My Thoughts on Jeremiah 6:16 or the Ancient Paths for a Badly Needed Old-Fashioned Revival
Jeremiah 6:16 has one verse often used by preachers to call for an old-fashioned revival. The world tends to say that the world is "old-fashioned" because of its refusal to adhere to modernistic lies. I'm not saying that modernization is a bad thing. What I want to emphasize is that modernistic preachers are dangerous. It would be a good thing for a church to embrace new technology but not to sacrifice old-fashioned Christian values in accepting them. It's good for a church to accept technology like using Microsoft Powerpoint, digital censorship to filter out unsavory sites from the Internet in the church grounds, use a powerful ventilation system, to provide temperature checks as some churches re-open (limited) during this pandemic, and other new technology. What a church should not do is to embrace modernistic heresies or any heresy that defies the old-fashioned or timeless values that the Church must abide on from the Bible.
The problem in Jeremiah 6:16 is the people deviated from the old paths. Other versions of the Bible use the word ancient. The old paths of the patriarchs were abandoned. They felt that they needed to be contemporary in their values. The old paths in Jeremiah are described to be where the good way is and to walk in it. It would be the old paths of the heroes of the Old Testament such as Abel, Seth, Noah, Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, and David. Jeremiah's setting happened after the downfall of righteous Josiah - a righteous king who failed to raise good sons. The days of Jeremiah were characterized by severe apostasy and faithful Jews who were doing nearly nothing about it. This was probably why Daniel and his friends were also carried over to Babylon. Daniel and his friends were probably backslid at that then though they displayed their faith in Babylon to such a great degree.
The people refused to walk in these paths because they were "old-fashioned". The Hebrew word used for old or ancient is olam meaning always or eternal. The Brown-Driver-Briggs' definition is stating of long duration, antiquity, futurity, forever, ever, everlasting, evermore, perpetual, old, ancient, world. In short, these old paths are actually not meant to be old or worn out. An old person is worn out and won't last forever. However, these old paths or olam paths are eternal paths. Another Hebrew world for old is bane which refers to age. The Hebrew word for old age is zawkane or withered. I think a better translation for old paths or ancient paths would be timeless paths. Though it seems that the translators used either old or ancient because these paths were set by God for time immemorial. Unlike the human body, these truths are timeless. The human body may be subjected to decay, live long enough and you'll be an old person (and become too old and you'll inevitably die no matter how active or healthy you are in your old age) while the truths of God and His ways are olam or perpetual.
The verse preceding it (Jeremiah 6:15) speaks the sad truth that people were not ashamed to commit an abomination. Such people had departed from God's ancient path of righteousness for the contemporary wickedness of their time. The reforms that Josiah placed during his reign were radically reversed by his sons Jehoiakim and Zedekiah. Jehoiachin was cursed as a result of mocking God's Word by slicing down the pages of a sacred text (Jeremiah 22:28-30). The people forgot the ways that God taught their ancestors and went after the contemporary wickedness. It's not a command to reject modernization but to reject any contemporary wickedness. In today's application, we may accept modernization but we should keep old-fashioned values intact at the same time. That's what it means to walk in those ancient paths or the good way.
I believe a lot of churches today need a good old-fashioned revival. That is it's time to examine those timeless values. We need to dig back to the Bible - the very ancient textbook that remains relevant from time to time. New inventions today may become obsolete. The Word of God is the ancient standard that remains true and relevant in today's modern society. It's ancient knowledge that will never be obsolete. The proof is that the printing of Bibles have gone through many modern changes while the truth has never changed. You may have an electronic Bible or a Bible printed by modern technology - the same truth still remains even in the midst of modernization. Want the old paths of righteousness? Go back to the Bible and its basics!
Soli Deo Gloria!
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