If there's one verse I can't stand to hear quoted, it's Jeremiah 29:11. You've heard it, I'm sure: "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.'"
Everyone loves it for its sentiment. It feels so happy, like Yay! God's got plans to make every day of my life amazing!
I can't stand it because it's so taken out of context. Jeremiah is, with perhaps this verse being the only exception, a depressing book condemning the people of Judah for their wicked ways. Just listen to some of the things God promises to do:
- Give their wives and fields to other people (8:10)
- Take away their harvest (8:13)
- Send venomous snakes to bite them (8:17)
- Bring distress so great the sound of wailing will be heard (9:19)
- Decrees disaster (11:17)
- Kill the young men by the sword and their children by famine (11:22 - specific to those plotting against Jeremiah)
- Send four kinds of destroyers: the sword to kill; dogs to drag away; birds of the air and beasts of the earth to devour and destroy (15:3)
- Give their carcasses as food to the birds and beasts (19:7)
- Summon enemies to conquer them, banishing the sounds of joy and gladness and making the whole country a wasteland (25:9-11)
- Make them serve King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon (chapter 27)
There are even some texts kind of similar to chapter 29. Like in 18:10 when he does mention good plans, but then says "if [a nation or kingdom] does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it."
And then comes chapter 29. A letter to those exiled and in captivity in Babylon, basically telling them, "Settle in. Have kids. Build houses. It's going to be 70 years, as punishment for your evil deeds." Even if you only read 29:10 as context, you get a bigger picture: after the 70 years, God will be gracious and bring them back. Cue 29:11. He isn't saying he has amazing plans for each of their lives. Many of them will be dead in 70 years. Those that are alive will be very old and have spent most of their lives in captivity. He is saying that as a whole, he has good plans for his people once they have paid for their wickedness.
So when you see this verse on graduation cards, what you're really telling the graduate is: "You are a wicked, evil person who will spend three generations paying for your sins. But eventually, God will be gracious to you. So buck up, kiddo, and get used to suffering." When you write it on a get well card, what you're really saying is, "You are paying for your sins with this illness, and it will be a while before things get better." If that's the message you want to send, by all means, keep doing it. But if you want to send an uplifting message in these situations, I'd suggest a different verse.
7 comments:
Wow...I appreciate your insight, and on the one hand I agree. The verse doesn't promise a pain-free life. And yes, many of those who received this message were no longer living by the time the promise was fulfilled. But, I think the general point of the verse (as well as many verses similarly plucked out of context) is that in the midst of extreme suffering, God still has a plan of hope. We need to stop reading most of the Bible as though it is only for me and my life. When God says "I know the plans I have for YOU" I imagine that it is you plural. It is a great shame that we have no such second person plural pronoun in the English language.
God has a plan for His people. That plan doesn't guarantee freedom from suffering, but it does guarantee that the church, God's people as a whole, will eventually be thrust into a reality of hope. Even if it is just a pinpoint of light at the end of a really long, dark tunnel, there is still hope for the future.
April: I agree that we can take from this verse that God has plans. Good ones, ultimately. That he is gracious.
It's the way it's used that bothers me. It's the fact that no one even seems to be aware that this comes in the midst of 52 chapters of scolding. I find this a very inappropriate verse for graduation cards given the context.
You're right that this verse is often quoted cheerily and without thought. However, I'm not sure I buy your reading of it entirely.
As you point out, the letter that Jeremiah sends to the elders in exile begins with instructions regarding how they should live in captivity. The advice is to build, settle down, to sow and reap, to marry, to have children, etc. They are even told to pray for the prosperity of those who have taken them into captivity. In other words, they are encouraged to live ordinary lives at peace with their captors.
This command seems intended to preclude a very different alternative - the life of crisis, of resistance, of insurgency, of bitterness at the injustice that has fallen upon them.
In this context, verses 10 and 11 seem to provide the "why." Why shouldn't the exiles resist and fight and struggle? Why shouldn't they live in a mode of perpetual crisis? The answer is in the promise that the exile and banishment are not forever, and the LORD's plans for Israel's prosperity and growth.
So, setting aside for the moment the question of whether God's promises to the Israelites apply equally to us, what are we really saying if we apply this verse to our own lives and times? We're not saying that everything will be easy or hunky dory.
In fact, we're saying the opposite. We're saying that despite crisis, anxiety, and difficulty, we can still live our lives because God is sovereign, God has a plan, and God wants to prosper us.
As a result, I think this verse is especially appropriate in times of current or anticipated difficulty. Illness would be one of those. Graduation could be another, if we think of it as the time at which a child leaves home and enters a foreign and often hostile world.
I doubt that this is the sentiment most people have in mind if they include it on a card, but their misreading doesn't make the verse inappropriate. It just makes them mistaken.
I think you have a valid point. And if people grasped it, the verse probably wouldn't bother me so much. But like you said, most people who buy cards with the verse probably don't have that intention. In fact, with Jeremiah being one of the less-exciting books of the Bible, I would venture to guess many people who quote this verse haven't read any other verses in Jeremiah.
But why should other people's mistakes make you not like to hear it quoted? It's a great message when you do understand it. That would be like me refusing to enjoy Star Trek VI just because most of the other fans in the theater clapped at the wrong place (when they blew up the bad guys). It's still a great movie. I will post this anonymously and see if you can guess who it is.
The context in which it is quoted bothers me, not the verse itself. It's the Bible after all. The Bible is all good.
Thanks for the comment Laurie.
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