Be not afraid of their faces

Be not afraid of their faces: for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord….

Thou therefore gird up thy loins, and arise, and speak unto them all that I command thee: be not dismayed at their faces, lest I confound thee before them. (Jeremiah 1:8, 17)

As part of the Sunday school lesson a few months ago in the reading of Jeremiah I noticed there were two repetitions of this idea that Jeremiah was not to be dismayed or afraid of the faces of his people.

What does this mean?  What is so scary about their faces?

I realized Jeremiah was worried about how the people would respond to his words, and he was very sensitive to the expressions on people’s faces as an indicator of how they were receiving (or rejecting) his message.  Since his people were very wicked, their response would be opposite of what it should be, and if he was to go by their response, he would be quickly silenced.

We likewise should not be afraid of people’s facial expressions as we share truths.