It is the quintessential graduation verse. How many baccalaureate or commencement speeches have we heard with it quoted? And it is hard to find a graduation card that doesn’t reference it. (Trust me, I’ve looked. Hallmark likes this one too!) Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares Yahweh, plans for peace and not for calamity, to give you a future and a hope.”
Perhaps you are thinking, “What’s wrong with sharing this powerful promise with the youth today right as they are getting ready to embark on the world and face so many unforeseen challenges and struggles ahead? Don’t we want them to know that whatever their future holds God has a good plan for them in it not to harm them but to prosper them?” The problem is that most who read this verse take the “peace or prosperity” in it to mean a prosperous good life in their immediate future without any hardship or difficulty to come. (Literally, the word is “shalom” in Hebrew which refers to wholeness, completeness, or wellness. It has been the traditionally greeting of the Jews, wishing the person they are speaking to be healthy and well.) However, that is not what this verse is saying or implying at all. Hence why I include it in the category of “Inigo Montoya passages.” “You keep quoting that verse. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
I’m sure that Paul certainly wasn’t thinking of this verse when he discovered God’s plan for him to suffer much for Christ’s sake (Acts 9:16). That wouldn’t fit in very well with the peace or prosperity and no calamity or harm promised in it. Stephen would not have clung to this promise as he was being stoned (Acts 7). And Jim Elliot who died by the spears of the Waodani people in Ecuador in his attempt to share the gospel with them would have been greatly disappointed had this verse been in his graduation card and he took it the way many do today. In fact, many believers throughout history have experienced physical harm and persecution on account of their faith in Christ. A number like Paul, Stephen, and Jim have even been killed for their faith. None of them could conclude that God’s plan for their life on this earth was peace and prosperity.
As always, the remedy to misinterpreting and misapplying any passage of Scripture is to examine it in its context. Look to see how it connects to what both comes before the verse and after it. When we do that, it prevents us from running with a verse assuming that it means one thing when actually it does not. And when we examine this verse in its context, we discover that rather than young graduates being addressed, it is the people of Israel. And it is not at a commencement service where they will be celebrating the reception of their diplomas after years of hard work and study. It is in the midst of judgment from God for their many years of hard heartedness and wayward rebellion. They didn’t pass all of their tests but failed them. This verse is actually part of a letter the prophet Jeremiah wrote to the Jews who had been taken out of the land God had promised to give them and placed into exile in Babylon (29:1, 4). Things looked pretty bleak for them at that moment. They were being uprooted from their homes and forced to live in an unfamiliar place with people who did not speak their language and who worshiped false gods. The temple where their God would symbolically dwell with them would be destroyed. It became a time of apparent hopelessness and despair for the people. One of the psalms would later describe their attitude. “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and wept, when we remembered Zion. Upon the willows in the midst of it we hung our lyres. For there our captors asked us about the words of a song, and our tormentors asked joyfully, saying, ‘Sing for us one of the songs of Zion.’ How can we sing a song of Yahweh in a foreign land?” (Psalm 137:1-4).
It is with the backdrop of such a dark time they were entering into, God shows them light at the end of the tunnel with the words of this verse. God has not designed for this time of exile to last forever. It will be limited to just 70 years (Jeremiah 29:10). This will not be the end for God’s people. They can hold on to the hope that God has a good plan for them in the future following the judgment. He will bring them back to the land they were taken from. Ultimately, this will not be for their harm or calamity but for their peace and prosperity. That of course would be speaking in a small way of their return from exile to the promised land after those predetermined 70 years would be complete. However, I don’t think we can see that as exhausting this promise because the believing Jews of the remnant God has chosen to save have yet to have a time of complete peace or prosperity in their land. This means that it must point far forward to a much greater time yet to come for God’s people which now includes not only believing Jews but believing Gentiles as well (Ephesians 3:6; Galatians 3:29). The New Testament refers to believers in the church today as being in exile in a foreign land (Hebrews 11:13; 1 Peter 1:1; 2:11) with our true citizenship being in heaven (Philippians 3:20) and that real Promised Land as that of the new heavens and new earth yet future (1 Peter 1:4; 2 Peter 3:13; Revelation 21). So, the real prosperity or peace for God’s people promised in this verse will not be found in the here and now but in the age to come.
The verse certainly can be a promise for a graduate today IF he or she is in Christ by God’s grace alone through faith alone in Him alone. Don’t miss the fact that this promise is connected with the people seeking God through calling upon Him in worship and praying to Him (vv. 12-13). It will not apply and be a reality to those who later do not. It would not be a promise we would want to write in an unbeliever’s card who is not seeking after God at all. The graduate would also need to understand that it is not speaking of anyone’s future career, marriage, or family. It goes so much more beyond that being a promise and blessed hope for every believer of God’s great plans for us beyond the grave. Plans which we know are only fulfilled through Christ’s sinless life, sacrificial death, and victorious resurrection on our behalf. Praise God that He has such plans for our future in Christ! Plans for peace and not calamity! Plans to give us a future hope!
Love in Christ,
Pastor Lee
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