Jer 31

31:26. Instead of mastering what is only a system of eschatology, why not master Jeremiah 31 instead! Instead of lifting a passage out of context, why not let a passage lift you up instead! Then after reading today's passage from Jeremiah in the One Year Bible, you yourself might get a good, pleasant sleep, like Jeremiah did (31:26)!

Of course, I'm referring to and mocking the desire to merely shove everything into an already-held system. Don't you also think the person should be pitied who gets through Jer 30:1 - 31:26 with no thrills about those told by God, "I have loved you with an everlasting love," but has all its sentences figured out in a system?

Ask those who start by saying "it can't mean ..." if, after saying what it can't mean, they could tell us what it does mean, commensurately so that there will be those who not "be dismayed" (30:10); that "the voices of those who celebrate" will not be few (30:19); that there will be "watchmen" who want to take a rather short trip to see ... the Lord! (31:6).

In any case, whatever system, we can all agree that most religions and philosophies try and get you to go from point A to point B, however defined. A very very few of them, comparatively, see point B arriving to where we are, all on His own.