Part 1: A Letter to the Exiles — Lessons from Jeremiah 29:4–14
The Trap of American Escapism
God’s people must be rooted in their place, to act as agents of the Kingdom
“This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease.” — Jeremiah 29:4–6 (NIV)
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 they were ruled over by various nations over the course of history.
