Chapter 23

I could go into the role of the leader here again, but that isn’t really the point of Jeremiah 23.

Although he does mention the problems with leaders, this is in fact only the first few paragraphs. After this we move onto a topic I have not discussed before in this commentary, and it is time to give this concept a look.

I refer here to the reliability of prophecy.

Jeremiah reports on God’s heartache when He sees people who have no relationship at all with Him, who then go around saying “This is what the Lord says.” It’s not only a lie, it’s an incredibly damaging lie – for example, when God is saying that He will destroy Jerusalem (escape while you can!), these people could be saying “God is going to deliver His people again”. In other words, this lie could conceivably cost peoples’ lives.

Not surprisingly, God takes a very dim view to this indeed. He promises stern punishments on those who do this particular misdeed. A prophet must be the one God chooses, and if that person is not the designated prophet, then to claim oneself to be so is a serious matter indeed.

Well, it’s the 21st century now, so people are unlikely to go “Thus saith the Lord!” today, right?

Maybe, maybe not.

How many times have we seen people who claim to have spectacular Spiritual gifts?

I wonder how many of those people genuinely do?

Now, of course, God still can (and I believe still does) give those gifts to some. But in some cases a temptation exists to pretend one has gifts when in fact they don’t.

We live in an era of Grace, and God probably won’t strike you dead for such a thing now. But a read of Jeremiah chapter 23 is enough to tell us that He doesn’t like it even so.

We need to make sure that we are honest with each other about the gifts God has given. They are all important. Some are more visible than others, but God needs people gifted with administration just as much as He needs prophets or tongues – speakers. Don’t pretend. Instead, give your gift back to Him, whatever it happens to be, and He will take that and build it into something amazing.