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.

God cannot suffer - at least not as we do. It has some roots in Greek philosophy: if God is a perfect being, suffering would reduce that perfection, so God cannot suffer. More thoughtful theologians take the phrase in the sense of one of the confessions of faith that talks of God as being "without parts or passions" - he is not physical as we are, and not subject to "passions" in the sense of uncontrollable emotions that can take charge of us at times. God is not "emotional," if that word is used as some kind of weakness.

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.

It is not so much the case that God has a mission for his church in the world, as that God has a church for his mission in the world. Mission was not made for the church; the church was made for mission - God’s mission.

The trouble today is that many Christians live in a kind of bubble of assumptions about what their Christianity means, especially if it places them comfortably among "the good guys," - assumptions that are likely to be drawn as much from folk-Christianity, surrounding political culture, popular pulp-books about the "End Times," or their favourite guru writer or therapist, than from sober and comprehensive reading of the Bible as a whole. Prophets and preachers have the unwelcome task of pricking that bubble with the sharpness of actual texts and teachings of the Bible itself.

What is so striking in the book of Jeremiah is how many times it is impossible to distinguish between the words of Jeremiah and the words of God, when deep feelings are being expressed. That is probably intentional. The prophet not only speaks what God says, he also feels what God feels. The tears of the prophet are the tears of God.

The church was made for mission-God's mission