22:3 - This passage gives us a picture of what God expects from His people: justice, righteousness, helping the poor/widows/aliens, etc. These are especially the expectations of those who are in positions of leadership. God does not want formal religious activities practiced to hide the rottenness of the heart...He wants to see faithfulness lived out on a daily basis.
22:5 - I laughed at this - "I swear on myself!" Who else is God going to swear on? There is no one better...there is no one more perfect...when God says He is going to do something - He is gonna do it!
22:9 - Why are all these bad things befalling the people of God? Well...they have broken the covenant promises they made to God ("You will be my people and I will be your God.") - they have rejected God for false idols they made themselves and are offering service to statues of stone and wood instead of their creator God. Pretty good grounds for anger there.
22:11 - As I read through this chapter, I got a little confused with all the names of kings that get thrown around here...Shallum, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, etc. Is this one of the contradictions of the Bible that non-Christians always talk about? No. These are all the names of a series of Kings, that were put together in one section of Jeremiah because they are all receiving the same message from him. They were not kings that ruled simultaneously, but kings that were in power at one point or another during Jeremiah's prophetic teachings.
22:15 - Kings, in God's eyes, are not made by their fancy palaces, clothes or the crowns that they wear on their heads. To God, the kings among men are those who live humbly before Him and walk justly in the world. Kings are made by their ability to lead people towards the righteousness of God. At this point in Israel, there were probably a lot more "kings" out amongst the people than there were living in palaces.
23:1 - Let me just say...you do not want to be a church leader and misrepresent or misuse the authority that God has given you...not good. You don't want to be a leader of any sort that abuses the power granted by God...not good...not good at all.
23:3 - Jeremiah says that after the vile and evil leaders are captured and destroyed, that God promises to bring the faithful back together once again into a covenant relationship with Him. God is so merciful! How many times is He going to allow His people to reject Him and then enter back into relationship with them? As many as it takes...
23:5-6 - As always, God promises that there is hope on the horizon. No matter how dour the situation, God is always working to bring His people back to Him. Because the earthly leaders they have been given have failed to lead the people well, God himself will restore the people to His promises. This passage seems like another allusion to God's plan that came in the form of Jesus. In the line of David - check. Righteous branch - check. Embodies the fact that the Lord is our righteousness (literally!) - check.
23:10 - I remember my freshmen year of high school we read a book called "The Once and Future King," about the life of King Aurthur. He went through various philosophies of leadership in life, but at one point when he was young, rash and powerful - Arthur believed that, "might was right." Basically, whoever had the most power made all the rules and was always "right." This concept has always been alluring to the powerful men and women of the world...belief that the strongest are always right. But there needs to be a reality check in all this thinking because God is the ultimate source of power and authority in the universe. He has given power to the leaders of Israel and now they are being called out for using that power incorrectly. Human strength does not make you right, your relationship to God makes you right.
23:13-14 - It was bad when the people chose boldly to worship false idols in the land that God has given them...it was far worse when they pretended to be God-followers and served only themselves. Hypocrisy is vile...if you are going to live in an anti-God fashion, at least have the guts to admit that you are anti-God. Don't call yourself a Christian and then live in opposition to the way of Christ.
23:20 - In the midst of the judgment - it seems harsh and cruel that God is pouring out His anger on the people...they don't understand why these things are happening. But Jeremiah says, "Just wait...one day you will see what God was doing during these hard times." As brutal as this world can be sometimes, we have got to remember that God is in control and that God is shaping you through the good and bad things you experience.
23:23-24 - Never forget - God is NOT some bearded old man sitting far off, looking over the world like a chess player with humanity as his pawns...He is here among us...He fills the entire universe...He is present...He is active...He is at work in this world.
24:5-9 - I find it interesting that the ones who face the "judgement/exile/captivity" are the ones that Jeremiah describes as the good fruit. The ones going through the toughest times are the ones that God is going to use to restore and rebuild His relationship with the Hebrew people. The ones left in their homeland (Who probably thought they were pretty "lucky") are the ones who will face destruction...they were the ones who were the most corrupt. God often uses hard times to forge His people - those left totally alone may have a lot more to worry about in the end.
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