Why is there so much anger and violence in the Old Testament prophets?

Does it make you uncomfortable, too?

Hey, this is Shree at Bible Project.

In this episode, we open the scroll of Jeremiah,

an intense book that's really hard to stomach at times,

but it's here that we discover God's deep anguish over the consequences of sin.

There are many insightful truths to reflect on today.

Some might even surprise you, so stay tuned and listen in.

Hey everybody, this is Tim McEat at Bible Project.

And if you've ever tried reading through the Old Testament prophets,

my guess is that it was really challenging and for lots of reasons.

If the dense poetry and obscure imagery of the prophets isn't hard enough,

God seems to be angry a lot.

And the prophets themselves are just really intense people who are announcing catastrophe

on Israel and their ancient neighbors.

What is going on here?

There's a temptation for followers of Jesus to skim the prophetic books,

avoiding the emotional intensity and maybe just picking out their favorite parts.

But some of these biblical books are the ones that Jesus himself quoted most often in his own

teachings. Jesus often drew upon the language of the prophets to describe who he was and what

he was all about. And so if we really want to know Jesus, we need to know the prophets in all of

their intensity. And Jeremiah chapter 4 actually offers a great example. Jeremiah lived in Jerusalem

...