Jeremiah 26:9 – Misdirection to Motive
9 Why have you prophesied in the name of the Lord, saying, ‘This house shall be like Shiloh, and this city shall be desolate, without an inhabitant’?” And all the people were gathered against Jeremiah in the house of the Lord. Jeremiah 26:9, New King James Version
"Statements should not be evaluated only by what they say," insists Timothy Keller in God's Wisdom for Navigating Life, "but also by what they intend to do."
Even this, as reveals Jeremiah 26:9, can be an attempt at redirection. The collective outrage of the Temple crowd focuses itself on Jeremiah's motives rather than on the individual and cumulative responsibility before God to which Jeremiah points. They want to know, "Why have you prophesied?" It's as though they think the critical threshold was crossed when Jeremiah decided to speak, not when God imparted His Word, or when the people acted contrary to what of His Word they already had.
Men's motives are a miasmac phenomenon. If we would be distracted from the point of Truth with which we are lovingly or harshly confronted, we can spend hours, or days, or weeks pondering the motive of the person confronting us. We can even spend countless cycles of energy doing this without really wanting an answer, without beginning to sense in our spirit the reluctance the person pushed through to confront us.
Remember, Jeremiah tired so much in contending with the people that he resolved not to prophesy, only to have God's Word burn in his bones to the point that he had to obediently proclaim it. But the crowd in Jeremiah 26:9, or its equivalent in our hearts or our culture, doesn't really want an answer. Obfuscation in the guise of examination is enough.
Intent on redirecting scrutiny to the doubtless imperfect motives of the person God uses to confront, perfect parroting of His Word has no impact on our own hearts. That Word has been absorbed only to be melted down and fashioned for return fire.
Pitched in such a skirmish for the defense of the ego, or the cultural norms that reinforce the ego, we don't really listen. We don't really examine ourselves to see that we be in the faith. The person doing the uncomfortable confronting present a much more satisfying target in the short term. On which of their intentions can we cast doubt?
Centuries removed from the fog of this particular battle, we can see more. We can see just how often Jeremiah presented hope on the other side of this conviction and correction. God wasn't finished, he kept saying. He would bless His people even in exile. He would return them better off than before to Jerusalem.
But, as in Jeremiah 26:9, the fashioners of the fodder for the multitudes left that part out of the soundbites they preserved. If it bleeds, it leads. If it rings as treasonous, it will catalyze even the undecideds. This Word, as conveniently rephrased, gathered ALL the people on the scene against Jeremiah.
It's even more shameful for God's people on the other side of the cross to exercise this sort of editorial prerogative. It's no gift to be able to stir people up, unless we stir them up to love and good works in response to the work faith has already done by grace in them.
That, though, doesn't often galvanize to our flesh's satisfaction. That doesn't raise the volume and intensity of the discourse enough to distract from the implications of our own depravity.
So, with Keller, we ask that the Lord help us determine intent. Only by His light can we begin to discern the intent with which we listen and repeat, and, when needed, the intent of those who confront us.
"Statements should not be evaluated only by what they say," insists Timothy Keller in God's Wisdom for Navigating Life, "but also by what they intend to do."
Even this, as reveals Jeremiah 26:9, can be an attempt at redirection. The collective outrage of the Temple crowd focuses itself on Jeremiah's motives rather than on the individual and cumulative responsibility before God to which Jeremiah points. They want to know, "Why have you prophesied?" It's as though they think the critical threshold was crossed when Jeremiah decided to speak, not when God imparted His Word, or when the people acted contrary to what of His Word they already had.
Men's motives are a miasmac phenomenon. If we would be distracted from the point of Truth with which we are lovingly or harshly confronted, we can spend hours, or days, or weeks pondering the motive of the person confronting us. We can even spend countless cycles of energy doing this without really wanting an answer, without beginning to sense in our spirit the reluctance the person pushed through to confront us.
Remember, Jeremiah tired so much in contending with the people that he resolved not to prophesy, only to have God's Word burn in his bones to the point that he had to obediently proclaim it. But the crowd in Jeremiah 26:9, or its equivalent in our hearts or our culture, doesn't really want an answer. Obfuscation in the guise of examination is enough.
Intent on redirecting scrutiny to the doubtless imperfect motives of the person God uses to confront, perfect parroting of His Word has no impact on our own hearts. That Word has been absorbed only to be melted down and fashioned for return fire.
Pitched in such a skirmish for the defense of the ego, or the cultural norms that reinforce the ego, we don't really listen. We don't really examine ourselves to see that we be in the faith. The person doing the uncomfortable confronting present a much more satisfying target in the short term. On which of their intentions can we cast doubt?
Centuries removed from the fog of this particular battle, we can see more. We can see just how often Jeremiah presented hope on the other side of this conviction and correction. God wasn't finished, he kept saying. He would bless His people even in exile. He would return them better off than before to Jerusalem.
But, as in Jeremiah 26:9, the fashioners of the fodder for the multitudes left that part out of the soundbites they preserved. If it bleeds, it leads. If it rings as treasonous, it will catalyze even the undecideds. This Word, as conveniently rephrased, gathered ALL the people on the scene against Jeremiah.
It's even more shameful for God's people on the other side of the cross to exercise this sort of editorial prerogative. It's no gift to be able to stir people up, unless we stir them up to love and good works in response to the work faith has already done by grace in them.
That, though, doesn't often galvanize to our flesh's satisfaction. That doesn't raise the volume and intensity of the discourse enough to distract from the implications of our own depravity.
So, with Keller, we ask that the Lord help us determine intent. Only by His light can we begin to discern the intent with which we listen and repeat, and, when needed, the intent of those who confront us.
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