Part IV: A Letter to the Exiles — Lessons from Jeremiah 29:4–14
The Gift of Shalom
Hope in the midst of suffering
“For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart, I will let you find me, says the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.” — Jeremiah 29:11–14 (NRSV)
If the people of God understand themselves as an “exiled people” — a people who are not really of this world but foreigners from a distinctly different Kingdom — then the accounts of the early church in Acts would no longer be “over-spiritual” ideas but an ethic, a defining characteristic of who we are as a community.
For much of Israel’s history, they were forced to live in exile, no longer as a nation, a people no longer in their own land. Though some Hebrews returned to the promised land under Cyrus the Great, it would never return to its former glory. Thus, effectively they continued to live in exile in their own land as various nations…
