The Prophet Jeremiah addressed the people of Judah and Jerusalem over a forty-year period leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BC. The book of Jeremiah addressed the exiles, especially those in Babylon, in the years after the catastrophe.
First of all then, says Chris Wright, we must encounter Jeremiah the prophet who, from his youth to old age, delivered the word of God to the people of Israel at the most terrifying time in all their troubled history. Understanding his times is essential to understanding his life and message. Next, we must strive to grasp how this enormous book (the second longest in the Bible, after Psalms) has been put together. And finally, if Jeremiah spoke in his day, and if the book still speaks today, in both cases it is because of the God who called the man to speak and commanded the book to be written. So we must encounter the God of Jeremiah, an encounter that should be both profoundly disturbing and ultimately reassuring, as it was for him.
In the end, Jeremiah is a book of the victory of God’s love and grace. His redemptive, reconstructive work fills the book’s future horizon – a future that we see fulfilled in the New Testament through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, the Messiah; and ultimately in God’s dwelling with his redeemed people forever in the new creation.
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Contents
General preface vii
Author’s preface ix
Chief abbreviations xii
Select bibliography xiii
Introduction 1
1. The beginning – and the end (Jeremiah 1:1-3) 29
2. Jeremiah’s appointment as prophet (Jeremiah 1:4-19) 35
3. From honeymoon to divorce (Jeremiah 2:1 – 3:5) 47
4. Turn, turn, turn (Jeremiah 3:6 – 4:4) 68
5. Disaster from the north (Jeremiah 4:5 – 6:30) 81
6. The temple sermon (Jeremiah 7:1 – 8:3) 96
7. Tears in heaven (Jeremiah 8:4 – 10:25) 112
8. Broken covenant and broken hearts (Jeremiah 11:1 – 12:17) 132
9. An unwearable people and an unbearable future (Jeremiah 13:1-27) 148
10. Too late! Too late! (Jeremiah 14:1 – 15:9) 159
11. The pit of self-pity (Jeremiah 15:10-21) 168
12. Silver-lined loneliness (Jeremiah 16:1-21) 176
13. Heart searching (Jeremiah 17:1-27) 189
14. Pots and plots (Jeremiah 18:1 – 20:6) 204
15. ‘Perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned’ (Jeremiah 20:7-18) 221
16. Kings: alive and dead and yet to be born (Jeremiah 21:1 – 23:8) 230
17. Prophets: not on a mission from God (Jeremiah 23:9-40) 244
18. The good, the bad and the ugly (Jeremiah 24:1 – 25:38) 256
19. Half-time 270
20. Dramatic public encounters (Jeremiah 26:1 – 28:17) 273
21. Letter to the exiles (Jeremiah 29:1-32) 289
22. The surprises of grace (Jeremiah 30:1 – 31:1) 300
23. The strengths of love (Jeremiah 31:2-30) 314
24. New covenant (Jeremiah 31:31-40) 325
25. Field of dreams (Jeremiah 32:1 – 33:26) 343
26. Promise-breakers and promise-keepers (Jeremiah 34:1 – 35:19) 359
27. God’s word: in the fire but not consumed (Jeremiah 36:1-32) 373
28. God’s prophet: in the pit but not silenced (Jeremiah 37:1 – 38:28) 383
29. The fall of Jerusalem (Jeremiah 39:1 – 41:18) 392
30. Death on the Nile (Jeremiah 42:1 – 44:30) 402
31. Baruch’s signature (Jeremiah 45:1-5) 416
32. Shaking the nations (Jeremiah 46:1 – 49:39) 428
33. Sinking Babylon (Jeremiah 50:1 – 51:64) 437
34. The end . . . and a small beginning (Jeremiah 52:1-34) 451
Over de auteur
Christopher J. H. Wright is an Anglican clergyman as well as a scholar of missiology and the Old Testament. He is currently the International Ministries Director of Langham Partnership International and is an honorary member of All Souls Church in London, UK. He was the principal of All Nations Christian College.