The pleas turn and return...
Illustration
The pleas "turn" and "return" are repeated time and again in these early oracles of Jeremiah addressed to a people looking for love and security in all the wrong places. In a time when security depended on the fertility of fields, flocks and families the worship of the gods and goddesses of fertility was an understandable seduction. These deities functioned as cosmic bell-hops. There is evidence that Yahweh was even converted into the image of a fertility deity. Well, it is still going on, isn't it? The TV preacher was promoting his great revelation, the Jacob Principal. He promised that if we just offered a tithe to God we would experience a profit. I called the 800 number. I asked the counselor who answered the phone, "Just how do I tithe, do I give to the poor or what?" "No, just send your offering to our ministries here." -- Kolsti
