Jeremiah 31:10 – The Shepherd's Effectual, Echoing Call

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“Hear the word of the Lord, O nations,
And declare it in the isles afar off, and say,
‘He who scattered Israel will gather him,
And keep him as a shepherd does his flock.’ Jeremiah 31:10, New King James Version

"There are two ways of acquiring knowledge," divides Peter Milward in Wisdom and the Well-Rounded Life. "One way is to pick up bits and pieces of information, which may be called indiscriminate or random knowledge, such as is acquired by perusing an encyclopedia. The other way is to relate such bits and pieces to each other so that they throw light on each other and on the world as a whole. This becomes what may be called 'ordered knowledge.' When the different parts are studied together and seen to support each other, they are less likely to be forgotten."

We see this principle played out to the glory and by the grace of God in Jeremiah 31:10. By His persevering work among the people most closely identified with Him, the nations take notice. There is a story to tell, a reprieve from the repressive randomness they pass on to one another. There is plot. There is drama. Man's craving for meaning, often unacknowledged and smothered with a sophisticated veneer, comes to the fore, fulfilled, in the Gospel.

Oh, the impact when it does! The nations not only notice, they take part gratefully. His Word in Jeremiah 31:10 is to them, the uninitiated, the uncircumcised, those who have not had the benefit of generations of training in the patterns of Scripture. Yet, when they connect by God's gracious opening of their eyes and captivating of their attention that He acts sovereignly among men, they tell one another. It is the erstwhile outsiders whose hearts catch fire, whose talents, whose media, whose technology, whose relationships become conduits for the spread of God's storied transformation of the circumstances among which men labor by their own folly. He who scattered gathers, they tell one another, the scales of cynicism falling off their eyes.

Beginning to see God's rescuing heart, the nations may be drawn in by the drama, but they are captivated by more than the search for an adrenaline fix. The flesh waits for the downfall of him who was raised up, the other shoe to drop, the dissipation of the favored, but God's persevering work is different. The end of Jeremiah 31:10 shows a collective heart that wants to believe in a keeping God. For all their readiness to roll their eyes, to intone, "Here we go again," hope perseveres in the human breast. God has, insists His Word, placed eternity in the hearts of men.

Is not this plot line evident among the peccadilloes, predilections, and preoccupations among which we labor? Given God's Jeremiah 31:10 heart to tell His story far and wide by unlikely and captivating means, it may be the insiders, quick with a sense of entitlement, who readily become dull to the drama of His work. "If the gospel is old news to you," warns Kevin DeYoung, "it will be dull news to everyone else."

Perhaps we need our eyes opened again to the great narrative. "Anyplace can be interesting," posits The New Yorker's Kelefa Sanneh, "provided you look carefully enough."Give us to sense the tension of God's work in the unfolding, to praise Him for it and for the capacity to notice it again, and to spread that great sense of expectation among the sons of Adam and daughters of Eve who likewise bear God's image.

Whether the structures of Earthen culture look dominating, dull, or decaying to us, may we see them anew by way of Jeremiah 31:10, as means in God's hands to spread grateful appreciation for His glory. By these, may even our missteps be communicated to people who will by grace connect them to God's redemptive pattern.