Mining the Minors: Hosea (42)

Between present-day Israel and Syria sits a tiny Middle Eastern republic of a little over four million people. It is an ethnic hodgepodge of Arabs, Armenians, Kurds and Turks divided almost equally between Muslims and (nominal) Christians. Before the introduction of Arabic as Lebanon’s official language, its people mostly spoke a Western version of Aramaic. More than three times as many Lebanese live outside Lebanon as live in it, the vast majority of these in South American countries.

From the tiny number of Jews remaining there (in 2020 Lebanon’s Jewish population was estimated at 29, a community described as “elderly and apprehensive”), you probably would not guess that the territory once belonged to Israel. But it did.

Mining the Minors: Hosea (41)

We have discussed the “ten lost tribes” of Israel several times in our study of Hosea. Yet many Christians do not believe there are descendants of Ephraim out in the world awaiting discovery and restoration to their ancestral homeland.

Partly this is an overreaction to British Israelism, a 19th century movement that claimed the people of Great Britain (and therefore most of the New World) were genetically, racially and linguistically the direct descendants of the ten lost tribes of Israel. Despite its comprehensive refutation by archaeological, ethnological, genetic and linguistic research, BI still has its adherents, and therefore a significant number of Christians who feel compelled to keep reacting to and refuting their claims.

Mining the Minors: Hosea (40)

As a child, my eldest son hated knowing the proverbial sword of Damocles was hanging over his head. He had a tendency to get into trouble, and he astutely observed that it was better to get the inevitable punishment over with speedily than spend all his time obsessing about when it might be coming.

Or maybe he just took note that, with his father at least, a sin confessed earned a lighter punishment than a sin hidden and untimely revealed by a sibling.

Judgment is inevitable both in this life and the next. Even a family relationship doesn’t earn anyone a pass; in fact, we Christians get ours before the world gets theirs. Peter says, “It begins with us”, and so it does.

Mining the Minors: Hosea (39)

The Bible condemns a proud, independent spirit from Genesis to Revelation and everywhere in between. And where men prosper, pride often follows.

This sort of defective thinking first shows itself in Cain, who found ways to work the earth with some degree of success despite the curse. Cain knew what sort of sacrifice was acceptable to God but thought offering the evidence of own his success in his chosen field a better idea. Pride.

Mining the Minors: Hosea (38)

The photo to the right reproduces my favorite classical attempt to represent Jacob’s struggle with the angel by French painter Pierre Patel (1604-1676). If you squint, you can just about see two figures wrestling on the bottom left. Patel’s design displays a certain cautious reverence sadly lacking in other painters of the period.

One of Hosea’s main themes in chapter 12 is the patriarch Jacob. The second and fourth divisions of the chapter use different aspects of Jacob’s life to instruct any willing ears in Israel or Judah.

Mining the Minors: Hosea (37)

Some chapter divisions in our Bibles are more helpful than others. Not every chapter stands on its own. The contents of many may be better understood by looking backward or forward.

I mentioned a couple of weeks back that I found chapter 12 of Hosea difficult to analyze. In this case it’s not the chapter divisions that are the problem; chapter 12 stands just fine as a discrete unit in a larger message. What I find hard to understand is the structure of the chapter itself.

Mining the Minors: Hosea (36)

We are continuing to examine the way the New Testament writers make use of Hosea’s prophecy. Not all NT uses can properly be called fulfilments of Hosea — some are merely allusions or references — but those which are fulfilments may be broken down this way, with all due credit to David Gooding:

1. Fulfilment as the fulfilling of predictions
2. Fulfilment as the final, higher expression of basic principles
3. Christ’s fulfilment of the Law
4. The Christian’s fulfilment of the Law

NT writers may use the word “fulfil” in any of these four senses.

Mining the Minors: Hosea (35)

I candidly admit to struggling with Hosea 12: the historical references to Jacob and Moses; the back-and-forth between these and the condemnation of the nation’s present conduct; the choice of timing for what appears to be a defense of the prophetic office … let’s just say I need to think and pray about it a fair bit more before I start writing about it.

In the interest of putting chapter 12 off as long as possible, I’m going to do what I promised several months back and devote at least one post to the New Testament uses of Hosea’s prophetic word. Some of these are direct quotations; others are references and allusions.

I trust you will all put this down to cleverness rather than cowardice.

Mining the Minors: Hosea (34)

The wrath of God is an established fact of scripture, the Holy Spirit making reference to it in excess of 300 times. But we should not think of God’s wrath as merely emotional, as if it comes and goes depending on his mood. Rather, the wrath of God “abides” or “remains” on sinners who refuse to take God’s provided way of escape. God’s anger never abates, never lifts and never loses its intensity unless it is met with the appropriate response.

After all, he is not a man that he should change his mind.

Mining the Minors: Hosea (33)

One of the more ironic features of God’s judgment is that he sometimes gives men and women precisely what they are asking for, and it turns out to be not at all what they had in mind.

Israel craved meat and complained against God, so God gave them meat until it came out their nostrils and became loathsome to them.

Israel craved idols, so God gave them idols that were deaf, dumb and useless at protecting them.

Mining the Minors: Hosea (32)

Why are the prophets so obscure at times?

Peter tells us they did not always understand how and when the the words they received from God would be realized. And if the men who spoke these words had to labor to put the pieces together, we should not be surprised if we have to do the same with prophecies that have yet to be fulfilled today. That’s one reason.

Mining the Minors: Hosea (31)

If you want to communicate truth effectively, you have to do it at the level of your audience. The Lord Jesus understood this and used imagery all the time. He told stories to which people could relate. Even if they often didn’t fully understand the subtleties of his parables, they sometimes got the broader message.

Even his most hardened critics knew when they were being targeted.

Mining the Minors: Hosea (30)

Hoshea the son of Elah was the last non-Davidic king of Israel. Its next king will rule a reunited kingdom from Jerusalem, not Samaria, and he will most assuredly be from the tribe of Judah. A repentant and restored Israel will not mind, we are assured.

Hosea’s prophecy of the fall of the northern kingdom in 722 BC bookends the latter portion of the chapter (verse 7 to the end). It starts with Samaria’s king perishing “like a twig” (ESV) and concludes with the words “At dawn the king of Israel shall be utterly cut off.”

A sobering thought. The phrase “cut off” means to be destroyed.

Mining the Minors: Hosea (29)

The prosperity gospel is a lie for numerous reasons, but one of the more obvious is that Bible history shows uninterrupted prosperity is rarely good for God’s people in a fallen world. It does not tend to produce desirable outcomes like thankfulness or looking to God; instead, it frequently sponsors independence and entitlement.

In chapter 10, the prophet Hosea comments on the effect of prosperity in ancient Israel. It was much as we might expect ...

Mining the Minors: Hosea (28)

We see repeatedly in scripture that God does not over-value our personal histories of religious service the way we may. Believers must fight the natural tendency to “take our foot off the gas pedal” as we age, relying on the spiritual successes of the past to stand as an adequate representation of what God has done in our lives rather than pressing on to finish the course with distinction.

Need I point out that the apostle Paul did not do that, nor did any of those who are commended by God? There are plenty of Old Testament cautionary tales to remind us that how we finish is what matters, not how impressively we start or the promise we may show.

Mining the Minors: Hosea (27)

It’s hard for the natural mind to imagine being better off dead, isn’t it. Outside of Christ, I certainly can’t picture how death would ever be a preferable state.

This is not necessarily the case at other times and other places. Sometimes children are born into situations so appalling it would genuinely have been better for them not to have lived at all. That may sound like mere hyperbole, but scripture gives plenty of examples.

Mining the Minors: Hosea (26)

Sometimes even the best resources come up a bit short.

I doubt there has ever been a time in history when so many Christians have had access to so many translations of scripture and such a plethora of fine interpretive tools. All the same, if we are honest, there are still times we have to admit we are not 100% sure what the text is saying.

This is one of those.

Mining the Minors: Hosea (25)

The text over the photo to the right is nicked from a 1986 Steve Camp song entitled Threshing Floor, one of my favorite Christian lyrics ever, a great melody atop a characteristically elegant bottom end from legendary bassist Leland Sklar. Consider this post my homage to a job extra-well done. If “Pastor Steve” is still dishing it from the platform like this, I suspect the Lord would say he is doing okay.

But that raises a question: do most people even know what a threshing floor is? I imagine urbanized Westerners unfamiliar with the Bible probably don’t. I’ve certainly never seen one; they have been obsolete in the West since the 19th century.

Mining the Minors: Hosea (24)

The apostle Paul taught the Corinthian Christians to examine themselves before eating and drinking in remembrance of the Lord Jesus. Repentance and confession would naturally follow; after all, self-examination that doesn’t result in a change of heart and conduct is a worthless exercise.

Short version: sin must be dealt with before worship or fellowship can truly take place.

Mining the Minors: Hosea (23)

Sometimes — though I believe it is fairly rare in this life — God steps in and judges individuals and nations directly. Miracles of destruction are often the means.

Most times, however, the world being ordered as it is, we find ourselves living with the natural consequences of a bad choice (or series of bad choices), and in hindsight can often even see the steps by which we deceived ourselves into doing things that have a downside far more significant than whatever passing twinge of desire we were seeking to fulfill at the time.

Examples could be multiplied.