Jeremiah 23:35-36 – Breaking Credulity
35 Thus every one of you shall say to his neighbor, and every one to his brother, ‘What has the Lord answered?’ and, ‘What has the Lord spoken?’ 36 And the oracle of the Lord you shall mention no more. For every man’s word will be his oracle, for you have perverted the words of the living God, the Lord of hosts, our God. Jeremiah 23:35-36, New King James Version
"The saddest thing about imposed ambition," realizes James K.A. Smith in On the Road with Augustine, "Is that it nonetheless forms us. Our resentment doesn't inoculate us. Just because others set the path for our hearts doesn't mean we don't run there."
So it is with the habit of running to an oracle which Jeremiah 23:35-36 declares will soon be threadbare. His people have been shaped by this perpetual pilgrimage for the Word from the Lord via the man with the proper credentials. Their ambition has been to carry out the oracle's advice with the imprint of that man's authority on their actions, the fierceness of God's love which will brook no rival is to break that habit of credulity.
The result, a disillusioned, atomistic culture, in which every man's word will be his oracle, in which, as the Bible's book of Judges similarly puts it, every man does what is right in his own eyes, is not the final desired result. It is an intermediate spiritual adolescence through which God guides His own as He teaches us to examine critically the beliefs we are given. Simply because a man is designated shepherd, or oracle, or pastor, or parent, doesn't mean they speak for Him in all cases. He is gradually replacing the ambition of operating in and reflecting human authority with the hunger to know Him without intermediary.
In a 21st century ethos so awash in existentialism that we hardly question the supremacy it assigns to individuals following our hearts, we may surf past this passage without really absorbing it. We do so at our peril, for we have our oracles.
We have those we run to to endorse our course and to affirm our approval. Our oracles are often institutions, as Stretch: How to Future-Proof Your Career by Karie Willyerd and Barbara Mistick exposes, ""In many functional areas, education and certifications are (lazy) proxies for excellence."
As Warren Buffett says, likewise originally in a business and career sense, "The chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken." What oracle have we been running to to get answers rather than going directly to God and His Word? Where has this human-centered habit forged chains that are too heavy to be broken but by God's direct intervention in the fashion he foretells in Jeremiah 23:35-36?
As there, this intervention can be painful. Before He will show Himself Isaiah's Wonderful, Counselor, God will often expose the limitations of alternatives. Will we press through the bewilderment, bypass the lazy cynic's slouch that there ARE no answers, and entreat God Who both IS Answer and imparts answers to our most seemingly mundane efforts to reflect His glory? What oracle, however closely we have identified with it in the past, isn't worth decertified compared to a close, candid, dependent relationship with God?
"The saddest thing about imposed ambition," realizes James K.A. Smith in On the Road with Augustine, "Is that it nonetheless forms us. Our resentment doesn't inoculate us. Just because others set the path for our hearts doesn't mean we don't run there."
So it is with the habit of running to an oracle which Jeremiah 23:35-36 declares will soon be threadbare. His people have been shaped by this perpetual pilgrimage for the Word from the Lord via the man with the proper credentials. Their ambition has been to carry out the oracle's advice with the imprint of that man's authority on their actions, the fierceness of God's love which will brook no rival is to break that habit of credulity.
The result, a disillusioned, atomistic culture, in which every man's word will be his oracle, in which, as the Bible's book of Judges similarly puts it, every man does what is right in his own eyes, is not the final desired result. It is an intermediate spiritual adolescence through which God guides His own as He teaches us to examine critically the beliefs we are given. Simply because a man is designated shepherd, or oracle, or pastor, or parent, doesn't mean they speak for Him in all cases. He is gradually replacing the ambition of operating in and reflecting human authority with the hunger to know Him without intermediary.
In a 21st century ethos so awash in existentialism that we hardly question the supremacy it assigns to individuals following our hearts, we may surf past this passage without really absorbing it. We do so at our peril, for we have our oracles.
We have those we run to to endorse our course and to affirm our approval. Our oracles are often institutions, as Stretch: How to Future-Proof Your Career by Karie Willyerd and Barbara Mistick exposes, ""In many functional areas, education and certifications are (lazy) proxies for excellence."
As Warren Buffett says, likewise originally in a business and career sense, "The chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken." What oracle have we been running to to get answers rather than going directly to God and His Word? Where has this human-centered habit forged chains that are too heavy to be broken but by God's direct intervention in the fashion he foretells in Jeremiah 23:35-36?
As there, this intervention can be painful. Before He will show Himself Isaiah's Wonderful, Counselor, God will often expose the limitations of alternatives. Will we press through the bewilderment, bypass the lazy cynic's slouch that there ARE no answers, and entreat God Who both IS Answer and imparts answers to our most seemingly mundane efforts to reflect His glory? What oracle, however closely we have identified with it in the past, isn't worth decertified compared to a close, candid, dependent relationship with God?
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