Tag: Hosea

Scripture Focus: Hosea 10.12-13
12 Sow righteousness for yourselves, 
reap the fruit of unfailing love, 
and break up your unplowed ground; 
for it is time to seek the LORD, 
until he comes 
and showers his righteousness on you. 
13 But you have planted wickedness, 
you have reaped evil, 
you have eaten the fruit of deception.

Reflection: Confessing Idolatry—Guided Prayer
By John Tillman

During election week in 2020, we prayed this prayer from Hosea, seeking repentance, patience, peace, and faith. We return to this prayer today, knowing that idols can be adorned in the colors of any political party, candidate, or movement. Let us pray that we not adorn any “sacred stone” but Christ the rejected cornerstone.

Confessing Idolatry
God, Hosea tells us Israel built many places for worship, had many “sacred stones,” but their hearts were far from God.

As his land prospered, 
he adorned his sacred stones.
Their heart is deceitful, 
and now they must bear their guilt. 
The LORD will demolish their altars 
and destroy their sacred stones. — Hosea 10.2

Our hearts are deceitful, Lord. 
Point out our guilt and break down our idols.
Help us see and confess our sins, so similar.

Israel sought success and security by any means necessary, abandoning religious principles, while giving lip service to you, Lord. 
Help us see and confess our sins, so similar.

Israel committed destructive and bloody violence against their brothers and sisters. Injustice, civil wars, coups, and slaughters were the norm.
Help us see and confess our sins, so similar.

Then they will say, “We have no king 
because we did not revere the LORD. 
But even if we had a king, 
what could he do for us?”— Hosea 10.3

Israel hoped in king, after king, after king and you took them away.
Do not let us worship kings as idols.
Remove any leader (secular or sacred, local or national) we would give undue devotion to.

They make many promises, 
take false oaths 
and make agreements; 
therefore lawsuits spring up 
like poisonous weeds in a plowed field. — Hosea 10.3-4

Israel could not vote for kings, yet still shared in their guilt.
The poison of a leader’s deceitfulness infects the country, the people, the ground itself.
How much more, O God, are we complicit in the sins of those who we take part in electing?
Even if there were perfect leaders to choose from, what can earthly kings do for us, O God?

May we place our trust instead in our true and only king.
Who rode humbly on a donkey.
Who stooped low to wash feet.
Who walked to the cross.

It is time to seek the Lord.
Break our unplowed ground.
Sow into our lives your unfailing love
And pour your righteousness on us.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
I will bear witness that the Lord is righteous; I will praise the Name of the Lord Most High. — Psalm 7.18

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.


​Today’s Readings
Hosea 10 (Listen 2:47)
Matthew 13 (Listen 7:23)

Scripture Focus: Hosea 6.1-3
1 “Come, let us return to the Lord. 
He has torn us to pieces 
but he will heal us; 
he has injured us 
but he will bind up our wounds. 
2 After two days he will revive us; 
on the third day he will restore us, 
that we may live in his presence. 
3 Let us acknowledge the Lord; 
let us press on to acknowledge him. 
As surely as the sun rises, 
he will appear; 
he will come to us like the winter rains, 
like the spring rains that water the earth.” 

Reflection: Pain and Healing
By John Tillman

Hosea is famous (infamous?) because of the titillating detail that he married Gomer, a promiscuous woman. There are other sexual details in the text as well.

God is angered by idol worship that involves shrine prostitutes and sexual acts. He expresses concern for the illegitimate children born due to this activity. Hosea gives his own children names that imply that they are adulterously conceived. 

Hosea’s reconciliation forbids Gomer from prostitution, implying that she was a prostitute at one time. Hosea’s poetic analogies, comparing Gomer to Israel, reinforce this. At least one of Gomer’s sexual partners “loved” her. Was she a prostitute or just an adulteress? When did these things occur? Was she always unfaithful or did it develop? Was she sleeping with many men or just “loved by another man”? (Hosea 3.1)

Reading the Bible well includes becoming comfortable with some ambiguity. Obsessing over missing details isn’t the main point of studying the Bible. We can trust that the truths God has for us in his Word won’t be omitted details.

Salacious depictions of Gomer aren’t the point of Hosea. Gomer’s sexual sins only take center stage as a parable comparing idolatry to adultery. It isn’t that God isn’t concerned about sexual infidelity and sin, it is that those actions are symptoms of a deeper disease. Idolatry is the disease. Sexual infidelity was only one manifestation. 

Today, rumors of drug-fueled sex parties might catch headlines and distract us, but God sees little distinction between these alleged events and other expressions of idolatry. Israel worshiped idols promising financial wealth. Alliances formed through idol worship brought political power. When financial benefits, power, or political victories are on the line, do we kneel and kiss whatever ring we must kiss? How then are we different from Gomer?

God describes through Hosea the pain of cutting out the cancer of idolatry from the people he loved. Hosea shows how far God is willing to go to heal and restore. C.S. Lewis describes God’s love as “quite relentless in its determination that we shall be cured of those sins, at whatever cost to us, at whatever cost to Him.” God is committed to our healing and restoration. Call on him.

Lord, we have been unfaithful.
In pursuit of liberation, we are imprisoned.
In pursuit of power, we are oppressed.
In pursuit of thrills, we endure tedium.

May your Son set us free, indeed.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
Everyone will stand in awe and declare God’s deeds; they will recognize his works. — Psalm 64.9

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.


​Today’s Readings
Hosea 5-6 (Listen 3:44) 
Matthew 9 (Listen 4:56)

​This Weekend’s Readings
Hosea 7 (Listen 2:19), Matthew 10 (Listen 4:07)
Hosea 8 (Listen 1:58), Matthew 11 (Listen 5:06)

Read more about Love Stronger Than Death
The holy jealousy of God leads not to destruction but to redemption and salvation.

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Readers’ Choice Month:
This September, The Park Forum is looking back on readers’ selections of our most meaningful and helpful devotionals from the past 12 months. Thank you for your readership. This month is all about hearing from you. Submit a Readers’ Choice post today.

Today’s post was originally published, on October 30, 2020, based on Hosea 4.1-3
It was selected by reader, Casey.

Scripture Focus: Hosea 4.1-3
1 Hear the word of the Lord, you Israelites,
because the Lord has a charge to bring
against you who live in the land:
“There is no faithfulness, no love,
no acknowledgment of God in the land.
2 There is only cursing, lying and murder,
stealing and adultery;
they break all bounds,
and bloodshed follows bloodshed.
3 Because of this the land dries up,
and all who live in it waste away;
the beasts of the field, the birds in the sky
and the fish in the sea are swept away.

Reflection: The Sins Behind Sexual Sins—Readers’ Choice
By John Tillman

Gomer’s sexual sins of prostitution and adultery were not just an analogy for idolatry. The people of God were metaphorically and literally committing adultery and participating in prostitution as part of worshiping Ba’al. However, idolatry doesn’t have to involve sexual sin to cause similar damage.

When we read about sexual sins in the Bible, we need to take care not to automatically think of sexual sin as the only sin involved. Sometimes sexual sin is also a symptom or a tool of other sins.

The entire point of worshiping a fertility god or goddess in an agrarian economy is financial blessing. The sin behind the sexual sin was a desire to manipulate the economy. The blessing to be expected from Ba’al was a higher ROI.

Sex to gain power is a sin of lust, but it is a lust for power not for flesh. Sex in exchange for money or influence, likewise, is a sinful means to a sinful end. Sex to display power, such as rape or sexual harassment and abuse, is a sin of domination and control.

People commit today the exact same kind of sins as the Israelites who worshiped Ba’al in pursuit of better crops. When we are willing to kiss any ring, shake any hand, or endorse any person in order to gain power, get elected, make a deal, cut out a competitor, or monopolize an earning opportunity we are prostituting ourselves in lust whether or not there is sex involved. The Israelites attributed their profits and success to their efforts in worshiping Ba’al. We attribute our success to our “pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps.” It is the same sin of idolatry with a different object. 

Many times sexual sins are a symptom of other sins such as greed, selfishness, inequality, and oppression. Prostitution, adultery, and other sexual sins rise with poverty rates because the sins of greed and oppression create the circumstances under which women resort to prostitution and men seek dominance and control.

May we confess and weep over all our lusts, not just lusts of the flesh.
May we weep for our greed.
May we cry to be delivered from selfishness.
May we ache for healing for our addiction to power.
May we humble ourselves in repentance from our pride.
And, yes, may we turn in faithfulness toward a biblical sexual ethic that divorces sex from the abuses of sin.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Call to Prayer
Bless the Lord, you angels of his, you mighty ones who do his bidding, and hearken to the voice of his word.
Bless the Lord, all you his hosts, you ministers of his who do his will.
Bless the Lord, all you works of his, in all places of his dominion… — Psalm 103.20-22

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
Lamentations 1 (Listen 4:44) 
2 Corinthians 12 (Listen 3:54)

Readers’ Choice is Here!
Thanks for sharing with us your recommended posts from the last 12 months. We always enjoy hearing from you!

Read more about Prayers God Hates
The sin at the top of God’s list isn’t adultery or any sexual sin…it is systemic oppression of the most vulnerable members of society.