Tag: Hosea

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 highlight 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 Call to Prayer
Come, let us bow down, and bend the knee, and kneel before the Lord our Maker.
For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. Oh, that today you would harken to his voice! — Psalm 95.6-7

Today’s Readings
Hosea 5-6Listen – 3:44)
Psalm 135-136(Listen -4:23)

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

Read more about The Undeserved Banquet of the Gospel
Christ invites all to the banquet. We will surprise someone by being there, and be surprised in return.

Scripture Focus: Hosea 3.1-3
1 The Lord said to me, “Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another man and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes.” 
2 So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and about a homer and a lethek of barley. 3 Then I told her, “You are to live with me many days; you must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will behave the same way toward you.” 

Hosea 4.14
14 “I will not punish your daughters 
when they turn to prostitution, 
nor your daughters-in-law 
when they commit adultery, 
because the men themselves consort with harlots 
and sacrifice with shrine prostitutes— 
a people without understanding will come to ruin! 

Reflection: From Individuality to Mutuality
By John Tillman

It is sometimes difficult for us to understand the metaphor of faithfulness God is employing in Hosea’s story. How could we? Adultery is barely problematic in our culture.

We care about adultery when it happens to us or someone we love. We make a legal fuss about it. We sing vengeful songs about it. Collectively, however, we’ve basically come to expect and accept adultery. When both partners have remained faithful, we find it remarkable, unusual, worthy of celebration. 

It makes some Christians feel better to blame promiscuity and infidelity on “our culture” and the “sexual revolution,” but it’s not true. Rampant infidelity might feel new but people are only doing more openly today what they did in secret before. Sexual exploitation began with Cain’s descendant, Lamech, and never slowed down.

Like Lamech, today’s sexual priorities are individual satisfaction. “What I want, what I feel, what I desire, trumps all. If that means that you or I must betray and leave wife or husband, so be it. It is my right to sate my appetites, no matter what they are, no matter the cost.”

Gomer chased sexual appetites. Like many who have done so, she came to ruin (Hosea 4.14), finding only loneliness, abuse, and bondage. What Hosea offered Gomer, and what God offers us, is a loving relationship of mutuality to replace transactional relationships of selfish benefit.

Sexual exploitation pushes down the weak. God puts genders on equal ground again. He refuses to treat the women resorting to prostitution differently than the men abusing them. Hosea promises to behave towards his wife in the same way he expects her to behave towards him. It’s not a one-way street. 

Like the crowd in John 8.1-11, many voices accuse women of sexual wrongs while giving a pass to men. Righteousness is used to keep at a distance those we call “sinners.” 

Hosea uses righteousness differently. Instead of separating himself from Gomer, he goes to her. Instead of treating her as beneath him, damaged, or as a slave, he lifts her up, restores her, and sets her free. It is no accident that this is exactly how Jesus treats us in our sins. In Hebrew, Jesus and Hosea have names with the same shade of meaning. Both names tell us that God saves. Jesus is our Hosea, our “savior.” Jesus breaks the curse of Eden, restoring the possibility of mutuality, respect, and love.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
Purge me from my sin, and I shall be pure; wash me, and I shall be clean indeed. — Psalm 51.8
– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
Hosea 3-4Listen – 2:53)
Psalm 132-134(Listen -1:42)

Read more about A Chiaroscuro Parable
The names of Hosea’s children seem harsh yet God makes it clear that his purpose is to lovingly reverse the meanings of these names.

Read more about The Sins Behind Sexual Sins
Many times sexual sins are a symptom of other sins such as greed, selfishness, inequality, and oppression.

Scripture Focus: Hosea 12.6-8
6 But you must return to your God; 
maintain love and justice, 
and wait for your God always. 
7 The merchant uses dishonest scales 
and loves to defraud. 
8 Ephraim boasts, 
“I am very rich; I have become wealthy. 
With all my wealth they will not find in me 
any iniquity or sin.” 

Reflection: A Way Back for Strivers—Guided Prayer
By John Tillman

During this contentious election week in the United States, we are seeking repentance, patience, peace, and faith. We will pray for these things this week, using the scriptures from our reading plan. We will pray through the closing chapters of Hosea, today’s chapter being the twelfth.

A Way Back for Strivers
We, like Jacob, are born swindlers
Grasping for more than we deserve

The LORD has a charge to bring against Judah; 
he will punish Jacob according to his ways 
and repay him according to his deeds.– Hosea 12.2

We, like, Jacob, don’t deserve the new name you would bestow
We are still strivers who create strife

The merchant uses dishonest scales 
and loves to defraud. 
Ephraim boasts, 
“I am very rich; I have become wealthy. 
With all my wealth they will not find in me 
any iniquity or sin.”  — Hosea 12.7-8

As Israel lied to his father, deceived his brother, and cheated his relatives
We have lied, deceived, and cheated our brothers and sisters.

In the womb he grasped his brother’s heel; 
as a man he struggled with God. 
He struggled with the angel and overcame him; 
he wept and begged for his favor. 
He found him at Bethel 
and talked with him there— 
the LORD God Almighty, 
the LORD is his name!  — Hosea 12.3-5

Despite the depths we may sink to,
No matter what poisonous sin we commit
You make a way back for us
You allow us to find you

But you must return to your God; 
maintain love and justice, 
and wait for your God always. — Hosea 12.6

If we wrestle with you God, you will bless
If we weep to you God, you will dry our tears
If we will return to you, God, you will heal

Show us and help us share your love.
Give us your righteousness and make us instruments of establishing your justice.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Request for Presence
I call with my whole heart; answer me, O Lord, that I may keep your statutes.
Hear my voice, O Lord, according to your loving-kindness; according to your judgements, give me life. — Psalm 119.145 

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime by Phyllis Tickle

Today’s Readings
Hosea 12  (Listen – 1:51)
Psalm 135-136 (Listen – 4:23)

This Weekend’s Readings
Hosea 13  (Listen – 2:26), Psalm 137-138 (Listen – 2:13)
Hosea 14  (Listen – 1:39), Psalm 139 (Listen – 2:26)

Read more about Spiritual Markers
May they remind us that we must be equally reliant on God in the land of plenty as in the desert of barrenness.

Read more about Distrust of God and Fraud
It is the unbelief and contempt of heaven, which make men risk it for the poor commodities of this world.