All of us have an issue with boasting. We do it every day—in our heads, in our hearts, and with our mouths. We too often boast in ourselves and in our gifts. Sadly, this disorder has often plagued God’s people.
When Jeremiah prophesied, the average Jew was convinced that Jerusalem was untouchable, and, by implication, so were they. Although they had watched the northern tribes be taken into exile because of their sin, they were convinced that it would not be so with the southern tribes, for they dwelled in YHWH’s chosen city. The Jews in Jerusalem boasted in their presumed safety and so lived lax lives riddled with sin.
The book of Jeremiah responds to such a situation. It is therefore unsurprisingly a book of judgment, calling the Jews in Jerusalem to wake up to their arrogance and hypocrisy. But this book of judgment is laced with hope. Both challenge and comfort are present in Jeremiah 9:23–24:
Thus says the LORD: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.”
The Problem of Misplaced Boasting
Observe three things.
First, the LORD does not dispute that there are, in fact, wise, strong, and wealthy people. Some people are wise. Some people are strong. Some people are wealthy. Everyone is endowed with abilities and resources, whether through common grace or the Spirit’s gifting. This is important to register. God gifts us in different ways. Wisdom, strength, and wealth (among others) are gifts God grants. We must acknowledge this, because to ignore it is to misunderstand the weight of what God says here.
Second, the warning of the LORD is not that people do not possess gifts, but that people so gifted should not boast in their gifts. We are to resist the temptation to boast in our gifts, as they are, after all, gifts given by God. The Hebrew term translated boast is the same term translated praise elsewhere, particularly throughout the Psalms. This offers a vivid image of what boasting is: singing your own praise.
Imagine gathering with the church on Sunday and singing with great gusto:
In Me alone my hope is found,
I am my light, my strength, my song
Our trust and boast should not be placed in ourselves or our gifts.
Third, boasting itself is not forbidden completely. But the object of our boasting is vitally important. The LORD invites us to boast in one key thing. Rather, one key person. Our boast should be that we know and understand God.
This is not a mere intellectual reality. This is a relational reality—it includes intellect, but also volition and emotion. Our boast is in knowing and understanding our God because of who he is. He is steadfast in his love, just, and righteous. Real wisdom, strength, and wealth are found in God. Knowing and understanding God is truly wise, formatively strengthening, and enormously wealthy.
What Is Your Boast?
What does this mean for us today? Well, it provokes a deeply penetrating question—what’s our boast? What’s your boast?
Do we boast in our wisdom, strength, and wealth? Do we boast in our academics, our ministry positions, and our bank balances? Do we boast in our experience, our authority, and our relational capital? Do we boast in any of the variety of gifts that God has given to us?
Such boasting is foolishness!
What we should and must boast in is that we know and understand God—that we’ve been delivered from darkness, redeemed from ruin, saved and sanctified. All our boast is in Jesus! Every gift, talent, and skill that the LORD has granted us must be utilized for boasting in our gracious God and Savior.
Paul evidently leans on these verses from Jeremiah as he writes to the church in Corinth:
For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” (1 Cor. 1:26–31)
D. A. Carson applies Paul’s words in this way: “Modern Western evangelicalism is deeply infected with the virus of triumphalism, and the resulting illness destroys humility, minimizes grace, and offers far too much homage to the money and influence and ‘wisdom’ of our day.”[1]
This is a devastatingly accurate summary of what we consistently witness transpiring in Christian celebrity culture. But it is also a devastatingly accurate summary of what transpires in my heart, and I presume yours too. What’s the issue? Our boast is in our gifts, not in the giver.
The gospel is the remedy to our twisted hearts, for through it we know our Lord. Sin is forgiven; new life is born. Through the gospel, Jesus becomes our brother, the new creation our home, and perfect righteousness our destiny.
The salvation we’ve experienced can be the joyous experience of others—if only we boast in the Lord and not in ourselves. If only all our boast is in Jesus.
[1] D.A. Carson, The Cross and Christian Ministry, p. 29