Tag Archives: Hosea 1-3:5

December 5, 2014 Bible Study

For today, One Year Bible Online links here. Christmas is coming soon. Let us remember what it is truly about, the birth of Jesus Christ. Let us strive to not be caught up in the commercialism which is what this season is about for many in our society today.

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Proverbs 29:5-8

    When you flatter your friends (and in this context, “flatter” means telling them good things about themselves that are not true) you are setting them up for devastating failure.
    The evil will allow their desire to sin lead them into a trap. The righteous, who reject the sin, will avoid the trap completely, shouting for joy at their good fortune. The godly care about the poor, not only do they care about the poor, but they care about their rights. The wicked do not care about anyone but themselves, and their actions reflect it.
    The last of these proverbs reminds me of what is going on in Ferguson, MO. There are agitators stirring up trouble there. The proverb writer tells us that they are mockers and fools. If they were wise, as they would have us believe, they would be calming things down, not stirring them up.

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Psalm 124:1-8

    This psalm reminds me to look at my life and think about what could have been. When I look at my life, where would I be if God had not been on my side? If He had not been looking out for me? It would not have taken much to be different for things to be much worse. I made plenty of bad decisions over the years, but none of them turned out quite as bad as they could have, or as I deserved. If God had not been on my side, the suffering in my life would have been much worse. I thank and praise God for all He has done for me.

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1 John 5:1-21

    This passage starts out with what, at first, appears to be circular reasoning. If we love God, we will love His children and we demonstrate that we love His children by loving God and obeying His commands. However, some thought reveals that there is an important point here. It is not enough to obey God’s commands and it is easy to say that we love God. We need to demonstrate that love by our actions towards our fellow believers, who are God’s children. However, John wants us to understand that we cannot truly love our fellow believers without believing in and loving God. John is addressing both those who want to make Christianity purely about a one on one relationship with God and those who want to make it purely about a relationship with the “Body of believers” (quotes used because this latter group does not actually believe).
    John changes subject slightly as he concludes this letter. However, here again John expresses what at first appears to be circular reasoning. If we ask God that He do His will, He will do as we ask. However, it is more a matter of knowing that as we seek His will, He will listen to our prayers and give us what we want. However, God will not give us what we ask for if what we are asking for will cause us to become less in love with Him.
    I am finding it hard to get this to come out right. So, I will use an illustration. If we ask God for a shiny new car, but if we get that car we will start to value that car more than doing God’s will, God will not give us that shiny new car. On the other hand, if we ask God for a new car so that we can use it to something that it is His will that we do and we will be better able to do that with a luxury vehicle, God will give us a luxury vehicle.

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Hosea 1-3:5

    Hosea married a prostitute/promiscuous woman. The passage tells us that God instructed him to do so. I do not know if God told him to marry a specific woman who was promiscuous, or if he was supposed to seek one out to marry. I don’t think it matters for the point of this passage, but I have always wondered. Every time I read, or hear, this passage I feel sorry for Hosea’s children. What terrible names to go through life with.
    Through Hosea God told the people of the Northern Kingdom, Israel, that they were not His people. Yet the day will come when they will once more be God’s people. The interesting thing I noticed is that although Hosea was speaking against the Kingdom of Israel, not the Kingdom of Judah, he tells us that the people of Judah will go into exile as well as the people of Israel. We find this out when Hosea says that the people of Israel will reunite with the people of Judah, and together they will return from exile.
    The key element of today’s passage is when God tells Hosea to go and love his wife once more, even though she was committing adultery. This is to illustrate that God will take back the people of Israel even though they worship other gods. I believe that it represents how God will continue to love us even though we sin and worship things other than Him.

December 5, 2013 Bible Study — What If God Had Not Been On My Side?

     I am using One Year Bible Online for my daily Bible study. For today, One Year Bible Online links here. I have found that by writing this daily blog of what I see when I read these scriptures, I get more out of them. I hope that by posting these ruminations others may get some benefit as well. In order to make that possible I read the passages and write my thoughts a day in advance. If you have any thoughts or comments regarding these verses or what I have written about them, please post them.

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Hosea 1-3:5

     God gave Hosea a difficult ministry. He started by instructing Hosea to marry a prostitute. Hosea’s wife had three children. One God told him to name for a valley where the power of the Kingdom of Israel would be broken. The second and third he was to name, “Not-loved” and “Not-my-people”. These names were a message to the people of the Northern Kingdom, the Kingdom of Israel. God was telling them that He would no longer love them above other peoples and that they were no longer His people. Yet despite all of this, Hosea prophesied that the people of Israel would multiply until they were like the sand on the seashore. Then, in God’s time, He would call them back and they would be called the children of the living God.
     Hosea prophesied that the day would come when all of God’s people would be united under one ruler. Today we are the children of the living God and tremble in awe of the Lord and His goodness. I am in awe of the good things God has done. He has brought the people of Israel back to the land He gave to Abraham. He has called people of every tribe and nation to be His children. I will praise God every day.

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1 John 5:1-21

     If we believe that Jesus is God’s anointed One, we have become God’s children. If we truly love God, we will also love all of God’s children. If we truly love God’s children, we will love God and obey His commands. Jesus came by water (baptism) and blood (dying on the cross). In addition, God’s Spirit testifies to the truth of Jesus’ life, ministry, death, and resurrection. God Himself testifies about the pivotal role of Jesus in the salvation He is offering us. Those who believe in Jesus believe God. Those who claim that Jesus never lived, or was just a man, and/or did not rise from the dead are calling God a liar. If we accept Jesus as the Son of God, we will know in our hearts that this is all true. I cannot prove to you that God exists or that Jesus lived, died, and rose again. That is something you will have to accept on faith. However, if you do accept it on faith, before very long, you will not just believe it to be true, but you will KNOW it to be true.
     John then tells us something about prayer similar to what James had said. He tells us that we can have confidence that if we ask God for something in order to fulfill God’s will, God will hear our prayer. And if God hears our prayer, He will give us what we ask for. The key here is that we cannot be asking in order to bring glory to ourselves or for our own pleasure. Rather we need to be asking in order to carry out God’s will. As we come to love God more and more, carrying out God’s will will bring greater pleasure to us than anything else we can imagine. Carrying out God’s will will bring greater pleasure to us than anything we could have experienced before we came to this understanding. John concludes this letter by reminding us to keep as much distance as possible between ourselves and anything that might take God’s place in our hearts.

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Psalm 124:1-8

     This psalm reminds me to look at my life and the difficulties I have faced and think about how bad they would have been if God had not been on my side. If God had not been on my side, my troubles would long since have overwhelmed me. To some degree my troubles were less than they could have been because of the personality traits which I have as a result of my faith in God, but to a significant degree, I was saved by divine intervention. I will praise God for all He has done for me and will remember how much worse my life would have been without God on my side.

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Proverbs 29:5-8

     Flattering someone is setting them up for failure (flattery is not just complimenting someone. It is telling them that they are better than they truly are). The wicked are trapped by sin and do not even know it. The righteous recognize sin for the trap it is and rejoice when they escape from it. Someone who lies, cheats, and in other ways shows that they have no morals is lying when they say that they care about justice for the poor because they care for nothing but themselves. On the other hand, those who value honesty and integrity above all else, will fight for justice for the poor because without justice for the poor, there is no justice for anyone. Mockers can get people angry and looking for change, but the wise calm people down and get them to work together to make things better.

December 5, 2012 Bible Study

     I am using One Year Bible Online for my daily Bible study. For today, One Year Bible Online links here. I have found that by writing this daily blog of what I see when I read these scriptures, I get more out of them. I hope that by posting these ruminations others may get some benefit as well. If you have any thoughts or comments regarding these verses or what I have written about them, please post them. I hope that the Spirit is moving in others through these posts as the Spirit has definitely been convicting me.

Sharing God’s Plenty

Hosea 1-3:5

     Today I begin reading the book of Hosea, which starts with Hosea being given a very heartbreaking instruction by God. Hosea is told to go and marry a prostitute. He is to marry a woman that he knows is going to be unfaithful to him. God gives Hosea instructions on what to name his children. His first born he is told to name Jezreel to indicate that God is going to bring judgment against Israel (the Northern Kingdom) for an atrocity committed at Jezreel. God is going to bring this judgment to bear in the Jezreel valley. When his wife becomes pregnant again, Hosea is told to name this child “Not Loved” (what a poor child to go through life with that name) because God was going to stop showing love to Israel, although He would continue to show love to the Kingdom of Judah. Finally, Hosea is told to name his second son “Not My People” (another child for whom I feel sorry) because God declared that the people of Israel were not His people any longer. However, this is followed up by a prophecy that the day would come when God would once again call the people of Israel His people. He would reunite the people of Israel and of Judah into one people. They would be called the children of the living God. It would be a day of rejoicing when God planted His people once more in His land.
     Through Hosea God tells Israel that He will strand her in a desert place with no food, clothing or water. When this happens, she will run after the other things that she had worshiped in place of God in order to obtain life’s necessities and pleasures, but God will block her path. Then, and only then, will she turn back to God. She did not realize that the good things she had that she sacrificed to other gods were gifts from the only true God. As a result God was going to take those things from her and turn her out into the desert to experience privation and suffering. But God was going to win her back. The day would come when God would woo His people back and they would no longer view themselves as His slave, but as His wife. They would no longer seek after other gods. In that day, God would grant them peace and call those who He had said were not His people His people.
     I read Hosea’s indictment of Israel and it reminds me of Christians in the U.S.(and most of Western Civilization). God gave us wealth beyond imagining. Instead of using it to glorify God (there are notable exceptions to this), all too many of us used this wealth for our own pleasure. We began to act as if we were entitled to it. We put ourselves in place of God and used the gifts He had given us to honor ourselves. If we do not turn from our idolatry, God will take His gifts from us. But He promises that He will woo us back, that He will show us His love even as we experience the desert of privation and suffering. Let us turn to Him now so that we may show the world the goodness of the Lord and help fulfill this prophecy that people will tremble in awe of the Lord’s goodness.

Fellowship After Worship

1 John 5:1-21

     Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ (Anointed One) has become a child of God. If we are children of God, then we will love God our Father. If we love the Father, then we will love His children. We can know that we love God and His children if we obey His commands. Jesus was revealed as God’s Son by both His baptism (water) and His death (blood). In addition, the Holy Spirit confirms this. So we have three things which testify to Jesus as the Anointed One of God, water, blood and spirit. Those who believe in Jesus as the Son of God acknowledge this testimony, while those who deny that Jesus is the Son of God are calling God a liar. It is God Himself who is testifying that Jesus is His Son through these three things, spirit, water and blood.
     We may know that we have eternal life if we love God. And we know that we love God if we love our fellow believers. We know we love our fellow believers if we act to meet their needs. When did I last act to show my love for my fellow believers? I know the answer to that question and it is long enough ago to convict me that waiting for such an opportunity to come into my path is not enough. I need to seek a way to show my love of my fellow believers and of my fellow man.
     John has three themes in this short letter. The first two are closely related. They are that we are to love one another and that if we love one another it will show in our actions. Love is not passive, it leads to actions. Love causes us not only to want what is best for the one we love, but to act so that they will have that which is best for them. The third theme is that those who have been saved and become God’s children do not make it a practice of sinning. If we are truly God’s children we will not make plans to do that which we know to be wrong.

More Fellowship After Worship

Psalm 124:1-8

     Today’s psalm encourages us to think about what our life would have been like if God had not been on our side. Think of all of the ways in which we could have been overwhelmed by the troubles we have faced in this life. I remember my Dad talking about events from his younger years (in particular a girl he dated before he met my Mom) and saying, “But for the grace of God.” He rarely ever completely said what he thought might have happened if it were not for God’s grace but it was clear that he did not know why he did not make a decision that looking back he realized would have been a very bad decision. I see that in my own life. I look back and see times where I do not know why I did not make the choice that would have led to disaster, or where I made a choice that should have led to disaster but circumstances beyond my control intervened to deflect my life from a course of woe. Times that I look back on and think, “There, but for the grace of God.” Satan has laid traps for my feet, but even when I took my eyes off of God, God has been faithful and broken those traps in order to set me free. I will praise the Lord and tell the world that my help is from the Lord.

Zach holding Zach-Zach(Isaac Zachary)

Proverbs 29:5-8

     If we flatter our friends, we may lead them to believe they are more talented than they truly are which may lead them to take actions that will lead to their humiliation or worse. Evil people think they are freer than those who do good, but they are instead trapped by their sin. The righteous on the other hand are freed from the trap of sin and for this they rejoice. The godly care about the rights of the poor, but the wicked do not care about anything. Always remember that what someone says they care about is not what is important, what is important is what their actions show they care about. You can get people agitated by mocking your enemy, but the wise person will calm anger. Think about what this means when you judge the behavior of those around you, are they mocking certain people to stir up anger against them? Or are they working to calm anger so that people can work together? Do not judge them by what they say about themselves or by what others say about them. Judge them by what they do.