The other day, it dawned on me that there are several Scriptures that Christians use in their daily lives which are misused, misapplied, and stripped of their context, and I figured this would be a good topic to address in a series on About This Life Blog.
Please note, I have no intention of addressing these in a condescending or snarky way, which is often the lofty position of those who seek to correct teaching. No, instead, I simply want to highlight the text, highlight the way it seems to be misused, and call Christians to be more cautious and more biblical in their use/application of sacred Scripture. After all, when we repeat and rehearse Scripture in an inappropriate way, we distort God’s revelation of Himself to us, and we risk distorting our witness of God before others.
Without further ado, the first Scripture I’d like to address for this initial entry is Jer. 29:11.
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.
-Jeremiah 29:11, ESV
Common (Mis)usage:
Generally, I’ve heard well-meaning Christians use this verse to express God’s plans to bless their lives in general. They often use this text as an assurance of some sort, implying that God is going to ensure positive results in a given situation. It has also been used as a basic defense from the idea that God has negative or evil intentions for a person or their church.
Basic Context & Meaning:
Rarely, if ever, is the surrounding text provided or referenced. At a minimum one must ask, “To whom does the ‘you’ in this passage reference?” Well, it’s clear that the text was a prophetic word delivered via letter to the exiles who were then in Babylon after Nebuchadnezzar overtook the capital city of the Southern Kingdom, Jerusalem (Jer. 29:1-4).
Judah had fallen to Babylon as a result of their sin and God’s judgment. Nevertheless, in this prophetic message from Jeremiah, the Lord tells the people to live their normal lives by building, planting, marrying, and reproducing (vv.5-7). He tells them to avoid listening to lying false prophets while in exile (vv.8-9), as these false prophets presumably promised a quick restoration contrary to the plan of God. Finally, after promising to visit the exiles and restore them back to their homeland (v.10), the aforementioned Scripture is exclaimed. In this context, the meaning of Jeremiah 29:11 is clear: despite judgment and the nation’s subsequent exile to Babylon, God still has a plan for their welfare, a plan to restore them and not utterly destroy them, but only after 70 years in exile.
Suggested Usage/Application:
Can Christians take this text as a direct prophetic promise for themselves? No, I don’t think that’s faithful to the biblical text nor consistent with OT interpretation. If a Christian understands this text to refer to the people of God in any era, then why wouldn’t they similarly interpret all prophetic judgments as applicable to the people of God in any era? That’s probably because it’s human nature to want the “good” or to read the “good” in Scripture as being “for us” while distancing ourselves from the “bad.” The point is that unless a prophecy has a scope that includes all people for all time, it’s usually limited to the people to whom it’s directed. No matter how nice a verse sounds or how conveniently the text may fit what we we may want to hear, we have to resist the urge to misapply it.
Thankfully, we don’t have to read Scripture in such a personally-biased way in order to see the goodness of it. Instead, we can look at Jeremiah 29:11 and see its usefulness in our lives in a variety of ways. In context, this verse reminds us of God’s faithfulness to His covenant people and to both the Abrahamic and Davidic covenants (God made promises to Abraham and David that would have been nullified if their entire heritage was cut off). This verse assures us that God’s word will come to fruition (they actually stayed there 70 years). Finally, this verse encourages the people of God to look to the Lord and remain faithful even amidst hardship and uncertainty because God is faithful to His promises.