It has become increasingly pop in recent years for teachers of the Bible (myself included) to disparage people who apply Jeremiah 29:11-xiii to their lives. "You lot're not paying attention to the context!," they loudly protest ( … every bit I accept). This post will explore whether such disparagement is advisable, and conclude that often it is non. I promise to model something almost how to interpret the Bible at the same fourth dimension.

Jeremiah 29:11-13 are favorite verses for many people:

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and non for evil, to requite you a hereafter and a hope. And then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I volition hear you. Yous will seek me and detect me when you seek me with all your heart (Jeremiah 29:11-13 ESV).

People beloved these verses because they find encouragement in the thought that God has good intentions for them even in the midst of suffering. They are heartened when they read that God hears their prayers. They are strengthened with the thought that when they seek the Lord with all their heart they volition find the Lord.

But teachers of the Bible sometimes point out that the immediate literary context pertains to God's promise to bring dorsum the people of State of israel from Babylon after 70 years in exile (Jeremiah 29:10). Thus, these verses apply simply to the exiled Israelites living in the 6th century B.C. — non to us, or so it is claimed. "Pay attending to the context!" is the reminder they offer, and, truthfully, a reminder that all of united states demand to hear.

But I think that in that location is a chip more to consider in biblical interpretation. The dissenters are right that the literary context (the verses surrounding these verses) connects the reader to a detail historical context, that is, return from the Babylonian exile. It can be terribly frustrating (maddening, actually) to listen to people translate the Bible who glibly ignore literary and historical contexts. Merely are those two contexts (the literary and historical contexts) the only two contexts you need to pay attention to when reading Scripture?

No, there is another context that is crucial if you want to read the Bible well. That context is the approved context, or, labeled differently, the whole-Bible context. The whole-Bible context is the context you work with to identify patterns and themes that run through (you guessed it…) the whole Bible and pay attention to whether such themes are besides present in the verses yous are trying to translate. If whole-Bible themes run through the verses to which you are attending, and so it is proper — even necessary — to telephone call out such patterns and themes — not as the chief meaning of the verses, but as a proper broadening of the meaning that connects specific verses to the overall narrative and teaching of the whole Bible.

Are at that place such whole-Bible patterns and themes that appear in these verses from Jeremiah 29? Yes. There are at to the lowest degree four.

  1. God makes promises that are good, and intends to fulfill them (verse 11) (compare 1 Kings 8:56; Psalm 105:viii-10; Jeremiah 32:42; Luke 24:49; Rom 11:29).
  2. God listens to his people when they pray (verse 12) (compare 2 Chronicles 7:12-16; Psalm 34:15; Matthew 7:eleven; James 5:14-18).
  3. God allows his people to find him when they seek him (verse 13) (compare Deuteronomy iv:29-31; 1 Chronicles sixteen:11-17; Isaiah 51:one-3; 55:6; Matthew seven:7).
  4. God repeatedly rescues his people out of exile (poesy fourteen) (compare Exodus 2:23; Psalm 144:11; Ezekiel 34:ten-22; Colossians 1:13; ane Peter 1:1).

Any fourth dimension nosotros fail to pay attention to the literary and historical contexts of Jeremiah 29:11-xiii, we deserve the wrist-slap we've been getting from teachers who complain that we take been misinterpreting these verses. Nonetheless, it turns out that the main ideas found in these verses are consequent with the approved (whole-Bible) context. Consequently, these verses do communicate words of encouragement that God's people can depict upon for encouragement in their daily lives, not considering the verses offer such encouragement direct, but because they do so in conversation with patterns and themes that class their way throughout the whole Bible.[i]

Notes

[1] At present, if people take this passage to hateful that they individually will prosper (say, materially or vocationally), and so that is a different kind of error altogether. I have left that event out of today'south post to make the bespeak nigh the demand to pay attention to the broader approved context of the Bible.

This post and other resources are available at Kindle Afresh: The Blog and Website of Kenneth Berding.