Jer 17:1-27 Abraham Lincoln refused to include a person in his cabinet because he didn’t like the man’s face. ‘But the poor man is not responsible for his face’, objected the person recommending him. ‘After forty, everyone is responsible for…

Jer 16:1-21 The passage today ends on the nations coming and knowing God (Jer 16:19, 21), but what does this mean? How can God be known when He is invisible? His actions in the world, of course, demonstrate His power,…

Jer 15:10-21 Some years ago, I heard a pastor talk about the cost of ministry and to illustrate this, he read out his journal entries of a typical week. His description was a litany of woes about church meetings that…

Jer 14:1-22; 15:1-9 We like to think of God as infinitely forgiving, ‘the God of second chances’ and given that Jesus told his disciples to forgive seventy times seven (Matt 18:21-22), it is hard to imagine that God would have…

Jer 13:1-27 Twenty-odd years ago on a tourist trip to Israel, I was struck by the way our Jewish guide took pride in his people’s special place in history. Talking of the Jerusalem temple, he joked that Jews had a…

Jer 11:18-23; 12:1-17 During my gap year working in a Christian youth hostel in Israel, the manager went with his family on a six-months furlough to the States. His deputy, installed for the interim, turned out to be a difficult…

Jer 11:1-17 At first glance, this chapter reads as if the relationship with God were conditional on obedience. Do as I say and then you will be my people (Jer 11:4). Christians raised on the doctrine of salvation by grace…

Jer 10:17-25 Testimonies of how people come to faith in God can be immensely fascinating, particularly when the person describing the experience can do so in a way that brings home the reality of how God touched their lives. I…