There must be a lot of people who think that every Bible prediction has potential for personal gain.  This is why Europeans have travelled far and wide, raped and pillaged every place, including the ones they want to claim as their own.  It is also the reason for seeing a miracle behind every narrative or proclamation.  Even when the rationale for God’s pronouncements are explicit people are still being conned by verse favourites without their contexts.

For thus says the Lord, ‘When seventy years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfill My good word to you, to bring you back to this place.”

Jeremiah 29:10, NASB

Jeremiah 29:10 is how Yahweh set up his comfort message to the exiled people of Judah.  The plan reveal came next. 

11) ‘For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. 12) ‘Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you’

Jeremiah 29:11-12, NASB

Plans need no pretext

The audacity is staggering.  The idea that the unprecedented supervision of Abraham’s erring descendants in exile is a common path for anyone who chooses to latch on to it ranks with the covering cherub’s attempt to overthrow God (Isaiah 14:12-14).  Plans to replace Israel, plans to roll old into new, will not end well. The favorite verse complex has no rebellion,  no treachery,  no prostitution,  no calamity, no repentance, and only a Messianic pretext. It follows the pattern of lazy thinking, and no thinking. We do not simply open our mouths and say whatever the current desire dictates.

We are hopeless if our confidence is in the things we have invented. Our societies do a good job of muddling along. Even when there are bursts of civilized behavior people say the right things and carry on just as before (Jeremiah 7:8-14).  Even so, plans to replace Israel, plans to roll old into new, will not end well. The favorite verse complex has no rebellion, no treachery, no prostitution, no calamity, no repentance, and only a Messianic pretext. It follows the pattern of lazy thinking, and no thinking. We do not simply open our mouths and say whatever the current desire dictates.

Just saying what we are told to say does not bring more kingdom into our lives. Believers are not speaking things into existence. If they were we would all have everything we need, just like when Yahweh said “Let there be light” and “Let earth teem with living creatures” and then created man to have dominion. It is obvious that people are not prevailing in prayer. The law of God is not a condom. Divine law does not prevents sin. How quickly people forget; the law is what defines and powers sinful attitudes and behaviours. The vices we know come from within us. If people say they prefer political constructs, progress without benevolent prudence, and prefer eating and drinking rules, or is because Christ ruling in hearts by faith is not attractive to them. Do they want to confirm that they do not need a Saviour?

It must be obvious that without the king and sacrifice facets of the Messianic heritage most propositions and all the speculation about life and home are questionable pretexts. The plans in Jeremiah 29 only makes sense when exile and calamity have taken place, and calamity, for too many believers, can always be waved away by our exercise of faith. That is the rationale for a life free from troubles and crosses, and a likely demonic pretext.