We are approaching a part of the Bible nestled conveniently in the middle and yet it is one that many of us might not be familiar with, the minor prophets. While they may be minor in name, they certainly are not minor in content or truthfulness! We can learn much about God, his people, and our lives as Christians today. The first of these is the prophet Hosea. 

Allow me to paint a picture in history to set the context. After King David ruled, his son Solomon assumed the throne. Solomon started off well, but his heart was turned away from God, and he began to worship the other idols and false gods of the cultures around him. As such, Solomon was warned that the country would eventually be torn into two separate ones, Israel in the north (10 tribes) and Judah in the south (2 tribes). Remember, these tribes were distant family to each other and the purpose of Israel existing as a country was to be a kingdom of priests, showing God’s glory to the world. Imagine the horror finding out that a unified holy nation would now be split into two! Yet, God was not finished with His people and His grace extended to both Israel and Judah, and this is surprising given Israel’s history. Ever since the first king of the northern kingdom, King Jeroboam, Israel did not have one righteous king that feared God, not one! So God had to send a prophet to his people in the north and remind them of His great love for them and call them to turn away from their wickedness, and this is where we meet Hosea.

God told Hosea to marry a woman named Gomer who would be characterized by her infidelity. Whether this was unfaithfulness to Hosea or disloyalty to God, the text does not quite make specific. However, the point is still the same. Hosea represents God, the unwavering husband, devoted to his wife, Israel, and Gomer represents Israel the promiscuous spouse who has chased after other lovers and scorned her marriage to her beloved rescuer, the Lord. This may seem like just another biblical metaphor, and yet when God warns Israel of her idolatry (in Hosea and other books) he usually puts it in terms of relational unfaithfulness. God’s love of his people runs so deep it is comparable to a groom’s love for his bride, and the reason why idolatry infuriates Him so much is because it is the equivalent of Israel giving herself to other men. Not only is this disloyal, but God is heartbroken because He is the only one who can provide Israel (and all of humanity) the life that is good, true, and beautiful. All that these other false idols can promise is death. God is continually “falling all over himself” to try to woo Israel back into His arms by using Hosea to remind them of His power and love by ransoming them from Egyptian slavery and the Exodus. 

The warnings are great to heed even today. For what we worship, what we live for, affects everything else in our lives, and worship of those idols that bring only death will spread poison to every area of life. Jesus Christ acted like a “Hosea” to Israel and to the entire world, beckoning with God’s power and love to draw near to Him and be saved. He shows us on the cross that He has ransomed us from slavery to sin and death and has given us an Exodus into eternal life. When the church is called “the bride of Christ” that means that Jesus our husband loves us with the same passionate fire that a groom is filled with upon seeing his bride on their wedding day. This love is not only good and powerful, but compels us and speaks to our souls by its goodness and power to forsake every other loyalty to anything that is not of Him. Christ celebrates us as a groom celebrates his beloved, and we as his bride in turn, ought to always strive to show Him the same loyalty and devotion He showed us first. 

Hosea’s warnings to the idolatrous and disobedient, and promises of creation-wide restoration by God’s grace is relevant to our time today. Read of His goodness shown to Israel, and then remember of His goodness shown to you. Every breath you take, every movement you make, you breathe and make in Him. He is life, and it is that life, shown in His Son, that “took on flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory”. Use that wonderful truth to turn away from all others and pursue loving the Lord with all your heart. 

Your Brother,

Craig