Teaser: In Jeremiah’s “Book of Consolation” the tone changes dramatically. Beyond judgment, beyond suffering, beyond lament, God describes a coming day of joyful restoration. Families will again flourish in a healed and verdant landscape. Most importantly, God will make a new covenant with his beloved people, a covenant written not on stone tablets, but on every person’s heart. The result? They will know the Lord like never before.

Key Words: restoration, Book of Consolation, grace, heart, covenant

Teaser: The exiles wanted a tidy us-and-them narrative: Judah good, Babylon bad. They wanted the Hollywood ending: a quick rescue and restoration to their homeland. But God had a different message for the exiles. Build homes. Raise your families. Find your own flourishing in the flourishing of . . . Babylon . . . the ancient and hated enemy. Turns out a missional God has a way of subverting us-and-them.

Teaser: What’s it feel like to be crushed between God’s commands and God’s disobedient people, ordered to deliver words that are tantamount to treason? With courageous honesty Jeremiah dares to confront God with the injustice of his calling—and God’s own part in it. Lament is the only language available when pious and easy answers fail, and Jeremiah models it for us with stark beauty.

Key Words: lament, anguish

Teaser: Judgment is excruciating . . . most of all to God himself. The punishment and consequences God must unleash break his heart, because his people’s brokenness and disobedience break his heart. Pathos is the only word for the depth of God’s anguish.

Key Words: anguish, judgment, pathos, balm

Teaser: Prophecy is so intensely urgent because it arrives at the urgent crossroads of life, where unpleasant truth must be spoken. God’s people have been walking a road to ruin, 180 degrees away from the blessing God intends. It’s decision time, and God’s love will do whatever it takes to get our attention.

Teaser: The word God asks Jeremiah to deliver is jarring and severe . . . it is the word of judgement. But with God judgement is never an end in itself; it’s a pathway—however painful—to the flourishing God intends for his beloved children. The ground has grown dry and barren, it’s plowing time!

Key words: fallow ground, circumcision, judgement, flourishing, grace

Theme: An exploration of what it means to be restored in our brokenness and our rough edges made smooth by the Divine Carpenter.

Key Words: grace, mercy, faith, love, sinner, patience, believe, eternal life

If as Immanuel deity itself took on human flesh, then in Christ (and only in Christ) human life itself is now imbued and penetrated with the divine. Human life is no longer simply human life. God has cast his lot with the flourishing and destiny of humanity, and that changes everything . . . especially the future.