When we want to turn our nation Godward, we can learn something from the prophet Jeremiah and the Jews living in Nineveh. 

The key thrust of Jeremiah 29 is Jeremiah’s exhortation to the Jews in Nineveh to build houses and live in them. Plant gardens and eat their produce and grow their families there. 

In so doing, they were, in effect, seeking the welfare of the city. There are three points of relevance for us today. 

1. The word “welfare” in our English Bibles

In Hebrew, the word is “shalom”. When we take shalom to mean only peace, where there is absence of conflict, we limit our understanding. 

Shalom is more than that. 

Shalom is peace in its fullness, which includes welfare, prosperity, wholeness, as well as the absence of hostility. Shalom is being whole, undivided, uninjured. 

Using negatives, we can say shalom is where there is nothing missing, nothing broken. Therefore, shalom includes salvation, being completed, being healed, being healthy, without sickness, disease or infirmity. 

Shalom is also to be realised with the whole community. We can describe it as the welfare of persons in community in the most comprehensive sense of existence. So shalom is not just about me being at peace, being whole, complete, healed and healthy, prosperous, abundantly blessed. But it is what should happen in the whole community we live in. 

2. Jeremiah’s picture of shalom as a community

Jeremiah says, for in its shalom, you will find your shalom. Wait a minute. In our minds, we generally understand that, for people to find shalom, they come to us in church, in our cells, our Bible study groups, attend our meetings. But the prophet tells God’s people that their shalom is to be found out there in the city. 

So, Christians in Singapore, we are to build our city-state by contributing to its wholeness, to immerse ourselves and permeate all of its life. 

Using New Testament language, we are the salt that transforms the environment we are in. We disinfect and cleanse what is not good for the whole community. We preserve what is best for all. We keep refining what is good to make it even better.

And in this process, with Jesus as the shalom, the whole community we live in will experience shalom. 

3. Jeremiah’s call to pray for the shalom of the city

Shalom is what God wants to become real for all who live here. We pray so that we may know God’s idea about what shalom means in reality for Singapore. 

We have to turn to the Lord in prayer, because we depend on His power to realise shalom together. Each of us has a place in the vast complexities as to how various communities flourish. Then we collaborate with those whose efforts, mixed with ours, bring about a better outcome in the specific areas we have been called to. 

We pray to Him because He is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think. And He does it not by pushing us around, but by working within us, His Spirit deeply and gently within us. 

Lord, show us, reveal to us and lead us even further to realise shalom for our city. In Jesus’ name, Amen. 

Reflect

1. What has the Holy Spirit revealed to you about the meaning of shalom? 

2. Why does God want His creation to experience His shalom? 

3. How is God challenging you to extend His shalom into your different communities?

Pray

1. Pray for ways to use our time, talent and treasure to bring shalom to our homes, our neighbourhoods, our schools, our community, our country. 

2. Do a prayer walk where you live, work and worship. As you pass schools, pray over the children. As you pass homes, pray over families. As you pass offices, pray over the marketplace. As you pass churches, pray over God’s people. As you pass government offices, pray for our leaders. As you pass strangers, pray for their welfare.

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