Jer 21:1-14 When I listen to sermons that give a fluffy, comforting message about how God loves us, that He is for us and there is nothing that can separate us from His love and so on, I sometimes ask…

Jer 20:7-18 This final glimpse into Jeremiah’s personal thoughts (the last of what commentators call Jeremiah’s ‘confessions’ in the book) reads like some of the psalms of lament, anguished and painful as it fluctuates between faith in God and despair.…

Jer 19:1-15; 20:1-6 I must admit that this chapter is grim, unrelieved by any hope. Judgment is inevitable, the people are hardened, the disaster prophesied for so long can no longer be avoided. We would like to see a happy…

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…