Back in the days before I was a professional Bible teacher I could never have imagined anyone wanting to rip the book of Jeremiah from Scripture. Jeremiah the emotional prophet, who speaks sometimes such lovely promises, who expresses how his own and God’s hearts are torn by the terrible future (and present) Judah’s apostasy and sin have brought upon Jerusalem the holy city, how could anyone not love Jeremiah!?
But then I was asked to teach Jeremiah, and once I did. In preparation I read the book, aloud into a recorder, and then listened to the recording, while driving to work. I discovered, to my horror, but more and more strongly that I detested the book. It is grubby, nasty and leaves such a sour taste that I wanted to spit it out.
And yet, I’ve continued to live with Jeremiah, it’s part of Scripture, it’s part of my Prophets in Context course… and perhaps I can see why it remains in the canon….
I’ll try to illustrate some of this looking at Jer 6:1-8 as a sample passage.
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