Hosea

I'll be upfront and state that when it comes to ANY of the prophets (major or minor), I won't have much to say. In many cases, the WHAT will happen isn't hard to discern, and the WHEN is for the Lord to decide. Since I try not to discuss the obvious, and any speculation on when is nothing more than a complete guess, well, there ya go...

A couple of years ago, I had the bright idea to lead a Bible study on Hosea. In retrospect, it was a pretty stupid idea, since I can effectively summarize Hosea (and most other prophecy) in much less than 10 weeks:

1. You're a sinner

2. Repent

3. Or else

4. Go back to 1 and repeat

I don't recall how I padded that out to 10 hours of discussion, but the funny thing is, I don't recall the group just sitting around and staring at each other. Having said that, there is a point and two verses in particular I want to discuss--one verse today, one tomorrow.

The point occurs in the first chapter. I won't even begin to attempt to understand the Lord's thinking in his instructions to Hosea. As an aside, the NIV Study Bible has an introduction page at the beginning of each book, which follows this structure:

Author/Date

Background

Theme and Message

Outline

In addition to these, for Hosea they added a section called Special Problems. The two Special Problems are:

1. Chapter 1--the NIV experts have no idea what's going on and freely say so

2. The children mentioned in Chapter 3

I only state this because I suspect this might come up, but lucky for us, since we're not meeting next Sunday you'll have forgotten this whole part by Sunday, July 10th AND WON'T ASK ME TO EXPLAIN IT (this is a hint--take it). The part of Chapter 1 that I find interesting is the names of the children:

Lo-Ruhamah--not loved
Lo-Ammi--not my people

I've heard some weird names in my day, and these are pretty high on the list. It's pretty clear that God is attempting to send a clear unambiguous message to the people of Israel.

My verse for today is Hosea 6:6:

For I desire mercy, not sacrifice,
   and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings. 

We've seen some mention of this concept before (i.e., it's not the action, but the thought behind it), but this was important enough for Christ to repeat it in Matthew 9:13 (to a group of Pharisees) and Matthew 12:7 (to a different group of Pharisees). Isaiah will repeat this, but at this point, this is a foreign concept to a people who  believed their salvation was derived from ritualistic observance of the law. Jesus would use this verse to describe how he was the complete 180-degree U-turn from the way the people had lived their lives up to that point. It's a theme I've discussed often previously and will return to over and over again in the coming months, because, quite simply, this verse is the stark difference between Christianity (salvation through Christ) and Judaism (observance of the Law until the Messiah comes and frees us from it). This was Christ's (and Paul's) core message of the New Testament, and I thought it worthwhile to show just how far in advance this notion was initially floated.

Our goal when reading prophecy isn't to predict when it will occur but know that it WILL occur and be prepared at all times. Christ will speak on this at length in numerous parables, but the stage is also being set for the future when the Law will NOT be the cornerstone of salvation. These little nuggets are all over the place in the Prophecy section of the Bible. Do your best (and the same goes for me) to keep your hearts and minds open to when one of these verses makes an appearance.

Scott