Theme: God is always calling people to return to His way
Jeremiah 1:4-10 — The Lord’s call to speak for Him is a challenge
Luke 4:21-30 — Jesus brings conviction in the Nazareth synagogue
1 Corinthians 13:1-13 — Gifts are not about us but about God’s love
Also read: Psalm 71:1-6
• See also this week’s linked article ‘God is Calling Others to Walk With Him‘ and video on YouTube (best for desktop) and Instagram (best for mobiles)
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Jeremiah 1:4-10 — The Lord’s call to speak for Him is a challenge
God calls courageous people to speak forth and call people back to faith
4-5 The word of the LORD came to me, saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
“I knew you… I appointed you” — Jeremiah received a non-negotiable call to proclaim what God gave Him to say,at a time when the nation was in rebellion.
“Prophet to the nations”— with a message that would touch Assyria, Babylon and Egypt as well as Judea.
6 “Alas, Sovereign LORD,” I said, “I do not know how to speak; I am too young.”
“Too young” – possibly a teenager. The word used is for someone who has not yet left home.
7-8 But the LORD said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am too young.’ You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you,” declares the LORD.
“Do not be afraid of them” — the Lord identifies the real reason for Jeremiah’s reluctance: his (understandable) fear. Then follows one of Scripture’s very many “Fear not!” promises reassuring him, not of freedom from persecution, but of rescue in it.
9-10 Then the LORD reached out His hand and touched my mouth and said to me, “I have put my words in your mouth. See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant.”
“My words in your mouth” — similar to that spoken to Moses in Deut. 18:18. The message is the Lord’s but the messenger, authorised to speak in public, is the prophet.
“To uproot… to plant” — the nature of the prophetic call combines a breaking down of what has been constructed out of human pride, but also planting and building afresh in God’s purpose.
Reflection
SUMMARY Jeremiah already knows when God is speaking to Him. Now God is challenging Him to speak forth the word He hears, which may not always be well received. He recognises that he is unprepared, and no orator. But the Lord sees that as his pledge of dependence and therefore His qualification.
APPLICATION In Jeremiah’s time, God was experienced through ritual sacrifices and through the priests who offered them. God called and anointed special people — prophets, priests, and kings — to be allowed a more personal relationship with him. Today, every Christian who has become reconciled to God through choosing to trust Jesus has the capability of hearing God’s voice, and to a greater or lesser extent the call to speak it out. Like Jeremiah, this will often become a conflict with settled establishment values and practices where God is doing a new thing.
QUESTION Who do we hear speaking out for God, for example during the pandemic?
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Luke 4:21-30 — Jesus brings conviction in the Nazareth synagogue
The reminder of God’s favour shown to believing Gentiles results in fury
21 He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
“This scripture is fulfilled” — this was Jesus saying that God’s plan and promise is fulfilled in Him, because the Isaiah passage He has read is about Him.
22 All spoke well of Him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” they asked.
“The gracious words” — two things are going on here. They are being stirred by “gracious” or powerfully anointed words, but they are coming from someone who they knew from Joseph’s workshop.
23 Jesus said to them, “Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself!’ And you will tell me, ‘Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.’”
“Heal yourself” — can be understood as “your own people”. There was some resentment of the miraculous work He was known to have carried out in Capernaum.
24-27 “Truly I tell you,” He continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed — only Naaman the Syrian.”
“Elijah’s time” — a time of widespread unfaithfulness to God where the nation experienced judgment in the form of famine. Jesus is reminding the people of Nazareth that when Israel rejected God’s prophets, God sent them elsewhere, notably to these two Gentiles.
28-30 All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove Him out of the town, and took Him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw Him off the cliff. But He walked right through the crowd and went on His way.
“The people…were furious” — at Jesus’ reminder that at former times of rebellion, Gentiles had received God’s covenant blessings, which they believed were theirs exclusively.
“He walked through the crowd” — the shadow of the Cross had touched Him but this was not His time and, perhaps by a miracle of concealment, He was delivered.
Reflection
SUMMARY The heart of Jesus’ message is that He, standing before them, is the fulfilment of Isaiah 61 which He has just read. Without being more specific – which would open Him to a charge of blasphemy – the implication of His words is that He is the long-awaited Messiah and the servant of whom Isaiah spoke. That was a challenge to those who had seen Him grow up and learn His trade helping Joseph. Jesus had moved to Capernaum where He called people to repentance and established a following. Back in Nazareth, He was “Joseph’s son” and there wasn’t the same faith to see God move. The allusion to the rejection of God unbelieving Israel at the time of Elijah and Elisha brought to a head a resentment that was already simmering, and prompted an attempt to carry out an illegal lynching. But Jesus was delivered from the threat: His time had not yet come.
APPLICATION Jesus’ message and teaching can be brought down to three elements: a call to change our way of thinking, to recognise our need of Him, and to receive Him and His kingdom. That’s a big shift, and we may need to get angry, or at least very uncomfortable, before we start to turn.
QUESTION Have you heard a call to repentance in your church? What was the response?
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1 Corinthians 13:1-13 — Gifts are not about us but about God’s love
Spiritual gifts which come from God must not be paraded in an ungodly way
13 If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.
“Speak in the tongues” — people of the Corinth church talked about the gift of tongues a lot and treated it as a badge of spirituality. Following on from earlier discussion, Paul begins with this gift.
“Resounding…clanging” — probably allusions to Greek theatre. The point is, not using the gift to draw attention to oneself, but motivated to help others.
2-3 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
“If I give all” — charitable giving or suffering as a “good work” yields no spiritual gain.
4-7 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love does not” — the negative statements are linked to the self-seeking attitudes in Corinth that Paul’s letter addresses.
“It always… always” — emphatic statements which define the kind of love which is not self-seeking but willing to make sacrifice.
8-10 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears.
“Prophecies… will cease” — at the end of the age on the Lord’s return when there will be no need for spiritual impartations to give believers a channel for God’s grace to flow unaffected by the spiritual confusion and opposition of the world. Some have argued that it supports the belief that gifts ceased as the canon of Scripture was established, but “when completeness comes” needs to be understood by the “face to face” and “know fully” of the following verses.
11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
“As in a mirror” — the imperfect reflection of the then polished bronze mirrors. “Mirror” is also used for the word of God, 2 Cor. 3:18, James 1:23-25, contrasting the partial understanding of God it gives us, with seeing Him face to face when Jesus returns to fully establish His kingdom.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
“These three remain” — because unlike gifts, which are situational helps, these are eternal heavenly qualities. Faith is how we come to God, Hebrews 11:6, but it is love that gives us the capacity to imitate Him.
• For further study on faith, hope and love, compare Romans 5:1–5; Galatians 5:5–6; Ephesians 4:2–5; Colossians. 1:4–5; 1 Thessalonians 1:3; 5:8.
Reflection
SUMMARY Jeremiah was commissioned by God as His spokesperson to call the Jewish people of His time back to following God’s ways. Jesus appeared and revealed Himself as more than a prophet, God’s Son and Messiah, and His message to call people into the kingdom of God, personalised by His sacrificial love on the Cross, is now believed by billions. In the church people’s experience of Him meeting their needs through spiritual gifts continue to call people back to His love and His way. In this well-known passage Paul singles out four or five representative spiritual gifts and shows them to have significance only as specific reflections of the eternal power of God’s love.
APPLICATION The Bible’s salvation landscape shows a regular pattern: times when God and His people were one, and times when they were pulling apart. In every age, God raised up a prophet to call people back to Him — and finally His Son who is the Way. The role that God laid before Jeremiah, Jesus’ rejection by His own people in Nazareth, and lack of love in spiritual gifts illustrate our selfish tendency to pull against God’s desire for us to enjoy fellowship with Him. The call to return to God, to confess sin and independence and to pledge to walk closely with Him again, is an appeal we all need opportunity to respond to regularly.
QUESTION How does the thought that spiritual gifts are expressions and evidences of God’s unconditional love strike you? Should they be taught and practised more, or less?
PRAYER Father God, we all like sheep tend to go astray. We praise You for Your love as a Shepherd who calls us back to You. We, your church, have often put our desires above your mission and love for others. Help us, we ask, to be better at following Your plan — and helping others to be reconciled with You. In and through jesus we pray. Amen.
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There’s a print edition produced as a convenient Bible-size folder which you can download and copy from this link. Permission given to copy for home groups and other church discipling uses.
