Transcript
Host (0:00)
Welcome to A Year in the Bible with daily grace. This year, we want to spend a few minutes with you every day walking through our study, Christ in All of Scripture. Each week we will dive deeply into two passages of scripture, one from the Old Testament and one from the new, seeing how they connect and point to Jesus.
Producer/Outro Host (0:17)
Whether you are doing the study yourself or just following along with us here, we are hopeful that through studying these passages each week, you will see how Christ is not only present throughout the entire biblical story, but but the center of it.
Beth (0:31)
Hi, everyone. Welcome to A Year in the Bible. My name is Beth and I am here with my co host, Alexa.
Alexa (0:36)
Hey, friends. Today we're going deeper into the passage we annotated yesterday, Jeremiah 31, 31, 34. We'll be looking at the context of this passage and talk more about what it teaches us about God's character. So Beth, can you help us understand where this passage fits in the overall biblical story?
Beth (0:54)
Yes. So we have moved out of Isaiah and into Jeremiah. But like all of the prophets, the messages of these books, Isaiah and Jeremiah, are actually pretty similar. Jeremiah lived right on the cusp of Judah's exile into Babylon. And so he saw the kingdom fall. He saw the temple be destroyed, the people be killed and exiled. And he also saw the disobedience and idolatry of the people that actually led them to their exile. And so the book of Jeremiah is a collection of prophecies telling the people why they are in exile and essentially telling them to get comfortable in Babylon because their exile will last a very long time. But in the midst of all of this bad news that Jeremiah is delivering, he's also proclaiming messages of hope. And so their exile would be long, but it would end eventually. They were disobedient and broke God's covenant, but God would eventually make a new covenant with them that could not be broken.
Alexa (1:45)
Yeah, the prophets can be a little tough because of their continual discussion of judgment. But it's always encouraging to see how God also provides hope. So thanks for pointing out the hope that we see in Jeremiah. Could you say a little bit more about the new covenant God would make and why it's necessary?
Beth (2:02)
Yeah, so that's super important. The old covenant that is being talked about here is the one that God made with this generation of Israelites ancestors. It's the Mosaic covenant, which is the covenant that God made with the people when he delivered them from Egypt and gave them the Ten Commandments and the rest of the law. He told them that if they keep these laws and worship him alone. They would be his people and he would be their God. But. But Israel was never able to actually keep up their end of the deal. The rest of the Old Testament story, after they were delivered from Egypt, is basically just story after story of them breaking God's laws and worshiping other gods again and again until they are finally sent into exile. So the people listening to Jeremiah likely thought hope was lost. The promise of being God's people seemed totally out of reach to them because they could just not be obedient. Sin was too deeply rooted in their hearts. But here God is saying that he would make a new covenant. Yes, the old one had been broken and there was no hope of them ever being able to keep it. But now he promises to not just tell them the law, but to write it on their hearts. And this is why the passage ends with the promise to forgive sin. They would be given a fresh start. The end result of the covenants is the same. God would be their God and they would be his people. But this new covenant guarantees obedience that the old covenant could not deliver.