PSA Bible Reading Challenge 2025-2026

We find ourselves more in the narrative of the life of Jeremiah than we do in his prophecies. We see that he writes a scroll, the king burns it, and then he is commanded to write it again. The reason the king burns it is because the content is not flattering to the king. Jeremiah tells words of truth that do not complement the king, in fact they are words that put the kings existence into jeopardy. The king has the power to destroy the scroll, and so he does destroy the scroll. Jeremiah then goes to a city in Benjamin, could it be Bethlehem?, in order to claim his land and he is arrested there. Once again he pleads his case and he is kept in house arrest and given food even during the siege, which is more than what most people had at the time.

Jeremiah consistently did not give words that were encouraging to the people and the rulers because they were not times where there was much encouragement, except for the times that he tells the people that all this will be restored. But that restoration was going to be 70 years from now. Who wants someone around who is consistently telling bad news? That was the fate of Jeremiah’s ministry, to give bad news for the most part.

Do you want the good news or the bad news? The good news is that God will restore the fortunes of Israel and that all the inhabitants will be able to resettle the land, in fact Jerusalem will even be expanded. All the items of the temple will be brought back and the people will be able to settle and have children and live their normal lives back in the promised land. That’s the good news. The bad news is that it will not happen for another 70 years, so you might as well get used to this place and start to have your families here and get settled in here and buy your houses and drink your wine here, and not wait for 70 years before you live your life.

This is what Jeremiah said, even though there was one prophet who said that all this was to take place in 2 years, and Jeremiah joined along until God told him that this guy was not actually a prophet of the Lord. So this is what happens and Jeremiah, who is still in Jerusalem while the city is under siege, sends a letter to the Israelites in Babylon telling them to get used to their surroundings because things are not going to change for quite some time.

Jeremiah is basically encouraging the people of Israel to lay down their arms and allow the Babylonians to capture them. This will allow the city to be saved. He says that those who fight against them will find their imminent destruction. It is always curious to me how God chooses to use those who do not believe in him to do his will. The Babylonians did not fear God nor did they worship him. And yet here clearly they are being used by God to carry out His purposes, which is to punish the Israelites for their disobedience. This is curious to me.

We see in the Psalm a great synopsis of what takes place in our Jeremiah Scripture. The Psalm ridicules the one who is unfaithful to God and says in vs. 7 that those who take refuge in wealth and not in God are mocked and given in derision. But then the psalmist compares himself to a green olive tree that is planted in righteousness and justice, which is what the Israelites lacked. They lacked this not only in relationship to each other, but also to other nations. Jeremiah continues along demanding that the people listen and recognize that even God himself will turn his back on them in the midst of the troubling times.

There just seems to be a lot of bad news in these chapters, especially if you call yourself an Israelite. Granted they deserved all that they got according to Scripture, but Jeremiah is not one who was there to preach rainbows and unicorns. It is quite the opposite, he is to let them know that not only did they sin so their land would be thrown down and taken over, but also the future generations were to have the sin of their ancestors written with ink upon them and they were to carry that sin for generations to come. Maybe it would be like a tattoo that would never come off and be a part of their lives forever.

Without a doubt the sins of past generations do come hard upon the future generations when we talk about current day. And it is not just the sin of the past, but the sins committed against your people do to this day have an impact on generational wealth, or generational stability today. This is definitely something that we see written on ink in certain demographic groups. For example, I was shocked when I went to West Virginia and the generational assumption that everyone would be receiving benefits from the government because it was simply easier to do it that way than to try to break the mold. That is generational.

I have to say that Psalm 103 caught my attention and especially verses 8-14, we will use them this Sunday as our Assurance of Pardon. We have Jeremiah who is given a multitude of issues that describe the people of Israel and their unfaithful. We see the idols that they make which have to be carried around, we see their unfaithfulness even in the midst of the presence of God whose faithfulness is without question. Then we move to a celebration in Psalm 100 where we are told to praise the Lord, even as we are still hearing ringing in our ears the words of Jeremiah who reminds us of the certain destruction which is to come because of our unfaithfulness.

But then we get Psalm 103 which reminds us of the faithfulness of God because his throne is set in the heavens and there is nothing that anyone can do to separate us from the love of God. Remember that in Romans 8? Read those verses again and tell me that you don’t feel the presence of the Lord wash over you with a tremendous feeling of relief and security and confidence.

Whew, that was a lot of Scripture and it was all the type that almost makes you go to counseling after you read it. We find the beginning of Jeremiah somewhat harmless with promises that God will send shepherds, read pastors, who will love the sheep and will care for the sheep. But unfortunately, it is not enough. In spite of the faithfulness of God the unfaithfulness of the people will overcome the hope that is found and the people will wander around lost in their own towns. Jeremiah is called the weeping prophet and he is given the task of prophesying for the south, Judah, where Jerusalem is located, and letting the people know that a nation will come from the north and will completely annihilate Judah. There is no escaping it. The reasoning for this is that the people have been disobedient even having been given every chance possible to obey.

The psalm provide a similar dirge where we find that the faithfulness of the Lord is unfathomable, it is without limit, and yet the faithlessness of the people is similarly extreme. Both of these Scripture depict a reality in which we find ourselves today. We constantly believe that we are able to second guess and provide our own solutions to those which God has clearly laid out in Scripture. It takes time but we do see the results of our hubris. It isn’t good. Hopefully things get better, but Jeremiah is not called the weeping prophet for nothing.

We close out Paul’s letter to Timothy and we find the most commonly used Scripture in the New Testament for Funerals: I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. What’s not to like in these verses? There is one line that is problematic for me and which I just discovered this morning as I was reading which I don’t remember seeing earlier. You can find it in II Timothy 1:3 where he states that he is grateful to God whom he worships, as his ancestors did. Maybe it refers to the clear conscience that he mentions in regards to his worship. Maybe both he and his ancestors had clear consciousnesses when they worshipped God. My problem lies in the fact that I do not believe that we worship the same God as those who follow any other religion, including Judaism. This is not a value judgment, it is simply a fact. Different religions must worship a different God, and the old saying that people find very simpatico: there is only one God, is true but only so far as the one God that there is is either the God of Christianity through Jesus Christ, or the God of Judaism, without our Savior, or the God of Islam revealed through Muhammed. It is not all three, it is only one. As a Christian I would humbly posit that we worship the one true God, and the others do not. So, I guess that is something that I will find out when I am no longer in a state where I have to think about it.

I would like to focus on Psalm 105 which gives the full account of the people of Israel from Joseph through them being led out of Egypt by Moses. So we begin with the salvation of the population and the steps that God takes in order to save his people, lest we think that things happen by chance. Joseph was placed in Egypt for the purpose of being able to bring the people of Israel into Egypt, and so have them saved from the famine that struck the land. As a result, Joseph and his brothers settle in Egypt.

But there is a problem and the people of Israel suffer but God sends another person to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt, after Joseph brought them in. Both of these things save the people of God. But what we read is only the positive cliff notes version. We don’t hear of the disobedience of the people, we just hear of the faithfulness of God. This is actually what we should be focusing upon anyway, just to remind us that God delivers even in the midst of our sin.

There are a lot of gems in this book of the Bible, but also quite a few things that are problematic. It is in this Scripture where we read that a woman should keep silent in church, which if we support this then you have to keep reading that it states that she will be saved through childbirth. That’s problematic, not only the keeping silent part but also the part that says she is to be saved through childbirth. How is that grace in any way shape or form? As a pastor I have seen the heartache and lived through others the pain that not being able to have children causes. Now we are adding salvation as part of that equation. It is quite clear that Paul is teaching Timothy how to run his church and this church has issues that are unique to it, that involved some women whom I believe are young widows and don’t know what to do with their time. As a result he comes up with solutions to problems within the church that address specifically those widows in that church and not all women in every church.

But it also contains gems that include not returning evil for evil and reminding us that God is in control and His providence stretches across the earth and the heavens. We are told to fight the good fight of faith, which in his second letter becomes a final acknowledgement of his life, that he had fought the good fight, he had run the race, he had kept the faith. But we are getting ahead of ourselves.