Reading for June 28th

 Read Jeremiah 6.22-30. The attacking army continues to advance against you, O daughter Zion (v. 23). In verse 26: As the symbol of the city there is nothing for her to do but to lament her fate. In verse 27: God speaks to Jeremiah to tell him his role is like one who tests the authenticity of silver. In verse 30: Judah is rejected silver. Comments or Questions..

Reading for June 27th

 Read Jeremiah 6.13-21. In verses 13-15: A refrain that will reappear in 8.10-13 charges the entire community with guilt--from the people to the leaders. everyone is greedy and leaders lie; therefore God is justified in punishing them. In verses 16-21: God assembles the nations and the earth itself as witnesses against them in the covenant lawsuit. Comments or Questions..

Reading for June 26th

Read Jeremiah 5.30-6.12. In 6.1-30: daughter Zion is attacked.  This chapter gathers images of the cosmic battle into a collection of poems from a chorus of speakers. The mythic nature of the battle increases when the text identifies daughter Zion as the object of the attack. A ferocious military nation wages war against Jerusalem, portrayed as a weaken wanton woman, defenseless in the face of her foe. In verse 1: A voice urges the children of Benjamin, one of the tribes of Judah, to flee the city for evil looms out of the north. In verses 4-7: The poem quotes the enemies' shouts as they prepare for attack. They believe they are acting under divine orders against a wicked city. In verses 10-12: Jeremiah laments the people's stubbornness. They are not even capable of hearing the prophet's warning. Comments or Questions..

Reading for June 25th

 Read Jeremiah 5.20-29. God's reluctance to punish is overcome because neither Jacob, the northern kingdom that fell to Assyria in 721 BCE, nor Judah, the southern kingdom that falls to Babylon in 587, sees, hears, or fears the Creator. Unlike the sea and the rains that stay in place and come at the proper times, the people know no boundaries in their wickedness. Comments or Questions..

Reading for June 24th

 Read Jeremiah 5.7-19. In verses 7-11: A question that will be repeated (5.29) addresses an unnamed female. She is probably daughter Zion and God's unfaithful wife (2.1-3.5). God asks if there is a way to pardon her, but she and her children have been adulterous. There is not way to avoid punishment. In verses 12-18: Further accusations of infidelity introduce another announcement of the approaching invader, a mighty nation, superhuman in it capacities. However, a prose comment promises not to completely destroy the nation. If the book's audience is the people in exile, v. 18 speaks to them directly. They are the remnant who remain after the invasion. Comments or Questions..

Reading for June 23rd

 Read Jeremiah 5.1-6. In 5.1-31: God's reluctance to send the attackers. These loosely connected poems show that God does not wish to destroy the nation. Instead, the people are at fault because they will not act justly or repent. God is neither arbitrary nor whimsical in orchestrating the attack on the nation. In verses 1-6: God will not destroy the nation if Jeremiah can find one righteous person. Though he runs up and down the streets of Jerusalem to the rich and the poor, Jeremiah's search is unsuccessful. God promises invasion by wild animals, which symbolize the invading army. Comments or Questions..

Reading for June 22nd

 Read Jeremiah 4.23- 31. In verses 23-28: Creation destroyed. The  speaker describes a terrifying vision of destruction that reverses the world's creation in the first chapter of Genesis. This picture of the earth as a divested landscape, waste and void, implies the cosmic battle somehow overturns the world. The impact of the historical invasion of Judah by Babylon meant the end of their national world, the collapse of daily life in their land. The poem describes the symbolic effects of that invasion. Judah's world has come to an end. In verses 29-31: The battle draws near as suggested by the noise of the attack and the flight of the inhabitants. this poem portrays the city of Jerusalem as a woman called daughter Zion.. She is probably God's first wife in 2.1-3.25. Portraying the city as a woman indicates how impossible defense against the advancing army is for her and creates pity in the reader. Comments or Questions..

Reading for June 21st

 The approaching enemy.

In chs. 4-6: No narrative unifies these poems, but the approaching foe looms over the chapters and gives them menacing drama. The voices of God, Jeremiah, a narrator, the people, daughter Zion, and the foe from the north--all speak and argue about God's role in the coming invasion. The battle poems use great art in portraying war. Scenes of approaching armies appeal to the senses and give the superhuman enemy from the north shape in the imagination. With few details of sight and sound, the poems place readers in the thick of the battle.

Read Jeremiah 4.5-22. The sound of the trumpet and the sight of the standard or flag of the army evoke the battle. In verses 6-7: References to the mythic foe add to the unearthly terror coming upon the nation. The enemy is a lion, magnified into a destroyer of nations. Since God is the one bringing the foe, supernatural forces are arrayed against the nation. In verses 19-22: Although God brings the enemy, God also witnesses the battle with uncontrollable anguish . Comments or Questions.

Reading for June 20th

 THE COSMIC BATTLE

In Chs. 4-10: Chapter 4 turns away from the story of the broken family to give prominence to announcements of imminent invasion by the "foe from the "north." The material in this section is largely poetic, but some prose passages as well (4.1-8.3). Although individual passages probably came from many different times, they are collected here around the theme of cosmic destruction at the hands of the mythic "foe" from the north.

Read 4.1-4. In 4.1-4: Repent. This poem reaches back to the broken marriage by repeating the invitation to "return," and it extends forward in the book by promising God's wrathful judgement against those who do not repent. Comments or Questions..

Reading for June 19th

 Read Jeremiah 3.19-24. Though still nostalgic for his wife (2.19-20), the husband/father again invites the children to "return" and promises to heal them. In verses 22-24: The children then begin to speak, addressing the father directly and repenting of their infidelity and idolatry. The family is partially restored. the account of the broken family symbolically retells the entire course of Judah's history up to the Exile. It is likely that the children symbolize the exiles who were invited to return and promised a renewed future in allegiance to their father. The story of this broken family explains the Exile symbolically. The historical destruction of Judah and Jerusalem was not God's fault but was punishment for idolatry and betrayal. That betrayal by all the people appears the more intimate and wrong because it is like betrayal by a spouse. Comments or Questions..

Reading for June 18th

 Read Jeremiah 3.6-18. In verses 6-10: Jeremiah replaces the husband as speaker and reports that the husband had previously had another wife, Israel who also betrayed him and whom he had also divorced. In the story of the family, both the northern and southern kingdoms have betrayed God and been cast off. Since the northern kingdom of Israel fell to Assyria in 721 BCE, this story explains that historical tragedy in the symbolic terms of betrayal in marriage. In verses 11-18: The divine husband sends Jeremiah to the first wife and invite her to return. The text reports no response from her. Then the invitation to return is addressed to the children (v. 14). Their father promises them restoration and reunification of the whole people in Jerusalem (vv. 15-18). Comments or Questions..

Reading for June 17th

 Read Jeremiah 3.1-5. The relationship between God and his wife, symbolizing all the people of Israel and Judah, is over. The family is broken and there appears to be no future. Comments or Questions..

Reading for June 16th

 Read Jeremiah 2.4-37. In these poems, the divine speaker alternates in addressing male Israel (2.4-16; 2.26-32) and female Judah, portrayed as God's wife (2.17-25; 2.33-3.5). The effect of this switch from male to female is to accuse both figures of infidelity and of going after other gods or lovers. Male Israel changes its gods (2.11), forsakes God, the fountain of living water (2.13), digs its own sources of water (2.13) and worships idols (2.27-28). Wife Judah also betrays God, but in more intimate ways. Though she is God's wife, she played the whore (2.20), went after other lovers (2.23-25, 33; 3.1), and would not return to her husband (3.1). Comments or Questions..

Reading for June 15th

 The broken family

In Chs. 2-3: A story of a broken family underlies and unifies the poetry and prose of this section. The account of this family functions as a summary of the whole book in symbolic form. God appears as husband and father, betrayed, brokenhearted and in search of reconciliation with his unfaithful wife and children.

Read 2.1-2: God speaks and addresses his wife, remembering how good it was during their honeymoon. Then God addresses male Israel in similar terms. Israel was holy to the Lord. Both female and male were set apart and protected. Comments or Questions..

Reading for June 14th

 Read Jeremiah 1.11-19. Jeremiah's gains substance from two visions written in prose. In verses 11-13: Jeremiah sees a branch of an almond tree, a "shaqed" in Hebrew. In a play on words, God replies, I am watching ("shoqed") over my word to perform it. What God says through Jeremiah will happen. Next Jeremiah sees a boiling pot, tilted away from the north. The boiling pot is a symbol of destruction, overflowing and burning. The north may refer to a historic enemy, but more likely the threat from the north refers to a mythic enemy, coming like a superhuman monster. Only in 20.4 will the foe from the north be identified as Baylon. In verses 14-18: The tilting pot will spill out an army of invaders who will stream upon the land. God is calling the kingdoms of the north to invade Jerusalem. Jeremiah himself should have courage throughout the terror, for God will be with him. Comments or Questions..

Reading for June 13th

 Read Jeremiah 1.1-10. Chs. 1-10: Cosmic destruction. Ch. 1: Jeremiah's call. In verses 1-3: The introductory verse tells who Jeremiah was and when he prophesied. He was from a family of priests from the town outside Jerusalem, Anaoth. His call came during the time of King Josiah and extended until the fall of Jerusalem to Babylon in 587 BCE, a 40-year period that symbolically links him with Moses' 40 years of leadership in the wilderness. Jeremiah is presented as a prophet like Moses, as promised in Deut 18.18. In verses 4-10: In a poetic conversation between God and Jeremiah, Jeremiah receives his mission. His call before birth indicates that his prophecy was not his own invention but given to him by God. His resistance on the grounds that he is only a boy and so cannot speak properly also indicates that God has sent him; he has not chosen this task for himself. God tells him not to be afraid, promises to be with him, and touches his mouth. This gesture symbolizes the divine origin of the words Jeremiah speaks and the words recorded in this book. The book claims that Jeremiah's words are from God. In verse 10: Jeremiah is a prophet to the nations and will tear down and build up. This short poem gives Jeremiah and his book authority in the face of opposition. Comments or Questions..

Reading for June 12th

 Read Philippians 4.21-23. In 4.21-23: Closing. Mutual greetings (compare 1 Cor 16.19-21; 1 Thess 5.26-27) and a blessing (compare Philemon). In verse 22: The emperor's household, the slaves of the emperor in Rome or the colonies. Comments or Questions..

Reading for June 11th

Read Philippians 4.8-20.  In 4.8-20: A call for consistency in all situations. A brief, poetic passage commends right thinking and right action (vv. 8-9) and notes the proper attitude toward changing circumstances (vv. 10-20). In verses 8-9: The whatever statements indicate a series of attitudes for living that can help the community face any difficulty. In verse 10: Revived your concern, the Philippians maintained concern for Paul even when they could not express it. In verses 10-13: Paul's attitude resembles Cynic and Stoic discussions of his time, but he does not see the source of endurance in himself. Paul challenges the Philippians to learn the value of "humiliation," shunned by conventional society but reinforced elsewhere in the letter (2.3, 8; 3.21). In verses 15-19: The community never lacked concern for him (v. 10), even though he neither needed nor sought it. Their reward is from God. In verse 16: Paul never accepted gifts from a church while he was with them (see 1 Cor 9; 1Thess 2.9; 2 Cor 8.1-5). In verse 18: On sacrifice see 2.17. Comments or Questions...

Reading for June 10th

 Read Philippians 4.2-7. In 4.2-7: Exhortations to overcome disunity and opposition. In verse 2: Be of the same mind: The point of disagreement is unknown, but a number of the letter's key expressions (same mind, struggled side by side, work of the gospel) come together here. Book of life, see Ex 32.32; Ps 69.28; Dan 12.1. In verses 4-7: Brief exhortations to develop the right attitude; guard, a military term, describes God's peace. Comments or Questions..

Reading for June 9th

 Read Philippians 3.1b-4.1. In 3.1b-4.1: The example of Paul. A transition (v. 1) and warning (v. 2) lead into Paul's renunciation of his advantages to counter any tendencies to arrogance (vv. 3-11). He commends perfection but notes, a play on words, how perfect people (relatively speaking) know they have not reached perfection (vv. 12-16). Finally, while enemies of the cross have an earthly orientation, Paul commends a heavenly citizenship in which the believers await the glorification in the future (3.17-4.1). In verse 1: To write the same things, probably about disunity; Paul positions the words he writes about his own life as a safeguard for the community's problems. In verse 2: Beware, repeated three times, or "watchout for," warns about a possibility, not what already exists. Verses 2 and 18-19 likely refer to practices of the community, rather than actual opponents, that breed disunity. Dogs in ancient writing were examples of shameless greed. In verse 3: Circumcision, metaphorically, God's people. In verse 7: Regard echoes 2.3, which commends church-members to "regard other better than themselves," and 2.6 which asserts that Jesus did not "equality with God as something exploited." In verse 10: Becoming like ("symmorphizomenos") Jesus, a link to 2.7, in which Jesus took on the "form" ("morphen") of a slave. In verses 13-14: The image is of running a race. In verse 17: Imitation, see 1 Cor.16; 11.1; 1 Thess 1.6. In verse 20: Citizenship, not political but heavenly. See Gal 4.26. Comments or Questions.. 

Reading for June 8th

 Read Philippians 2.9-3.1a. In 2.19-3.1a: Timothy and Epaphroditus: examples of unselfishness. Timothy (2.19-24) and Epaphroditus (2.25-20), examples of unselfishness concerned with the whole church. In verse 22: Timothy, see Acts 16.1-3; 1 Cor 16.10-11; 1 Thess 3.1-6> In verse 25: Epaphroditus, see 4.18; Col 1.7; Philem 23. In verses 29-30: Honor such people, Paul continues to redefine honor: Honor those who risk their lives for Christ (2.30). In 1a: Finally, a transition (aslo at 4.8). Comments or Questions..