Tag-Archive for » Jeremiah 29:11 «

Cosmic Invention

Friday, July 23rd, 2010 | Author:

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.” Jeremiah 29:11

Plans – The word “plans” is from the Hebrew root hashav.  In this case it is the noun mahashavah.  The verb form “make plans, reckon, account or think” is used 121 times.  There are several different meanings, but they are all within the context of creating something new.  The most interesting use of this word is found in Genesis 15:6 where the meaning is “impute” or “account.”  In that verse, God counts Abraham righteous – He imputes righteousness to Abraham as something new and unanticipated.

In the noun form mahashavah, the word means “thought, plan or invention.”  It is used in Genesis 6:5 about the evil thoughts of all mankind, in Jeremiah about the plans that men follow, and in 2 Chronicles about creating an invention.  Again, the context is about new things.

“I know the new ideas I have for you.”  God’s plans are never cast in concrete.  They are flexible, adjusting to our lives as our circumstances change.  It is easy to think that God has only one perfect plan for your life and that if you make a mistake or sin, the plan will be forever destroyed.  Then you will have to live with second best, then third best and so on each time you fail to meet expectations.  But God does not have one perfect plan for you.  He has one purpose – one goal – that you become all that you were meant to be through conformity to the image of the Messiah.  The goal never changes.  But the plans are new ideas every day.  God is full of surprises.  An eternal inventor.

Oswald Chambers said, “Never make a principle out of your experience; let God be as original with other people as He is with you.” (June 13th, My Utmost for His Highest)  Abraham Heschel would remind us, “Biblical revelation must be understood as an event, not as a process.  What is the difference between process and event?  A process happens regularly, following a relatively permanent pattern, an event is extraordinary, irregular.  A process may be continuous, steady, uniform; events happen, intermittently, occasionally. . . . The term “event” is a pseudonym for “mystery.”  An event is a happening that cannot be reduced to a part of a process.  It is something we can neither predict nor fully explain.  To speak of events is to imply that there are happenings in the world that are beyond the reach of our explanations.  What the consciousness of events implies, the belief in revelation claims explicitly; namely, that there is a voice of God in the world – not in heaven or in any unknown sphere – that pleads with man to do His will.”[1]

Consider what this means for understanding our lives.  How many of us actually believe that God can act in our lives in totally unique and unanticipated ways?  Or do we rather turn to the lists for living, guiding our behavior by extractions and abstractions from His Word or others’ experience.  The Seven Habits, The Twenty-one Irrefutable Laws, the principles of Purpose-Driven whatever, the “patterns of success,” all these and many more describe God in a box, a God who is no longer surprisingly creative.  The “God in the box” must conform to our experience and expectation.

There is a very good reason why Heschel says, “to believe is to remember.”  We are called to be witnesses to God’s ways, not examples of our distillation of His ways.  Yeshua healed the blind – never twice in the same way.  The Father is the author of ingenuity.  Why should we live as though all His choices are reducible to our systematic theologies?  Mike Yaconelli wrote a book about serving the dangerous God.  He touched on a theme we rarely wish to consider.  God does not conform to our images of Him.  He is full of surprises.  Those who expect to encounter the God of surprises are far more spiritually attuned to His engagement in this world.  The practice of active waiting is a time to remember that God cannot be contained by our restraints no matter how theologically correct those boxes appear.  Our objective is to let God loose in life, to throw off the abstractions of our theology and look for the events, to recognize the absolute uniqueness of His hand, to turn the world of circumscribed conditions on its head and shout, “Yes, Lord, I am ready for whatever You wish.  Here I am!”

If you took God out of the box of your own expectations, what do you think would happen?  Ah, but don’t give me a lists of answers.  That’s the box you’re in already.

Topical Index: plans, mahashavah, Jeremiah 29:11, inventor, new

[1] Abraham Heschel, Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity, p. 13.

Category: Today's Word  | Tags: , , , ,  | 23 Comments

A Look at Jeremiah 29:11

Wednesday, June 17th, 2009 | Author:

“I know the plans I have for you.”

Most of us are quite familiar with this verse, perhaps too much so.  We skip over it, thinking that there isn’t a lot to mine here.  We’re wrong.  A close examination of the verse reveals a very different and complex understanding.

It all starts with “know”.  The Hebrew word is yada.  This word occurs nearly 1000 times.  It signifies the many contexts of gaining information through the senses.  It is used of God’s understanding of men as well as our understanding of God.  It describes the context of being acquainted with other persons, of distinguishing between good and evil, of moral insight and judgment and of the prophetic revelation directly to men of God’s will.  It is also used euphemistically to describe sexual intercourse and sexual perversions.

The Bible uses this word to proclaim God’s complete knowledge of creation.  Nothing can be hidden from His understanding.  God’s perception and recognition extend to every act and circumstance.  God’s knowledge extends to our relationships, tendencies, behavior, talents and emotions.  God talks about knowing us before we are even born.  Someone with that kind of knowledge would certainly know what is best for us and exactly how we should fit into His world.

The word “plans” is from the Hebrew root hashav.  In this case it is the noun mahashavah.  The verb form “make plans, reckon, account or think” is used 121 times.  There are several different meanings but they are all within the context of creating something new.  The most interesting use of this word is found in Genesis 15:6 where the meaning is “impute” or “account”.  In that verse, God counts Abraham righteous – He imputes righteousness to Abraham as something new and unanticipated.

In the noun form mahashavah, the word means “thought, plan or invention”.  It is used in Genesis 6:5 about the evil thoughts of all mankind, in Jeremiah about the plans that men follow and in 2 Chronicles about creating an invention.  Again, the context is about new things.

“I know the new ideas I have for you.”  God’s plans are never cast in concrete.  They are flexible, adjusting to our lives as our circumstances change.  It is easy to think that God has only one perfect plan for your life and that if you make a mistake or sin, the plan will be forever destroyed.  Then you will have to live with second best, then third best and so on each time you fail to meet expectations.  But God does not have one perfect plan for you.  He has one purpose – one goal – that you become all that you were meant to be through conformity to the image of the Messiah.  The goal never changes.  But the plans are new ideas every day.  God is full of surprises.  An eternal inventor.

I know the new plans I have for you

This word is really not “have”.  We translate it this way because it makes sense in English, but in Hebrew the verse really says “I know the plans that I plan for you” or “I know the purposes that I purpose for you”.  So, the word for “plans” that we looked at is really used twice, first as a noun and then as a verb.  In the second case, the verb has a little different sense.  The noun is mahashaba.  It means “new ideas”.  The verb is hashab.  The verb means ““make plans, reckon, account or think”.  We already saw that it is the verb used to describe God’s decision to see Abraham as righteous.  Perhaps there is more to this verse than simply that God has purposes for our lives.  Could it be that God’s purpose includes being counted as righteous?  That sense of the verb is certainly in God’s purpose for each of us.  In fact, without that sense of the verse, none of God’s plans will ever meet His purpose.

I know the plans I have for you.  Plans to prosper you and not to harm you.

Prosper is the word shalom.  It primarily means “peace”.  But it also has the meanings “perfect, whole, complete, prosperity, well, health and safety”.  It is far more than just the absence of conflict and strife.  It encompasses the entire range of well-being.  Therefore, it includes spiritual and physical completeness, harmony and fulfillment.  But shalom comes from a Hebrew culture, not a Greek culture.  The word is couched in relationship, not possessions.  Ultimately, shalom is about our relationship to the One who can provide all of the other aspects of completeness.  Without the primary relationship as the fundamental purpose of life, all of the other aspects of living are unsteady.  They will lack a solid foundation.  In this verse, the active agent is God.  We do not find prosperity, peace and wholeness on our own.  God’s direct activity in our lives is the basis of shalom.  The intention of God’s purposes for us is shalom.

I know the plans I have for you.  Plans to prosper you and not to harm you.

Literally, this should say “and not for evil”.  First, it means that God’s new ideas for you are for your good.  His purposes are to bring you shalom, not evil.  He is not a vengeful or malicious God.  He is a God of holy grace, compassion and care.  God has no plan to do you evil.  In fact, His plan is just the opposite.

The word for “evil” is ra.  The root behind ra is a noun that means “rotten, spoiled or good for nothing”. It is most often used in conjunction with the word tob which means “good”.  The first instance of this word is in the Garden of Eden in the expression “tree of the knowledge of good and evil”.  The Bible recognizes that men often have varying idea about what is evil.  We acknowledge this fact about cultural differences every day.  Sometimes it surprises us when we see what other cultures consider morally correct.  However, even though the Bible recognizes this fact, the final verdict on good and evil is always in God’s hands.  Since He is the Judge of the world, His determination about what is evil is the last word on the subject.  If God says that some act or event is evil, there is no negotiation on the matter.  The essence of evil is disobedience to God’s will.  It is progressive.  Evil begins with a lack of acknowledgement – we do not recognize God as God, we refuse to give Him honor as the Creator.  From this lack of acknowledgement, we proceed to an attitude of ingratitude.  We are not thankful for what God has done.  Refusal and ingratitude become ingrained as habit, then compulsion.  The result is that we do injury to others and to ourselves.

In this verse, God tells us not only that He has no plans to harm us, but His plans and purposes will keep us from self-inflicted harm.  God’s plan is for harmony, unity, peace and life.  Ignoring His plans for us will lead to strife, hostility, injury and death.

I know the plans I have for you.  Plans to prosper you and not to harm you.  Plans to give you a future with hope.

The last part of the verse reiterates the intention of God’s plans.  God has two goals in mind.  The first is “a future”.  The word is aharit.   What is unusual about this word is that it literally means “afterward, backwards or after part”.  So, how can it be about the future?  H. W. Wolff says that the Hebrew concept of time is like a man rowing a boat.  He sees where he has been, but the future is toward his back.  He backs into the future.  It is entirely unknown to him because it is behind him!

This picture has some very powerful theology in it.  First, God must set our course since only He can see “behind” us.  But secondly, we have as our guide what we see, the course we have been following.  We see the past because we are facing it.  The past is in “front” of us.  No wonder our history with God is so important.  It is not just about where we came from.  It is the visible guide for our course into the future.  Finally, there is a great connection with the idea that we must trust God’s direction and not fear.  If we are “backing” into the future, we must trust the guide.  We cannot see where we are going, but He can.

There is a tremendous example of this word in a story from Genesis.  When Lot and his wife ran from the destruction of Sodom, they were told not to look back.  Lot’s wife did look back and she saw her future.  She died there.  Looking back was a choice not to obey the guide who was taking her out of harm’s way.

So much of our lives seems to be consumed with plans for our future.  We all want to “look ahead” as though we will be able to guide and protect ourselves from what may come.  But God says that the real direction of our life should be to the past.  The course of our life was set in the past.  The victory over the future happened in the past.  It is our history with God that gives us peace and confidence.

Category: Articles  | Tags: , , , , , ,  | One Comment

Hebrew Yardsticks

Friday, August 29th, 2008 | Author:

“For I know the plans that I have for you,” declares YHWH, “plans for welfare and not calamity to give you a future and a hope.” Jeremiah 29:11

Hope - Did you know that this famous passage in Jeremiah is connected to Paul’s remarks about transformation in Romans 12?  Probably not.  When we read this verse, we don’t think like a rabbi.  We think like good Greek Christians.  We imagine that God has a special plan for us; a plan that will prosper us in the future.  Because we want to be prosperous, we hope that what God says is true.  So, we wait for our ship to come in.  With that kind of interpretation, we might as well be waiting for a ship in the middle of the desert.

Rabbi Paul saw a different connection.  The Hebrew word for hope in this verse is tiqwah.  It is not the usual word for “hope.”   Fifty times in the Old Testament, the word for “hope” is qawah.  It is the picture of what comes from being nailed down over the horizon; something assured in the future.  That makes sense, but tiqwah is a little different.  It has some peculiar characteristics that parallel Paul’s comments in Romans.  You see, there are two roots spelled exactly the same way (T-Q-W).  One of these roots is connected to qawah but the other is connected to qaw, and the word tiqwah that is connected to qaw doesn’t mean something that is nailed down in the future.  It means a measuring line.  It’s used in Isaiah, 2 Kings and the Psalms to describe a standard of measurement.  Here’s the critical piece of detective information.  This word is translated in Greek as metron.

Do you remember our examination of the “measure of faith” that God gives every person (Romans 12:3 on August 25)?  Don’t you think that Paul knew that the Hebrew word for his choice of metron was tiqwah?  Don’t you suppose that Paul also knew that tiqwah had two different meanings depending on the context?  Is it possible that Paul used the fact that tiqwah meant both “hope” and “measure” to provide a subtle reminder to his Greek/Hebrew audience that God’s standard is directly tied to the hope that God gives?  Don’t you think that maybe this all points to Yeshua?

Just think about it for a moment.  It’s no accident that Paul chooses metron to describe the measure of faith.  Remember that this implies that God provides a measuring standard, not that God supplies a quantity of faith.  Now, if tiqwah is the same as metron, then wouldn’t the reader who knew Hebrew also realize that the same word speaks about what is nailed beyond our horizon?  Doesn’t this suggest, at least a little bit, that God’s measuring standard and God’s provision of hope are both tied to something beyond our vantage point?  So, when Jeremiah uses tiqwah as the word for “hope,” he not only speaks of completely human expectations for this life; he also gives us a glimpse of something beyond us.  And Paul tells us that if we really want to exercise the gift that God gives, we must do so according to that standard that lies beyond our horizon; a standard that is exemplified in the death and resurrection of Yeshua.

It’s not quite enough to have great plans for life here and now.  God’s plans don’t stop when the lights go out.  God’s standard is set in eternity, not in the present realm of redemptive actions.  If we want to use most productively what God gives, we will set our sights on eternal measures.  This is something we can take with us.  And that gives us hope.

Topical Index:  Transformation

Category: Today's Word  | Tags: , ,  | Comments off