Jeremiah had an unenviable task. Called by God at a young age, he was given the assignment of a doomsday prophet to a rebellious Israel. For centuries—ever since they shifted from a theocracy to a monarchy—God's nation battled disobedience to God's law. And now, the day of reckoning would come. God needed to purge his people, beginning with a Babylonian invasion.
A military campaign against Israel was nothing new, but Jeremiah introduced a concept many struggled to receive. This time, no matter how loudly they protested, repented, or revived, they would lose the battle and be forced into at least seventy years of captivity. When Jeremiah started with that message, false prophets responded in droves. This cannot be, they said, God loves us and will destroy the Babylonians.
But Jeremiah's words stood the test of time—everything he predicted came to pass. The people of Israel were forced into captivity. The people of Israel were—after seventy years—released. All as Jeremiah had said.
And before the invasion he predicted came, Jeremiah had counsel for God's people. He told them how they ought to live once in Babylon. His directives instruct modern believers trying to live out their citizenship in Christ's kingdom inside the kingdom of man. The way Jeremiah told them to do their exile is the way we should live. Leaving Israel to go to the world's cities was a new concept for God's people in Jeremiah's time, but not ours. From the book of Acts onward, Christians have always rushed into cultures, living out the Lordship of Christ in their day-to-day lives. So how did Jeremiah tell his generation to live?
1. Know God Sent You There
“Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon...” (Jeremiah 29:4, ESV)
First, Jeremiah told them God sent them there. God took credit for sending them to Babylon. They needed to know they weren't—even for a moment—outside the confines of his sovereign will while there. God had put them in that place. And believers today are helped when they accept God's sovereign direction for their lives. As long as we try to escape, as long as we believe the grass is greener on the other side, we will struggle to be the church God wants us to be. But if we accept the location we are in as God's providential hand of guidance, we will have taken the first step towards revival.
Not everyone will be able to embrace this attitude—and some will only embrace it temporarily. We aren't Israel in Babylon, after all—we have no seventy-year mandate. We should not feel bound to any one location in our free society. But we should also not turn our freedom of choice into perpetual daydreaming about life elsewhere. In his appropriately titled Paradox Of Choice, psychologist Barry Schwartz demonstrates how an overabundance of options can lead to harmful effects like increased anxiety and dissatisfaction. If we are not careful, we can miss what God is doing today because we are taxing our minds with where to go tomorrow. Instead, we should embrace our cities as Christ embraces us—with all our flaws and imperfections, Jesus works to make us better, and we can do the same for the places we live.
2. Establish Community There
“Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease.” (Jeremiah 29:5–6, ESV)
Second, Jeremiah told them to establish a community there. They were to put down roots—houses and businesses, marriage and children. This was all long-range stuff. God told them to marry, have kids, and then watch those kids have their own kids. For multiple generations, they were to make Babylon their home.
In our day, there is a new wrinkle to this exhortation to establish community. In Israel's day, they mainly increased through marriage and birth, but the church grows through evangelism and discipleship. In his book, Center Church, Tim Keller calls Israel's mission centripetal, but the church's mission becomes centrifugal—we spend less time drawing in and more time going out. Still, especially through our church families, we are to establish roots within our communities. To me, this is the only way we will survive. Without a strong church community, Christians will struggle to navigate the culture well. It is not necessarily big and programmatic churches that we need, but relational and biblical ones. When the people of a church live together, enjoy one another, and help guide each other, they are strengthened for life in Babylon.
But all this takes time and prioritization. Many believers are too busy for meaningful church community and are relegated to less fulfilling connections. The pace of our culture can be a significant obstacle to establishing Christian community, but we must do what we can to live counter-culturally and force the issue.
3. Bless Your City
“But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” (Jeremiah 29:7, ESV)
Third, Jeremiah told them to bless their new city, Babylon. This is no insignificant statement, especially for anyone who has followed Babylon's trajectory throughout the Bible. From Genesis to Revelation, Babylon (or Babel) is representative of a culture apart from and opposed to God. Yet, during exile, God's people were to seek its well-being and intercede for it before God.
While this might be surprising when one considers the overall tone of the Bible towards Babylon, it is less shocking once you consider the gospel. God loves the people of the world. Cities have lots of people. Babylon was a city. So it makes sense that the same heart that originated the gospel would also give this commission. Bless your city. Pray for your city. These actions are in line with the gospel.
Our response to the cross should lead us to care for people in practical ways. Jesus came ready to do work for the people on the fringes, and so should his church. As we do good things for our communities, coupling our deeds with our prayers, God is pleased because it expresses his heart.
4. Reject Anti-Exile Messengers
“For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are among you deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams that they dream, for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name; I did not send them, declares the LORD.” (Jeremiah 29:8–9, ESV)
Fourth (and last), Jeremiah told them to reject anti-exile messengers. Because Jeremiah's message of invasion followed by a long captivity was not easy for people to receive—because he did not heal the people lightly—many false prophets and teachers arose. People were looking for another way, and these false teachers were willing to give it to them, even if it proved to be a lie. They told the people they would not experience captivity, that Israel would eventually defeat the enemy, and that Jerusalem (not Babylon) would be the city they would inhabit.
And just as the people in Jeremiah's day needed to reject anti-exile messengers, so do we. Our airwaves, Wi-Fi signals, and podcast stores are filled with them.
They tell us to fight. It's time to arm up. Forget the way of Jesus and take up the way of Herod. Or Caesar. Or Alexander. Or Nebuchadnezzar.
Or they tell us to flee. Run for the hills! Create the commune! Develop the monastery! Ride it all out and wait for the day society accepts you again.
Or they tell us to conform. Don't be so biblical. Let culture define your views. Sand down the hard or strange or confusing edges of Christianity.
We must reject these anti-exile messengers, these bombastic peddlers of division, these megaphones of compromise, who are using our fears to build their following and our anxieties to improve their analytics. Turn them off. As God said, "It is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name; I did not send them."
I pray God would give us increased wisdom to live out the commission Jeremiah gave to his generation in ours. Let us be a people who figure out—more and more—how to be in the world without being of it. Let us flourish as sojourners and pilgrims, aliens in a host culture. It is challenging, but with God's grace, we can.
