Board index ‹ Specific Bible verses, texts, and passages ‹ Jeremiah

[Biscuit]

Jeremiah 29:11 If God has plans to not harm us, why does God allow people to bring harm to us?

" For 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."

I know God says Christians would be prosecuted but I don't feel prosecuted as a Christian at the moment. I feel prosecuted because of my skin color. And even if humans have free will, everything happens because God permits it. So if somebody out there was killed because of their skin color, how is that a plan to prosper us?

[jimwalton]

This text was not written to us and it's not about us. It was written corporately to Israel in a specific part of their history about them as a people. It is not addressed to individuals. it pertains to their return from the exile, not to a positive future for us in the 21st century. That doesn't mean there can't be any application in it for us. It's just that it's not a promise for us.

> I feel prosecuted because of my skin color.

Racism is abhorrent and abominable. In the Bible there is only one race: the human race. Everyone has dignity. I'm sorry for how people treat you. It should never be that way, whatever color your skin is.

[Rogue One]

> This text was not written to us and it's not about us.

But it was written for us. I think that is too important a statement to overlook.

[jimwalton]

You're correct that it was written for us, but we are not to take from that that God is going to reinstate us in the land to prosper us and give us a future. That's what the text was about and the true message that it carries.

But there is also a message here for us. The message is that God punishes sin (they did spend 70 years in exile, after all, in trial and oppression), but He doesn't desert us there. While they were in exile, God gave them the prophets of Daniel and Ezekiel, and He was working at the heads-of-state level that would eventuate in Cyrus and their return. God disciplines, but God remembers. God punishes, but He will not punish forever (Lam. 4.22). Those spiritual principles are the message for us.