Jeremiah is often regarded as a Christ-figure, a prophet like Jesus, who suffered at the hands of his own people because he loved them enough to tell them the truth. A God-inspired man, fearlessly denouncing the religious laxity and social ills of his day, Jeremiah paid the price for his words. Tradition says that in 587 B.C., when the Babylonians conquered Jerusalem as Jeremiah had predicted, his own people murdered him.

The text we have before us is the call to ministry of the prophet Jeremiah in about 627 B.C., the 13th year of King Josiah's reign. From the beginning we notice that Jeremiah 1:4-10 dispels ministry illusions.

Illusions are false ideas. There are at least three false ideas about ministry which are dispelled in this Word of God about the call: that ministry is for priests al…