As I read today’s passage I wondered if Hosea’s condemnation for choosing kings and other government officials without seeking God’s approval might not apply to many countries and people today. Later in this passage Hosea warns that when our sins become numerous and we become hostile to godliness we see those who speak God’s words as fools and those who act according to the direction of God’s Spirit as crazy. It is time, and past time, for us to break up the stubborn sins we commit and seek the Lord. All too often, we refuse to do so, planting wickedness in our hearts and thus reaping evil. Let each of us resolve to to turn to God and work to maintain love and justice in our own lives, while waiting for God to transform us.
Hosea warns that God will punish Israel for the sins of her people, but He will call them back to Him again. When He is ready, God will pour out His love upon His people and entice them to turn to Him. He will save His people, but He will not do so with weapons and armies. He will do so by His own power. I think the contrast given by Hosea between what we humans see as power with what God will do foreshadows the way in which He brought His salvation through the death of Jesus. Hosea then returns to prophesying against the sins of Israel which led to her destruction. It sounds like a description of our society today. He writes that there is no faithfulness or love, because there is no acknowledgement of God. When he writes that there is no faithfulness or love, he is not talking just about faithfulness to God, and/or love of God. No, he means that there is no faithfulness between the people. Rather than faithfulness and love, there is only cursing, lying, murder, stealing, and adultery. However, he also tells us not to look at others and accuse them of sin, we need to acknowledge our own sin and turn to God ourselves for forgiveness. God does not seek a legalistic approach to obeying Him. He does not want abortion to be outlawed. He does not seek laws against homosexual behavior, or those who distort gender. No, He wants us to acknowledge Him, and to show mercy to each other. I am not saying that those things are OK, but that God desires that we surrender our hearts to Him and invite those who seek to find happiness through self-destructive behavior to know the joy of serving God. God does not want us to change our laws, rather He wants us to accept His love and to honor Him.
My lovely wife married me 22 years ago on the 23rd of this month. So I am going to wish her Happy Anniversary every day from now until then.
Happy Anniversary, Darling!
Hosea continues with his condemnation of Israel in today’s passage using metaphors and images which apply today. He uses here one of my favorite metaphors:
They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind.
As best I can understand, Hosea means that they create some disorder in order to further their goals, then are surprised when complete chaos results and all order is disrupted. Those who do this consider a prophet of God to be a fool and those inspired by Him to be maniacs. As the prophet goes on he says something else I believe to have great relevance today:
They make many promises, take false oaths and make agreements;
therefore lawsuits spring up like poisonous weeds in a plowed field.
The context leads me to believe that the prophet means that their promises and agreements are as false as their oaths, or perhaps that they make promises and agreements intending to keep them, but break them when they become inconvenient. In any case, this reminds me of today where lawsuits have become an impediment to many types of activity. However, Hosea tells us how to deal with such times. Instead of sowing the wind, sow righteousness so that we can reap the fruit of love rather than reaping the whirlwind. Seek the Lord so that He will shower us with righteousness.
My lovely wife married me 22 years ago on the 23rd of this month. So I am going to wish her Happy Anniversary every day from now until then.
Happy Anniversary, Darling!
Hosea prophesies that the people of Israel had sought gods other than God to worship and had credited those gods as providing the blessings which came from God. He then said that God would cut them off from both those gods and the blessings He had given them so that they would turn back to Him. While Hosea’s prophecy is for Israel as a group, as a people, it has relevance for us today as individuals, because we tend to similarly turn to other “gods” when we receive God’s blessings. And God similarly seeks to turn us back to Him. Hosea goes on to say that God will not support a double standard: we cannot expect God to punish the prostitutes while asking Him to give the “Johns” a pass. God will not punish the sins of the oppressed while overlooking the sins of the oppressors. Further, Hosea warns us not to follow the forms of worshiping God, while giving ourselves a pass for our own sin, not to call out the sins we do not commit, while ignoring our own sins. God does not overlook some sins, while punishing others.
I have an idea about what I see in this passage, but I am not sure that I can compose it coherently. The passage addresses Israel, the Northern Kingdom, but I believe the message applies to many nations and societies throughout history. God planted them and raised them, asking that they worship and serve Him. The people promised to do so and carried out the rituals which they thought would show that they did. But they also committed many sins which they thought they could hide away, or which they thought fell into loopholes in God’s commands. Going to Church every Sunday and having a fish symbol on your car does not make you a Christian. In fact those things are useless if you cheat to make more money, if you take advantage of those with less power than yourself. Our society has become one which views the prophet as a fool and thinks that those who truly believe in God to be crazy. The wealthy think that the rules do not apply to themselves. Now is the time to sow righteousness so that we can reap the fruit of unfailing love; it is time to seek the Lord. If we depend on our own strength, as individuals and as a nation, the roar of battle will rise over us and our fortresses will be devastated. The ways of God are right. We can choose to walk in them by faithfully listening to God, or we will stumble about like a drunkard.
I failed to find a way to express the idea which was in my head when I started, but I am satisfied with what I wrote.
I was struggling with what I wanted to write about today’s passage when I re-read chapter 4 verses 1 and 2
There is no faithfulness, no love,
no acknowledgment of God in the land.
There is only cursing,lying and murder,
stealing and adultery;
I realized this so sums up how things work. When people fail to acknowledge God, they become faithless and unloving. It does not necessarily happen right away, and you may see exceptions. However, over time, as fewer and fewer people acknowledge God the fewer people there are who show love to others or exhibit faithfulness in anything. Conversely, cursing, lying, murder, stealing, and adultery become ever more prevalent. As lying, stealing, adultery, and murder become bigger problems in our society, we will not solve it with stricter laws, or more vigorous law enforcement. We will only solve that problem by acknowledging God and seeking to serve Him. Which brings me understanding of the names which Hosea gave his wife’s younger two children: “Unloved” and “Not My People”. When there is an explicit refusal to acknowledge God everyone becomes unloved and no one considers anyone else “my people”. But in Hosea’s exposition on his children’s names he reveals that God will call people to Him so that they become children of the living God. When people accept this calling they will come to realize that those who have also accepted God’s call are their people and they will love them. When people love each other and consider them “my people” lying, cheating, adultery, and murder do not enter their minds.
In the year 2000, on the 23rd day of this month, my wife married me. So here we are on day 18 of the 20 days that I am going to wish her Happy Anniversary for 20 years of marriage. Happy Anniversary Darling!
In a passage such as this one I tend to avoid the part that people pull out of it for an easy topic, but in today’s passage that part really is the central point. Hosea tells us that God has called us to plow up the hard ground of our hearts. Hosea is not the only prophet to give us this message. Hosea also tells us that God has told us to plant seeds of righteousness so that we can harvest a crop of love, but instead of doing so we have cultivated wickedness. Which brings us to the circumstances we see in the world around us. We have protest and riots about perceived injustice, but no one pays attention that these perceived injustices happened because people sowed crime and hostility. Rather than encourage people to sow the seeds of righteousness so that they can harvest a crop of love, some leaders are cultivating a crop of wickedness. I want to point out that for the point I am making today it is irrelevant if the perceived injustices are real or not. Real or not, acting with righteousness will bring healing and love which will correct the problem. Our choices in this life are: we can sow the seeds of righteousness and harvest a crop of love, or we can cultivate wickedness and harvest destruction. You can never build anything with destruction.
In the year 2000, on the 23rd day of this month, my wife married me. So here we are on day 17 of the 20 days that I am going to wish her Happy Anniversary for 20 years of marriage. Happy Anniversary Darling!
When I read Hosea I feel sorry for both Hosea and for his children; Hosea because God commanded him to marry a prostitute, his children because of the names he gave them. That was the point of this. We should feel sorry for God, and we should feel shame. God has offered us faithful love and we have been unfaithful. Yet despite our unfaithfulness, God has redeemed us, has bought us back from the slavery into which we sold ourselves, just as Hosea bought his wife back from wherever it was that she had sold herself.
However, the place where Hosea’s prophecy truly strikes home comes in Chapter 4. Hosea starts the chapter by speaking about the violence, dishonesty, and lack of knowledge of God in the land, and its consequences. As a result of those evil behaviors people are wasting away, but not just the people, the animals and plants are disappearing (sound familiar?). The important point he makes is that we don’t get to blame others for this state of affairs. People do not know God because those of us who have been called into what my faith tradition calls the priesthood of believers has refused to know Him, and thus teach others about Him. We need to recognize how we may benefit when others sin. Are we like the priests whom Hosea mentions here who profit from the sin offerings people make to gain forgiveness for their sins? Or, do we gain a sense that we are better than those “wicked sinners”?
Whatever our answers to those questions, we need to look address our own failings rather than point out the failings of others. God would rather we show love to our fellows than offer Him sacrifices. It is more important to know God than to follow religious rituals. Rather than pointing fingers at others for what is wrong in this world, let us strive to know God and show His love to those around us.
Hosea writes here about those who reject God and that which is good, then cry out to God for help. He tells us that those who plant the wind will reap the whirlwind. I find that an interesting metaphor because almost everyone can understand it even though it does not reference something which is physically possible. For any of my readers who do not know what it means, it references when people encourage rules or laws to be ignored when those rules or laws interfere with their goals. When you do that rules and laws will not be able to protect your interests later. If you encourage chaos and confusion to further your own ends at the expense of others (and ultimately, that is the only reason to do so), do not be surprised when everything becomes confused and chaotic.
Later Hosea writes that God calls for us to plant the good seeds of righteousness. Initially I viewed that as a separate message from his reference to sewing the wind and reaping the whirlwind, but as I started to compose my thoughts on this part I realized they are closely connected. In fact, Hosea holds planting the seeds of righteousness in direct contrast to cultivating wickedness and sewing the wind. Now is the time to plow up the hard ground of our hearts and seek the Lord. If we plant the seeds of righteousness we will harvest a crop of love. Using lies and power to get your way will not generate anything good. Let us do what is right so that we can spread God’s love to all and sundry.
There are two ways to read the account of Hosea marrying a prostitute. One way is to believe that God told Hosea to find a prostitute who would marry him. The other is to believe that Hosea sought God’s guidance in choosing a wife and the woman he thus chose became a prostitute (or, maybe was a prostitute but Hosea was unaware of it when he married her). The second makes more sense to me, and fits with the way I have seen God communicate his message to people. Hosea’s experience in his marriage thus influenced his ministry. Hosea separated from his wife because of her infidelity. Then at some time later, he bought her back and made her his wife once more. But he did not just buy her back, he won her back, just as God wishes to do with us. This suggests that she had fallen on hard times and been sold into slavery. I believe that Hosea truly loved his wife and God used the pain he felt over her unfaithfulness to show people how God felt about their unfaithfulness.
The whole of today’s passage is a condemnation of society. Hosea condemns a society where people break their vows, kill, steal, and commit adultery. Instead of leading the people to do what is right and good, the leaders, both religious and secular, encourage them to be selfish and do wrong because they, the leaders, profit from the wrongdoing of the people. This reminds me of today where most, if not all, of our political and religious leaders encourage people to focus their attention on their own desires rather than on the good of all, dividing people rather than uniting. However, the most important part of Hosea’s lesson in today’s passage is in chapter four, verse four:
Don’t point your finger at someone else and try to pass the blame!
All too many of us try to blame what we see as wrong with society as someone else’s fault. Don’t blame someone else for what is wrong in your life, not your parents, not your pastor, not the governor, not the president, nor anyone else. Recognize that what is wrong in your life is a result of your sins and turn to God for forgiveness and change.
