What about Jeremiah 29:11?

From the desk of Dr. R. L. Taylor, Th.D., Bible Expositor & Teacher. We read, “For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope” (Jeremiah 29:11). What is the original intent of these words? During Jeremiah’s tenure as prophet, the kingdom of Judah was invaded by the kingdom of Babylon. Judah lost the war, and prominent citizens of Judah were taken into exile to live in the Babylonian empire. During this crisis, Jeremiah wrote to the exiles in Babylon, explaining that God had instructed them to settle into exile in Babylon for the time being (Jeremiah 29:4–7). Jeremiah said, in seventy years they would return to Jerusalem (29:10). It is in this context that Jeremiah delivered God’s promise that He had plans for the people of Judah to make them prosper (29:11). Jeremiah’s words were a needed reassurance for the exiles from Judah that God had not abandoned them to their Babylonian oppressors. Today, however, Jeremiah 29:11 has become a banner verse for many Christians seeking divine promises of future prosperity. The way Jeremiah 29:11 is used today raises significant questions not only about the interpretation of Jeremiah 29:11 but also about the propriety of using Scripture in ways that separate from the original intention of the text. When properly interpreting Scripture, it’s context must not be ignored because error and misuse is inevitable. Does context matter? Jeremiah was self-evidently directing a message to the exiles in Judah. He was not addressing modern Christians. Neither was he intending to provide inspiration to modern Christians to encourage them to believe that God had special plans for their lives! Indeed, it verges on the obscene to suggest that we ought to take Jeremiah’s words for the purpose of encouraging Christians to believe God had special plans for their lives. Jeremiah’s audience had lost a war and been deported in exile to a foreign land. Their friends and families had been annihilated. They faced the threat of total assimilation into an ungodly and foreign Babylonian culture and the loss of their own cultural identity. Be encouraged!