My son attends a Christian school, whose walls are adorned with Scriptures like this one:
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
-Jeremiah 29
It’s a nice, uplifting piece of Scripture.
My mother-in-law, who occasionally reads this blog (hi Sue) has a picture of bird houses, flower pots, and other crafts. Underlining the picture is a verse from the Torah,
For the LORD your God will bless you in all the work of your hands, and your joy will be complete.
-Deuteronomy 16
They are nice, uplifting verses. We find comfort in them.
While they’re uplifting, it’s important to understand that they were not intended to be used this way; they weren’t intended to be motivational tidbits to help gentiles get through the day. Let me show you what I mean and why that’s important.
Here is Jeremiah 29 in context:
This is what the LORD says: "When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you," declares the LORD, "and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you," declares the LORD, "and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile."
-Jeremiah 29
This prophecy is specifically to the House of Judah (that is, the southern Israelite nation comprised primary of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin). The nation of Judah was taken captive to Babylon for 70 years, and here Jeremiah is prophesying to those exiled Israelites that God will bring them out of captivity and prosper them.
This was not a promise to all young Christian school children that God would prosper them.
Looking at the other example, here is Deuteronomy 16 in context:
Celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles for seven days after you have gathered the produce of your threshing floor and your winepress. Be joyful at your Feast—you, your sons and daughters, your menservants and maidservants, and the Levites, the aliens, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns. For seven days celebrate the Feast to the LORD your God at the place the LORD will choose. For the LORD your God will bless you in all your harvest and in all the work of your hands, and your joy will be complete.
-Deuteronomy 16
Here we have a succinct commandment for Israel to keep Succot, God’s Feast of Tabernacles. If Israel does this, they’ll be blessed, God’s decree.
Some Christians have retrofitted this verse to mean, “Anything I work on, God will prosper, and I’ll be joyful as a result.” A nice sentiment, but ultimately an untrue statement. I mean, God doesn’t prosper everything you work on. Let’s be real here, guys, God doesn’t prosper the garden out in our front yard just because our precious hands worked on it.
Why it matters
Messianic Rabbi Derek Leman discusses the shocking Israel-centric nature of the Scriptures, saying,
Passages like [Jeremiah] gave rise to a problem of interpretation. When Jews brought the Bible to non-Jews confusion started very early. When a non-Jew reads his or her Bible it is with certainty that the everlasting love of God is for him or her too. So how do we interpret and teach these passages?
The common approach is to ignore the original intent. The love letter to Israel is appropriated by non-Israel. A pastor preaches Jeremiah 31:3 as God’s love for all. A youth pastor puts a poster of Jeremiah 29:11 on the wall. It’s a bit like stealing a line from someone else’s love letter and addressing it to yourself or to someone else.
So we’re stealing God’s love letters to Israel and making it address us Christians instead. Big deal?
Yes, it is. While the intent may be honorable – uplifting Christians in their walk with God – we must see this as a minute manifestation of replacement theology. (An anti-Jewish theology that states the Church and Christians have replaced or superseded Israel and the Jews as God’s people.) This form of Scriptural interpretation is doing exactly that: taking God’s promises and blessings, and replacing the intended recipient, Israel, with a new recipient, the Church and Christians.
What about the New Testament?
Were Messiah’s words only for Israel? This is a tough question, because he often spoke in generalities and parables that might be applied to anyone. For example, it would seem the Beatitudes in Matthew 5 are universal – blessed are the peacemakers, the meek, the merciful, those who are hungry for righteousness. On the other hand, if the beatitudes are universal, so is the Messiah’s commandment in 5:17 regarding keeping the Torah, meaning the Torah is applicable to all Christians.
It is my opinion that Messiah’s words were directed to Israel, with full knowledge that gentiles would be grafted-in.
And what about Paul, whose letters were almost entirely to gentiles. Paul talks about the “assembly”, often translated “church”. So surely he means Christians, right?
The answer is: yes, but not in the way we’d like to think.
Paul talks about believers in Messiah being part of Israel.
Remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called "uncircumcised" by those who call themselves "the circumcision" — remember that at that time you were separate from Messiah, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Messiah Yeshua you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Messiah.
-Paul, in his letter to the assembly at Ephesus
Stop and let that sink in for a moment. Part of Israel. A citizen of Israel, God’s people. You haven’t replaced Israel; Abraham’s physical descendants remain God’s vehicle for blessing the world. But now, with your faith in the God of Israel and its Messiah, you’re now joined to Israel. First-class citizen of Israel. First-class Israelite, even though you’re a gentile.
To underline this fact, Paul tells gentile Corinthians that the great Hebrew ancestors of old -- Moses, Abraham, Jacob -- are "our fathers", that is, fathers of both Jews and gentiles in Messiah.
Brothers, I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact that our forefathers were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Messiah.
-Paul, in his letter to the assembly in Corinth
Gentiles are joined to the commonwealth of Israel and share Israel’s heritage, as Paul says. Because of this, I believe gentiles can read these Israel-centric Scriptures to apply them to themselves, even as non-Jews who believe in Messiah.
However, there are conditions for these blessings so many wish to apply to themselves.
Too often, Christians read Scriptural blessings to Israel and apply it to themselves without considering the terms of the blessing.
In Deuteronomy 16, the condition was keeping God’s feasts.
In Jeremiah 29, the condition is throwing off the old ways and seeking the Lord.
In Psalm 1, the condition is delighting in the Torah.
With so many of these blessings contingent on keeping God’s commandments, it should not come as a surprise that the Church of our time is riddled with spiritual famine and abuse.
Gentiles should become Jews?
No, but we do desire Christians to live like they’re serving the God of Israel, rather than merely abiding within the boundaries of a religion that has traditionally distanced itself from, and even persecuted, Israel.
Gentiles who have found the Messiah of Israel have a place as citizens in the commonwealth of Israel. You can relate to all those things that happened to Israel, because you’re now joined to Israel, a citizen of God’s people Israel. Your forefathers crossed the Red Sea. Your ancestors were delivered out of Egypt. Your family has received the Torah from God’s finger. The God of Israel graciously pulled you from the downward-spiraling gentile world and gave you a shot at life, by grafting you into Israel and his ways – Torah – that lead to life.
Because Messiah has grafted you into the commonwealth of Israel, it’s no longer “God of their fathers”. Instead, it’s “My God, the God of my fathers, the God of Israel who brought us out of the land of Egypt and bondage.”