You are listening to the place we find ourselves podcast. I'm Adam Young and today we are going to look at what can happen when Bible verses are used against you.

Sometime last year I was scrolling through Instagram and somebody asked their followers to share in the comments section quote any Bible verses that have been used against you.

The Instagram post was inviting people to write in the comments section stories of how Bible verses had been used against them and tons of people commented.

And as I began to read the comments as I began to read people's stories about how this Bible verse or that Bible verse had been used against them my heart sunk and my anger boiled.

In today's episode I want to address the verse that was mentioned most frequently in response to the question what Bible verses have been used against you far and away the most frequently mentioned verse was Jeremiah 17.9.

Jeremiah 17.9 says the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure who can understand it.

The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure now.

I love Jeremiah I love the book of Jeremiah we're going to talk about the verse in a minute but first let me just read you some of the comments that people made about how this verse had been used against them here's what people said about Jeremiah 17.9.

This verse ingrained in me that anything I wanted was actually bad and it taught me not to trust myself if my heart is deceitful above all things I can't trust myself that was one person another person wrote this verse was used to shut down my gut instinct every time.

Another response when I said I loved my girlfriend my parents used Jeremiah 17.9 to convince me I was wrong their argument was you might feel like you love your girlfriend but your heart is deceitful above all things so you shouldn't act on that feeling in your heart.

Another person wrote I spent the first three decades of my life being told that my heart was evil and untrustworthy someone else Jeremiah 17.9 taught me from a young age that my thoughts and desires couldn't be trusted and to never look within myself for answers.

Remember that to never look within myself for answers or a couple more someone else said this verse made me question every decision I ever made another person I spent so much money on therapy undoing Jeremiah 17.9 because I have absolutely no trust in my own feelings or intuition last one last one if my heart is deceitful above all things.

How am I supposed to make decisions? Okay look I could go on there were a lot but you get the point what is going on here Jeremiah 17.9 which says that the heart is deceitful above all things.

Okay this verse is often used to cause people to distrust their own feelings to disbelieve their own thoughts to question their own gut in short this verse is often used to do harm to people but let's take a look at Jeremiah 17.9 shall we let's just take a look at the text.

The first principle of rightly interpreting any particular verse of scripture is to read that verse in light of the overarching purpose of the book that it is from.

In other words you have to understand the purpose of the whole book of Jeremiah in order to correctly interpret any particular verse from Jeremiah.

So let me summarize the book of Jeremiah oh so briefly chapters one through 29 consist of Jeremiah declaring that Jerusalem will be conquered because of the sin of the people of Israel.

The sin of the Israelites is so bad in fact that God says he is going to create something new in the hearts of his people and this new creation that God is going to do is announced in Jeremiah 31.

It's spelled out really in chapters 30 to 33 but here's what the text says Jeremiah 31 verse 31 the time is coming to clear the Lord when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.

I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.

God promises to put his law in your mind and write it on your heart.

Yes, on your heart that same heart that Jeremiah said was deceitful above all things back in 179 and of course this promise of God is fulfilled in Jesus Christ and in the sending of the Holy Spirit.

...