Day 2 of 7
Seek the Welfare of the City
Exilic posture: engage without ownership
Scripture Readings
Today's Scripture
A letter arrives from God to his people — refugees in the capital city of their enemies.
Jeremiah 29:4-7 — "Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce... But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare."
1 Timothy 2:1-2 — "First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way."
The Big Idea
God's people in Babylon were not told to conquer the city or to hide from it. They were told to love it — to build, plant, pray, and work for its good, while staying clearly God's people. Exile is not just a punishment in the Bible. It becomes a posture: fully engaged in a society, never fully owned by it.
Reflection
A shocking letter to the losing side
To feel the force of Jeremiah 29, you have to remember who is reading it. Jerusalem has fallen. The temple is rubble. The exiles in Babylon have lost their homes, their nation, and in many cases their family members — to the very city they now live in. An exile is someone forced to live far from home. These people did not emigrate. They were dragged.
Meanwhile, popular preachers were promising a quick rescue: hang on, God will smash Babylon any day now. One of them, a prophet named Hananiah, put a date on it — within two years, he announced, the exile would be over. It was exactly what everyone wanted to hear, and it was false. Into that room comes Jeremiah's letter, and it says the opposite. Jeremiah 29:5 — "Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce." Settle in. You will be here for seventy years. Marry. Raise grandchildren. Stop waiting for Babylon to disappear, because God himself — notice the phrase "where I have sent you" — has an assignment for you inside it.
Then comes the sentence nobody saw coming. Jeremiah 29:7 — "Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare." Welfare here translates the Hebrew word shalom — peace, wholeness, things-as-they-should-be. Seek Babylon's shalom. Pray for the empire that burned your home. And notice the strange math: God ties their good to Babylon's good. If the city flourishes, the exiles flourish.
Not "seek its destruction." Not "keep your distance." Not "become Babylonians." A fourth way. An early Christian writer described believers living exactly this way in the Roman Empire:
"They dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners. As citizens, they share in all things with others, and yet endure all things as if foreigners. Every foreign land is to them as their native country, and every land of their birth as a land of strangers." — The Epistle to Diognetus (2nd century)
A sojourner is a temporary resident — someone passing through who still unpacks their bags. That is the posture: every land home, no land fully home.
Blessed to be a blessing
This was never a backup plan. It was the original job description for God's people. Genesis 12:2 — "I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing." God blesses Abraham's family so that blessing flows through them to everybody else. God's people exist for the sake of people who are not God's people yet.
The book of Proverbs assumes the city can feel the difference. Proverbs 11:10 — "When it goes well with the righteous, the city rejoices." When believers do their work honestly, raise kids well, and treat neighbors fairly, the whole town benefits — including the neighbors who never set foot in church. John Chrysostom, the great preacher of the early church, made this the very definition of mature faith:
"This is the rule of the most perfect Christianity, its most exact definition, its highest point: the seeking of the common good. For nothing can so make a man an imitator of Christ as caring for his neighbors." — John Chrysostom, Homilies on 1 Corinthians
Read that again slowly. Not the seeking of our good — the seeking of the common good, the good we share with everyone on the street. Chrysostom says nothing makes you look more like Christ.
The pattern runs through the whole Bible. Joseph served Pharaoh's Egypt with such wisdom that he saved it — and the surrounding nations — from famine. Esther risked her life inside the Persian palace. Daniel, whom we will meet again on day seven, became the most trusted adviser to the kings of two pagan empires. None of them confused the empire with the kingdom of God. All of them made the empire better because they were there.
Think of it like renting versus owning. A renter can love a house — repaint a room, plant tomatoes, fix the leaky faucet — while knowing the deed has someone else's name on it. Christians are renters in every nation. We never hold the deed, but we are the kind of tenants who leave the place better. When John Wesley was criticized for preaching outside official church boundaries, his answer became famous:
"I look upon all the world as my parish." — John Wesley, Journal
A parish is the neighborhood a pastor is responsible for. Wesley's point: there is no zip code where God's people are off duty.
Praying for kings you didn't choose
Now look at how Paul carries this into the New Testament. 1 Timothy 2:1-2 — pray "for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way." Here is the detail that should stop us: the emperor when Paul wrote this was Nero — a ruler who would soon be executing Christians, Paul included. Pray for that king.
Prayer for leaders is not endorsement. It is intercession — standing between someone and God, asking for their good. It is also exactly what Jesus commanded about everyone hard to love. Matthew 5:44 — "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." If we are told to pray for persecutors, praying for politicians we merely dislike should be well within reach. Here is a practical test: have you ever prayed, by name and without sarcasm, for a leader you voted against? It is nearly impossible to keep despising someone you are honestly asking God to bless. The prayer may or may not change the leader. It reliably changes the one praying. And Romans 12:18 sets the working rule for exiles everywhere: "If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all."
This does not make government ultimate. It makes government a calling — a real assignment from God, worthy of honest people. John Calvin, who is often pictured as caring only about churchy things, said something startling about public office:
"Civil authority is, in the sight of God, not only sacred and lawful, but the most sacred, and by far the most honourable, of all stations in mortal life." — John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion
So a Christian can serve in government, teach in a public school, or run a city department as a holy calling — without pretending the government is the kingdom of God. And from inside that engagement, the church keeps its own distinct voice. Martin Luther King Jr., writing from a jail cell, remembered when the church understood this:
"In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society." — Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail
A thermometer just reports the room's temperature. A thermostat changes it. Exiles who seek the city's shalom are thermostats — they do not simply match the culture's temperature, and they do not flee the room. They quietly change it.
The Exile who sought our welfare
Why would God's people live this generously toward a city that cost them so much? Because their God does.
People love to quote Jeremiah 29:11 — "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope." It shows up on mugs and graduation cards. But look where it actually sits: in this letter, spoken to people at the bottom, in the middle of the seventy years, in the city of their enemies. God's good plans run through Babylon, not around it. He did not love his people from a safe distance. He kept his promises inside their hardest place.
And then he came in person. Watch Jesus approaching the capital city that is about to kill him. Luke 19:41-42 — "And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, 'Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace!'" Stop and look at that. He is not weeping over a city that loves him. He is weeping over the city that will crucify him by Friday — and what breaks his heart is that it cannot see "the things that make for peace." Its shalom. He prays for it even from the cross: "Father, forgive them." Jesus is the true exile, who left his home city, moved into ours, sought our welfare at the cost of his own, and rose again to secure it forever. The gospel says it plainly: in his welfare we have found ours — which is Jeremiah 29:7 turned inside out and fulfilled.
That is where the power for Jeremiah 29 living comes from. We do not seek the city's good to earn God's favor; we do it because we already have it. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, writing from a prison cell in the middle of his own Babylon, drew the conclusion:
"The church is the church only when it exists for others." — Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison
A church that exists for itself — its comfort, its influence, its political wins — has stopped being what Jesus founded. A church that exists for its city looks like its Lord.
Going Deeper
Do one concrete thing for your city's shalom this week, and let it be ordinary. Learn the name of a neighbor you have only waved at. Pick up the trash on your street without telling anyone. Write a short note of thanks to a teacher, a nurse, or a local official — especially one outside your politics. Before you do it, pray Jeremiah 29:7 once: "Seek the welfare of the city." You are not fixing Babylon today. You are practicing loving it.
Key Quotes
“They dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners. As citizens, they share in all things with others, and yet endure all things as if foreigners. Every foreign land is to them as their native country, and every land of their birth as a land of strangers.”
“This is the rule of the most perfect Christianity, its most exact definition, its highest point: the seeking of the common good. For nothing can so make a man an imitator of Christ as caring for his neighbors.”
“I look upon all the world as my parish.”
“Civil authority is, in the sight of God, not only sacred and lawful, but the most sacred, and by far the most honourable, of all stations in mortal life.”
“In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society.”
“The church is the church only when it exists for others.”
Prayer Focus
Pray for your actual city or town today, by name. Ask God to bless its schools, its hospitals, its leaders — including the ones you would never vote for. Then ask him to show you one small way your presence could make some corner of it better this week.
Meditation
God told the exiles, 'In its welfare you will find your welfare' (Jeremiah 29:7). He tied their good to Babylon's good — the city of their enemies. Where has God tied your good to the good of people who do not share your faith?
Question for Discussion
Jeremiah told the exiles to seek Babylon's welfare — not to overthrow it, not to retreat from it, and not to blend into it. Which of those three wrong turns is your church, or your generation, most tempted by right now — and how can you tell?