal Presence lived in and through community is the very definition of what it means to become fully human.  We, individually, are 'becoming' as creatures soulful, not unlike the higher animals we love, our flesh both earthy and potentially eternal like the stars. Yet it is our spirit that rises in desire to walk with God in the cool of the day, to seek God's face in the likeness of Jesus and know as we are known. We, like The One whose image we bear are communal/personal—always both, never less.

The Father's heart and initiative is the ultimate source of the universes governance, our purpose, meaning and the idealized goal of our 'individual becoming' as expressive of Divine origin. The actualized Presence of God in the universe and in and through us, is the Eternal Son whose Presence literally holds every/all events in time and mass together and who in Jesus of Nazareth is God fully human, offering himself to both humanity—now in the Eucharist—and humanity to The Father and Spirit. The 'Eternal Son/Son of Man' is the unfolding present and future Kingdom that levels every injustice, addiction, and sin that lives in and between all humanity. The Spirit, whose reality and Presence among and in us, is the formational source for the Community of God becoming fully human, like Jesus.  The Spirit is the Spiritual inter-active source of God fully Present in our times, like a vessel carrying the mystery that Changes all times and places and peoples, if only we will—be changed. 

Hence the revelation is social at every level, becoming deeply personal only as God's Spirit is allowed to form within us 'likeness to God', increasingly realized.

This then is the context which informs both the limit and vast extent in which we may, by application, not as prophetic fulfillment, enter more fully into 'all the promises' of the salvational Story of God in the earth. This is precisely what Paul the Apostle meant when he when he affirms that "no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God. Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come" (II Corinthians 1: 20-22).

It is what Jesus affirms when—on the night of his betrayal—he boldly says that "I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my life mm name the Father will give you. This is my command: Love each other" (John 15: 15-17). 

Our ability to intuit from the Spirit and apply these promises 'spiritually' in our own personal life is directly related to our life being given over to God's meta narrative in our times. If our story is part of God's universal and restorative narrative then Jesus "yes and amen" is the natural source of our own aspirations. We need only ask for the wisdom to apply The Scriptures to the rhythms of our own life. Such a relation is magical. What Scripture is not, nor ever can be, is magic.

• The Secret of Jeremiah's Prophecy hidden in plain sight, 

"This is the text of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the surviving elders among the exiles and to the priests, the prophets and all the other people Nebuchadnezzar had carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.

"This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper...”  "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" " (Jeremiah 29 1, 4-7, 10).

Jeremiah once again communicates benevelance and cooperation with Judah's enemy who has just captured a Son of David, the rightful King Jehoiachin, together with the Queen mother, the court officials and many of skilled laborers and artisans of Judah, to be used as Babylon saw fit, according to its needs and interests. In chapter 30 we will discover, that like Moses leaving Egypt, the exilic community has many who use this national crises to their own advantage, either ignorant of or not caring about what is really at stake; the likely end of David's lineage as King and with it the distant hope of a future Messiah who will restore Judah to its mission. 

Among the priests and prophets are those who resist Jeremiah's instruction to the exiles to pray for and work for "the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile" (Jeremiah 29: 7a).  These unwise and false counselors and prophets among the exiles send a letter back asking that the chief Rabbii left in Jerusalem punish Jeremiah further for advocating a treasonous accommodation with Babylon, as they see it. 

What we need to see is just how counter intuitive Jeremiah's instructions were. The usual fate of  Kings who defy a greater power is death for himself and all his sons, daughters, wives; every descendent. Thus the reign of that King will be no more, the risk of reversal forever dealt with. As a result of political intrigue and maneuvering among officials left in Jerusalem, Nebuchadnezzar--King of Babylon--has already appointed a new King, Zedekiah, who was not a direct descendant of David's ancestry. The future appears lost; A public and humiliating torture and death awaits the King and his entourage as Babylon's power crushes in upon David's line.

However, what God sees and Jeremiah trusts is that God will return Judah back to the land within 70 years and the rightful imprisoned King of Judah will be protected. . 

Backstory: 

Judah, from the King on down seems to have followed Jeremiah's counsel. Over the 70 years Judean exiles, now servants of King Nebuchadnezzar became prominent leaders; One Daniel becoming the Prime Minister of both Babylon and later over the Babylonian territories now occupied by Persia.

After 37 years an uncle of Nebuchadnezzar effectively assumes the kingship and releases the King of Judah from his prison to be an honored guest, always welcome at his table. Recently,  archaeological evidence has emerged from the Babylonian digs that evidences King Jehoichin was given a generous allowance, even in prison and protected by the Kings of Babylon. 3 

.According to the book of the Kings, God in fact remained faithful to King Jehoiachin. 70 years of exile complete, King Cyrus of Persia—having conquered Babylon, now commissions the first of several missions to return the Jewish people to their homeland. But where does he look for a governor to manage the work in the territory of ancient Judah? 

Persia's purposes in building empire were very different than Babylon, just as its God was very different. Babylon took from the countries and peoples it conquered the best and brightest, their scientific, cultural, entrapeurnerial elites back to Babylon in an effort to increase its own glory and wealth. Persia—on the other hand—thought it the better part of wisdom to stabilize its far flung empire and repriated the people groups back to their homelands, encouraging re-development and establishing the basis of long term prosperity. Persia reasoned this would allow it to pour less monies into military development and more into mutual trade, education and the prosperity of its growing empire.

Daniel's ever deepening influence in the City/State and now fallen empire of Babylon continued to grow under Persian—Mede governance. May I suggest that he was in the perfect position to influence outcomes, especially as Persia considered repatriation of Judah. So, when Cyrus of Persia looks around for one to administer the Persian Territory around Jerusalem his eyes fell favorably upon Zerubbabel, Jehoichin's grandson, whom he appoints as governor over the Persian territory surrounding Jerusalem David's line remains, from which Jesus was born.

• The validity of Divine, contemporary, even personal inspiration and re-interpretation or re-application when surrendered to the larger Jesus Narrative. 

I do not recall how my college friend's revivalist intuition about God owing him significant money turned out. For his own sake, I hope God deeply disapointed him so that he could come to know the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—who clearly can be appealed to, and will listen with empathy to our longings—but who will never allow our relationship to devolve into a kind of addiction; patterned behavior with an eye toward impressing rather than pleasing God.

Jeremiah 29 is a classic story of God's faithfulness to the Promises God has made and to us in whom the unfolding of the Promise depends, in no small part. God is more than capable of revealing in us just how we may apply the varied narratives of The Book to our personal or perhaps our communal circumstances.  As Wesleyans, we are absolutely confident that God inspires and lives in the:

• Original Event,
• The original event as interpreted by The People of God, and;
• The original event as re-interpreted Spiritually in new cntexts, and;
• The reading of The Book in both public and private worship.

Hence, applying the text is simply part of God's promise to put God's "law in their (our) minds and write it on their (our) hearts... because they will all know me from the least of them to the greatest" (Selections from Jeremiah 31: 33b, 34b NIV). It is the invitation to each believer to know God intimately, a most important means, being the dialogue between ourselves and The Divine which increasingly becomes inter-active, beautifully intimate.

Such an invitation can, however become, dangerously deceptive if we take ourselves too seriously, our mystical awareness divorced from:

• Original Biblical prophetic and spiritual meanings, or;
• The consistent thematic understandings of The Book, taken as a whole, or;
• The missional focus of our Savior for the good of others, of all, or;
• The traditions of our cultural experience of Jesus, or;
• The historic confessions of The Church, or;
• God's ability and freedom to surprise us in our own, lived experience.

Sweet Dreams & Blessings!  Terry

1  I can see my friends face but do not recall his name. I do recall vividly my perception of his lack of wisdom and the warning it came to be about trying to put Jesus in our back pocket. 

Finally, the surrounding reflections about the events of this years clearly didn't happen all at once or in that orders Hey are relevant only in giving a sense of the times.

2 "The 1st Christmas" is a children's book I wrote to capture the Jewish backstory of our Saviors birth. It is a story of God's redemptive promise made to Judah, kept, and later re-captured by the Church as the largest narrative in the whole world. 

It is written for 9-11 year olds and intended to introduce the idea of Biblical Inspiration and the role of Story.

Link to Bok: The 1st Christmas

3  Archeological Video by Joel's Study Tours; This information is featured in his new Book: Where God Came Down: The Archaeological Evidence

Link: Evidence That King David’s Descendants Survived In Exile

• Related Material from Jeremiah  about living inter-actively in the Potter Hands

Week #8 in NDC Worshiping Series on Jeremiah; Original Service & Message at Next Door Church, Renton, WA - Rev. Paul Johnson, Sr. Pastor.

Link: Worshiping Series #8 on Jeremiah, NDC

Week #7 of Worshiping Series on Jeremiah, Prime Time Study, 

A Visual: "Dancing with the Potter"   

                                                                 Link: https://youtu.be/4BmgCcNIihc?si=yK5oNfe_ZlkLEdel