I think Jeremiah is for our times. But whether the church in the west will listen to the Word of God today any more than in the chaos of 7th century BC middle east... Only God knows.

I think Jeremiah is for our times. But whether the church in the west will listen to the Word of God today any more than in the chaos of 7th century BC middle east... Only God knows.

I agree that we should regard all books of the Bible as equally inspired - and important. But some come into sharp focus at certain times, as particularly relevant and sharp in what they have to say to our culture at any given moment of history. And Jeremiah is a book for our times.

Perhaps preachers today need to think about the assumptions that are common in their congregation - the plausibilities and comforting assurances - which may in themselves have biblical truth, but can easily become insurance policies waved around as immunity from any kind of serious evaluation of how we are living, whether we are truly following the Lord Jesus in the way he walked, whether we are doing righteousness and justice as God commanded.

The whole earth, then, belongs to Jesus. It belongs to him by right of creation, by right of redemption and by right of future inheritance - as Paul affirms in the magnificent cosmic declaration of Colossians 1:15-20. So wherever we go in his name, we are walking on his property. There is not an inch of the planet that does not belong to Christ. Mission then is an authorized activity carried out by tenants on the instructions of the owner of the property.

The church was made for mission-God's mission

We may legitimately see in the [Old Testament] event, or in the record of it, additional levels of significance in the light of the end of the story – i.e. in the light of Christ