Matthew Chapter 12 – Sabbath Keeping
How has your Sabbath-keeping been? On the Sabbath, the Pharisees were upset with the disciples plucking heads of grain and eating it, having defined this simple action of plucking grain as work1. But unlike the Pharisees, Jesus…
Lamentations Chapter 2 – Can God Be Our Enemy?
There are some Christians who forget the mercy of God and think that God’s heavy-handed policing gives us no grace at all. Then there are others who misconstrue God’s eternal love, inflating it into a mollycoddling injustice…
Lamentations Chapter 1 – Consider Your Destiny, Consider Your Heart
The Book of Lamentations consists of a series of grief-filled poems mourning the finality of Jerusalem’s losses. They also seek comfort for these sorrows and hope in God’s mercy. The first chapter describes Jerusalem’s catastrophic invasion by…
Jeremiah Chapter 52: You are God’s temple, God’s home
This final chapter recounts Jerusalem’s besiegement and eventual fall. The Babylonian army surrounds Jerusalem’s walls from the 9th year of King Zedekiah’s reign till his 11th year, causing a severe famine in the city (as prophesied in…
Jeremiah Chapter 51: When what’s political is God’s personal plan
This chapter reminds us how political scenes on earth can be God’s personal plan. While what people saw was Babylon’s political and military conquest, in truth, God was using the empire for His purposes of punishing Israel.…
Jeremiah Chapter 37 – Inquiring of God
“Pray now to the Lord our God for us.” A striking request from King Zedekiah to Jeremiah, considering that it’s prefaced with this note: “neither [Zedekiah] nor his servants nor the people of the land gave heed…
Jeremiah Chapter 32: When we don’t understand God’s plan
My husband and I recently battled a bout of illness together. Hoping to boost our immune systems, I began taking ginseng tablets and encouraged him to do the same. When I passed him a tablet, he looked…
Jeremiah Chapter 20 – Pashhur’s Failed Faith
A visual representation of how Jeremiah’s stocks could have looked like So hardened were the hearts of Israel’s leaders that rather than inspire change in God’s wayward people, Pashhur, a priest and chief governor in the house…
Jeremiah Chapter 18 – The Heart of Our Potter
We are the clay, and the Lord is our potter. We are all the work of His hand. (Isaiah 64:8) Imagine the potter’s hand aggressively kneading down onto the clay. It’s daunting to then think of ourselves…
Jeremiah Chapter 16 – When God Closes a Door
This chapter begins a very specific command that God has for Jeremiah. ‘The word of the Lord also came to me, saying, “You shall not take a wife, nor shall you have sons or daughters in this…