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- [00:00]
Marty Solomon
Foreign. This is the Bama podcast with Marty Solomon. I'm his co host, Brent Billings. Today we will use the first portion of Hosea 6 to examine the relationship between God's forgiveness and our repentance.
- [00:17]
Brent Billings
Yeah, I wanted to pick up where we left off. I did not want to force this conversation into last episode's conversation. I also don't want to go too far. Like, there's this little short section here, but a big idea. And I think it's worth just isolating this and spending time on this idea. It's an idea we've talked about before. There's gonna be a lot of overlap with our episode today and episodes we've done in the past, but it's worth it. It's a big idea. It's a big idea. It's an idea that's often abused or misused or leveraged, of all things. Based on last week's episode would be ironic, but just the idea of God's forgiveness, where that comes from, why? What is repentance? And so we're just going to look at six verses. We're going to read them a few times today. But, Brent, if you want to give us the first six verses of Hosea 6, that's what we're going to use today.
- [01:09]
Marty Solomon
Come, let us return to the Lord. He has torn us to pieces, but he will heal us. He has injured us, but he will bind up our wounds. After two days, he will revive us. On the third day, he will restore us that we may live in his presence. Let us acknowledge the Lord. Let us press on to acknowledge Him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear. He will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth. What can I do with you, Ephraim? What can I do with you, Judah? Your love is like the morning mist, like the early dew that disappears. Therefore, I cut you in pieces with my prophets. I killed you with the words of my mouth. Then my judgments go forth like the sun. For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.
- [02:02]
Brent Billings
Golly. Thinking about last episode, Brent, is that your phrase, I cut you in pieces? How does that line up with Judges?
- [02:07]
Marty Solomon
Yeah, I did look into that, and it is not the same word used in Judges 19. So it's an even weaker connection than I thought it was. I thought it might even be a little bit like that, but no, it's not. There's no direct textual connection to judges 19. I still think we have a lot of other connections that Kind of tie it to that. Conceptually, it's there, but it's not as strong of a tie as I would like.
- [02:32]
Brent Billings
Yeah. And even with just the image itself, no matter whether it's in the Hebrew or not, I think your brain's going to tie those stories together, if there's any indication there in any tie. But I digress because here's what I kind of wanted to look at for this section. This section is about God's forgiveness. Like, let us return. He has torn us to pieces, but he will heal us. He has injured us, but he will bind up our wounds like God's forgiveness. God's forgiveness. God's forgiveness is a very common theme obviously in any gospel centered circle. We're going to talk about God's forgiveness quite a bit. And this is a good time to just kind of slow down because I think we conflate forgiveness and reconciliation and we could even say restitution or repair. We kind of take all those things, we just kind of lump them together in this big, ambiguous, vague idea and picture of God's forgiveness. And it's complex and it's also not something that all gets lumped together. Here's another thing that we do. We conflate what's true of God with what's true with others. So we have a relationship with God and his forgiveness theologically, and we start to leverage that or assume that in terms of our own material, physical relationships with other people. That's important in this conversation. There are two ideas that we're often conflating together. Forgiveness and repentance. And these are distinct things we should talk about. There's forgiveness from God and there's repentance before God. And there's a relationship between those two things. They're not the same thing in and of themselves. There's a relationship between God's forgiveness and our repentance. There's also the idea of forgiveness from other people. Like the people, our relationships that we've wronged, the people we've hurt. Like thinking about the message of Hosea and the violence we do to others. There's a relationship between forgiveness and other people. And there's a relationship about repentance and those relationships. And we have a particular relationship between God and forgiveness, between God and repentance. And I think it gets into the conversation about our relationships and makes it to where we really miss out on something super important that I think Hosea is actually really trying to talk to us about, because it's talking about violence done against other people. It's not talking about abstract violence. It's not talking about a theological concept of something, talking about very material, very literal realities in Hosea's context. So we conflate these things. We also conflate the idea of cultural issues like the injustices that are done culturally. We lump that together with repentance, with forgiveness. And when we don't do the work of pulling these things apart and talking about them in their distinct categories and their distinct ways, it becomes this kind of vague, nebulous, just big bleh of an idea. When forgiveness and repentance. I have this in my notes. When forgiveness and repentance are both properly navigated, you can have some level of reconciliation. And we're going to talk about this more on this before we're out of this episode today. So there will be more on that. I'm not leaving that idea for good. We're going to come back to that. But forgiveness and repentance are two distinct ideas. And when you navigate both of them appropriately, you can have some level of reconciliation. I think we usually as Christians just like to think about forgiveness. We just like to think about God's forgiveness. We assume reconciliation. And what's even worse is we'll then do that to our relationships. We'll think about God's forgiveness, my spiritual forgiveness, and then we completely just look past our personal relationships and reconciliation because I'm forgiven by God. So then I don't do the work of any of the actual repentance, any of the reconciliation in my actual material relationships. And that's why that's important. Have I said that? Well, Brent, does that make sense?
- [06:33]
Marty Solomon
Yeah, I think so. I'm just wondering if you think Hosea has one of these relationships in particular that he is speaking to more than the others.
- [06:44]
Brent Billings
Yes, great question. Yes. And the answer to that is absolutely. I think this passage directly, explicitly is referring to the people of God and their relationship with God, his forgiveness and their repentance before Him. I think the implicit messaging of the larger message of Hosea, underneath the surface is about the violence that we're doing to other people and the relationships of others. But this exegetically, like this passage of Hosea, is referring specifically to forgiveness, God's forgiveness and our repentance before God in order that God would forgive us. Come, let us return to the Lord. He has torn us to pieces. But we won't be able to separate it, and we shouldn't separate it from what that means about our relationships with other people. So I want to talk about both today is what I want to do so first. And I love that you asked that question, Brett, because first I want to start with just. Let's just start with our relationship before God. And let's start by just acknowledging God's grace, His forgiveness, all the things that we know to be true, all the things that we celebrate, all the things that we have experienced about God's grace and his forgiveness and all those things. We're not going to even pull that apart. I'm just going to celebrate that for what it is, because I think we know it, we love it. Here's what we don't typically talk about. We don't typically talk about the steps of repentance. And we've done this before. Brent, I mentioned there'll be overlap. We've gone through these steps at least a couple other times on the podcast, especially in the last two, last few sessions since session six. But I wanted to do it again. And let's think about these steps in terms of just our relationship with God. Come, let us return to the Lord. He has torn us to pieces, but he will heal us. That phrase, let us return. All right, let me make sure. Brent, that is chuva, because I'm assuming that's going to be chuva. Let's find out Hosea 6. Yes, it's Shuv. Shuv is the word. So this is the root word that becomes the word for repentance. So this isn't just a passage about God's forgiveness. The first verse says, let us return. What is the process of that returning? We call that chuvah. Shuv. Shuv, Shuva Tuva is repentance. So what does that process of repentance before God? Looks like we've talked before about my favorite teaching, Jewish teaching here. Jewish wisdom here talks about five steps. The first step being to admit that there's wrongdoing. So we have talked now for a few chapters of Hosea that the thing we have to do is name the wrong for what it is. We have to be able to stare the brokenness in the face. We can't ignore it. So the first step of repentance is confession. This notice is what most Christianity just calls forgiveness. Like we just say, especially before God. When we're talking about repenting before God, usually the Christian just thinks, well, all I do is confess and then God just forgives me. Which on some level is true. Blessed be God and his forgiveness and the way that it works and his grace. But I think God expects, wants, calls us to. I think in all throughout, he wants more than just Confession. Confession is just the first step of five in this list.
- [09:53]
Marty Solomon
Do we really need to do this again, Marty? Because, like, once you've done this once.
- [09:56]
Brent Billings
I mean, yeah, I mean, we already talked about it.
- [09:58]
Marty Solomon
I mean, it's fine.
- [09:59]
Brent Billings
Why would we have to do this or whatever. That's a great point, Brent. We should probably just skip this. No, of course, yes. And I love that you do that as we record this, Brent. It'll publish much later. We're actually in the middle of the High holidays. In two days it will be Yom Kippur. So not only should we do this again, but in the Jewish world, we do this every single year. Like this Saturday happens to be the day where we will sit in a whole day of repentance, 26 hours of fasting. Don't brush your teeth, don't eat any food. Don't anoint yourself. No showers, no deodorant. No, you sit in your stuff. It's the one day of the year, the Jewish calendar, that you sit in your sin. You sit and you have to come to grips with it. You have to look it in the face. You have to confess it. And then second step is you have to acknowledge that negative impact on others. You have to do more than just say, I screwed up. You have to do another step of work. Like there's work to be done. You have to go, not only did I do wrong, but that wrong had an impact. We saw that in the last episode. These wrongs that we do have an impact impact on other people. It hurts people. Sometimes it physically hurts people. Sometimes it materially hurts people. Sometimes it emotionally or spiritually hurts people. It breaks their ability to trust, to trust us, to trust God, to trust. So we have to not just say, I screwed up. True repentance then says, I also have to realize how that screw up negatively impacted other people. I did screw up. And it matters. And here's why it matters. Here's what happened. Because I screw up. Now a lot of people are going, man, this is going to make me feel even more and more guilty. Maybe initially, but this process is actually what does heal us. Come, let us return to the Lord. He has torn us to pieces, but he will heal us. He has injured us, but he will bind up our wounds. There is a part of this process that is healing. So the first part is to confess. Step number one, admit to the wrongdoing. Step number two, acknowledge that the negative impact. Acknowledge that it has a negative impact on other people.
- [12:05]
Marty Solomon
If you stop there, I think you do feel more guilty but there's more steps.
- [12:10]
Brent Billings
Great point. Yeah, absolutely. 100%. Yeah. And when it's appropriate, sometimes it's not appropriate, and that's kind of makes us complex and sticky. But when it's appropriate to do that in front of the person that you hurt, to acknowledge out loud to them, I screwed up. And this is what it did to you. And I know it did that to you. And I didn't mean to, but I did. And that's on me. I have done wrong. And this is what it did to your ability to trust me, to your ability to trust others, maybe especially when you're a spiritual leader, to your ability to trust God. That's bad. And then step number three, make any possible restitution when the wrong is material, when you've hurt, like physical property, repair it. If you've cost somebody money, pay them back, maybe even with a little restitutional interest. If that's even a concept or an idea or a word, put some reparation behind it. If somebody needs to go to counseling at your hand, maybe you pay for that. You provide for that. You make material restitution wherever and whenever possible. We learn that through Torah. That's not even a new concept. That's an old concept going back to Moses. So you admit wrongdoing. Step number one. Number two, you acknowledge the fact that that wrongdoing has hurt other people. Step number three, if there's any possible reparation, any possible restitution, you make it. Step number four, you share a plan with others. This is the idea of accountability. I am not going to reoffend. Here's what I'm going to do to make sure that I don't make. I'm not going to be in that position again. I'm going to do this or I'm going to do that. I'm going to put this level of accountability in there. I'm never going to be in that situation with that. I'm not going to do that. I'm going to get this kind of counseling. I'm going to start this kind of relationship. I'm going to change this setting on my phone. I'm going to change this relationship. I'm going to step out of this role of leadership. We might talk about that more later. I'm going to have a plan so that I don't do this ever again. And then finally, step number five, I change my behavior when all those things I've done. And by the time you. If you actually work through this process, by the time you get to Step number five, your behavior, it's almost a natural overflow. If you've truly done all these things, your behavior does change. And when all five of those things have taken place, that's true repentance. And that does require some work. I'm not talking about salvation. I'm not saying you have to work, do this work to be saved. And this is where it gets sticky for Christians. This is why we've lumped it all together, because we take grace and mercy and forgiveness and we tie it to salvation. I'm not talking about salvation. God saves us. His grace is big. God doesn't have a list of requirements. But if we're going to engage the process of repentance, like actually worry about repenting, reconciling those relationships, pursuing repair, restitution, reparation, reconciliation between God or other relationships, this is the work that we're invited to do. The Jews find this wisdom in the Joseph story. They find this wisdom in the Ezra Nehemiah account, where the people come and they confess their sins. And there's a thing that they do in Ezra 10, in Nehemiah 10, 11, 12, 13. There is a process of public confession and a process of repentance that people work through in these stories. And that's where they find this wisdom. And so I just want to back up because I think sometimes we read the prophets and we read about God's forgiveness and we read about how God will come, let us return to the Lord. He has torn us to pieces. He will heal us. And we just go, yes, thank God for His grace. Thank God for His mercy. To which I'm just going to say amen. Amen. Yes, yes, full stop. But then there's like a second verse. Like a second. A second part of the song, a second stanza of the poem. Like a second. There's, yes, hallelujah. And then there's more for us to think about. There's more for us to do, there's more for us to learn, there's more for us to engage. So, yes, amen to God's grace and forgiveness. And that it just is. That's amazing. That's incredible. I'm not trying to suggest a works based. Please hear me. I'm not. And that's why we can't talk about this, because in the Protestant world especially, we have such a hard time talking about anything where I have to do something that could possibly be connected to my salvation. I am not talking about salvation. I'm not talking about salvation. I'm not talking about salvation. I Am not talking about being saved for eternity. I'm not talking about salvation. I'm talking about what it means to truly return to the Lord. To go from walking a path of rebellion and sin and come back to the path that God originally. And that's not a salvific work that I'm talking about. That's a repentance process of which I am transformed and changed. And I think we should pull those things apart every now and then. And that's why we're doing that on the Hosea passage today. I don't know if you have anything to add to that, Brent, but whenever you're ready, you can read our passage one more time.
- [17:33]
Marty Solomon
I was thinking about making some sort of snarky comment about salvation, but I'll just leave it. I'll leave it alone.
- [17:40]
Brent Billings
Good enough.
- [17:41]
Marty Solomon
Okay, back to the text. Come, let us return to the Lord. He has torn us to pieces, but he will heal us. He has injured us, but he will bind up our wounds. After two days, he will revive us. On the third day, he will restore us that we may live in his presence. Let us acknowledge the Lord. Let us press on to acknowledge Him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear. He will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth. What can I do with you, Ephraim? What can I do with you, Judah? Your love is like the morning mist, like the early dew that disappears. Therefore I cut you in pieces with my prophets. I killed you with the words of my mouth. Then my judgments go forth like the sun. For I desire mercy, not sacrifice. An acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.
- [18:39]
Brent Billings
All right, so let's take this a little bit further. Probably still further into discomfort. Again, I'm not talking about salvation. I'm still not talking about salvation. I wasn't talking about salvation earlier. I'm not talking about salvation now. I don't think I'm going to talk about salvation this whole episode. Brent. No salvation talk.
- [18:55]
Marty Solomon
I do have a question that's maybe completely off topic, so I'm going to get it out of the way. What's the deal with the winter rains and the spring rains? Is there a distinction there as far as what they're accomplishing or how they think about those things?
- [19:10]
Brent Billings
That's a great question. And I bet there's some beautiful midrash or Jewish commentary. I would assume my just knee jerk assumptions without doing any digging. The winter rains are the ones you expect. They're the ones that are going to Be heavy. They're the ones you need for agriculture. They're the. They're the. The spring rains are the ones that maybe are less maybe. I'm guessing they're the ones that. I mean, they're going to come. They're just not quite the winter rains. Like, they don't have a snowy. If you live somewhere, if you're listening to this podcast, you live somewhere with like four seasons. They kind of have that over in the biblical world in the Levant, but they don't really have the same four seasons that we're used to. You're going to have. You're going to come out of the fall and somewhere, November, December, January, you're going to have the winter rains. It's going to be rainy, it's going to be wet. It's going to water the earth. It's what's going to be essential to your agricultural cycle. So are the spring rains, but they're going to come a little bit more sporadic. The sun's starting to come out, it's spring. So I'm guessing that the one is like the stuff that I need, the stuff that I expect, maybe even the darker, colder, shorter days. The spring rains are the ones that are kind of pleasantly surprising. I could be totally. That could just be conjecture. It might just be Hosea, the prophet poet, just using some parallelism and being fancy with his words. So I could be drawing way too much into that. But, yeah, that's a good question. Okay, so let's take this a little bit further. Let's talk about what's what. This is a whole passage about God's forgiveness. Let's talk about what God's forgiveness may not mean. Again, if we're not talking about salvation, thank goodness for salvation, Praise God for salvation. That's not what I'm talking about. Here's something that God's forgiveness may not mean. It may not mean that you get to return to the same spot with no consequences, as if nothing has happened. Like, just because you're forgiven by God doesn't mean that. Like, there's no consequences to your actions. Just because you're forgiven by God doesn't mean that, like the world that you live in, well, he's forgiven by God. So I guess we just have to act like nothing ever happened. Like, part of what that third step, when we talk about saying, making possible restitution and repair, when we talk about sharing a plan, step number four, so that you're not going to reoffend, sometimes that means. Well, almost always it means I can't go back. I can't go back to the way it used to be. I can build a new world, and that new world might even be better, by the way. But that new world will be built around the fact that I've made some mistakes, and I have no plans of making those mistakes again. And I think we've all seen this with celebrities, with politicians, goodness. We've seen it with pastors. We've seen it. I'm not against the forgiveness of God. I'm not against people being restored by the gospel. I'm not even against people getting their job back or whatever. That's not even my point. But what we have not seen often, and what's so disturbing, and sometimes we can't even put our finger on it, is we just assume the restoration of that office. We just assume that people get to go back because they're forgiven by God, they've repented spiritually, God's forgiven them. So I guess it's as if nothing ever happened. No, no, no, no, no, no. You're forgiven by God. Praise God. But you maybe shouldn't be in that seat again. That's very possible. God's forgiveness is restoring much more than your position or your circumstances. So God's forgiveness is real. And what God's forgiveness is doing is doing so much more, something so much more beautiful, so much wider, so much deeper than simply giving you your old life back, giving you your old situation back. God wants to do more than that, something bigger and better than that. I was just. Actually, as I record this, it was just last weekend, I was at a speaking engagement with a couple other keynote speakers. And one of the other speakers was a guy by the name of Josh Butler, who's definitely been through it in the last year or two. And he was sharing from his story and he had a few statements that ended up in my notebook that I just found. So they have stuck with me. He said, God is more interested in your transformation than your success or your ministry. God is more interested in your transformation than your success. That's. God cares more about that. So his forgiveness is about your transformation more than it is about your ministry, more than it is about your successful track. It's about your. Your heart, your soul.
- [23:49]
Marty Solomon
That hits hard.
- [23:50]
Brent Billings
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. He had a couple more. God is more interested in your character than your comfort, which. That. That's what repentance will do to us. That's what real. That's what God's forgiveness. God's forgiveness is. I think it was. Was it Bonhoeffer that talked about cheap forgiveness, Cheap grace. Bonhoeffer, talk about. Yeah, cheap grace. This is. This is not cheap grace. This is the grace that's deep and meaningful. I added one. I didn't hear Josh ever say this, but I added one that said, God is more interested in your integrity than your institution. We have talked so much about, well, we got to protect the institution. We got to protect the institution. God is much more concerned. He really doesn't care about our institutions. He really doesn't. Not even our churches, because it's not our churches, it's his church. So he really doesn't care about that. He wants our integrity far more than he wants our institution. I promise. I promise. And we have to be seeing that in Hosea. We have to be seeing that. So here's a list of things. By the way, whenever we talk about forgiveness, it's really important, especially for people that have been at that. Like if, if. If Hosea is about the violence done to others and we want to talk about God's forgiveness in the context of Hosea, there's a whole group of people out there that are going to be listening, that are like, man, I really struggle with, like, the idea of God's. Like, when we ended last episode and we said, there's still a potential future for these people that are being condemned and judged and prophesied against. There's still a future if they want to come back to God, if they want to return, if they want to do this process. We're talking about, like, God's got a future for them. It may not be the same future they had, but God's got a future. It might even be a better future, might even be a more beautiful future. God has a few. And there might be some people going, ooh, why does that not hit me? Well, let's take a moment and just talk about all the things that forgiveness is not. And I think we've done this before, years ago. It's worth doing again.
- [25:37]
Marty Solomon
Definitely.
- [25:39]
Brent Billings
It's worth doing again. Here's all the things that forgiveness is not. Forgiveness is not saying that what happened to you wasn't evil. Like, sometimes when you talk about forgiveness, people think. So you're saying that what they did wasn't bad? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Actually, the proper steps of repentance, make sure that we make that clear. It was evil. When we talk about forgiveness, we're not saying that you don't call the cops. Sometimes you still call the cops. Forgiveness and calling the cops are not mutually exclusive. They Go together. Forgiveness doesn't mean that you don't leave. Like, if he's. If he's hitting you, you leave. You leave. Forgiveness doesn't mean you. You stay. You stay. Because Grace. Nope. You leave. You leave. And we've shared before in our spiritual abuse series, Brent. We shared resources. We had a whole episode of prayers about domestic violence and domestic abuse. Forgiveness doesn't mean you stay.
- [26:42]
Marty Solomon
I will link to the first episode in that series if anyone wants to revisit that.
- [26:46]
Brent Billings
Yeah, beautiful. Love it. Here's another thing. Forgiveness is not saying that there aren't boundaries. Actually, forgiveness and love will at times demand boundaries, because some people just don't have the tools. Some people wrestle with all kinds of stuff, circumstances and situations or mental illness. Like, some people just don't have the capacity to. And so boundaries are necessary in order to have a relationship with love. In order to have forgiveness, in order to have grace, in order to have shalom and wholeness. Sometimes we have to have boundaries with our parents. We just have to. Because if we don't have boundaries, then there will continue to be more violence. So forgiveness actually demands boundaries, or else real forgiveness would never. Real shalom would never be able to be realized. So forgiveness doesn't mean that there's not boundaries. Forgiveness is not saying that there isn't consequences, which is what we were just talking about a moment ago. When we screw up, there are consequences. It's why screwing up matters. Like, I try to tell my kids all the time, it will be okay. When you screw up, you are going to screw up. But I also tell my kids, but try not to, because screwing up usually has consequences. Sometimes it hurts other people. Sometimes it hurts you sometimes. But screwing up has consequences. Sin has consequences. And forgiveness will wash over sin. Forgiveness does not undo what has been done. I remember a pastor. Actually, it was Pastor Chuck Schwoboda, who was one of the guys I worked with before I got into campus ministry. My home church, Twin Falls Reformed Church, is where he's a pastor. And I remember him doing a sermon one time. And he was actually. Pastor Chuck was the guy who introduced me. Brent. He's the guy who introduced me to Rabbi Foreman. You believe that? He's. The guy was like, you got to listen to this dude. You got to listen to this rabbi. And one of the things he had learned from Rabbi Foreman led him to do this sermon one day where he was like, he had just listened to Rabbi Forman's teaching on Jonah, and he said, what does forgiveness do? You're like, what do you mean, what does it do? He's like, because it doesn't change the past. Like, forgiveness doesn't change anything that's happened. So what does forgiveness do? Like, forgiveness doesn't undo anything. Like, literally, forgiveness doesn't undo anything. And then he had pulled this line from Rabbi Fohrman where he talked about what forgiveness does is forgiveness opens up a new future. Forgiveness doesn't do anything about what's happened. You can't go back and undo with forgiveness. Forgiveness. We usually think about forgiveness in the past. Like, we think about forgiveness as its relationship to the past. But forgiveness isn't about reorienting us to the past. Forgiveness is about reorienting us to the future. And I have always loved that. Because what that means is that forgiveness doesn't mean that there isn't consequences. Like, whatever happened had consequences. There are scars. They might be spiritual scars, metaphorical scars. They might be literal scars. There might be property that was undone and damaged and that can't be restored. There might be, like, physical, spiritual, emotional things, but there are consequences. Forgiveness doesn't undo that. Forgiveness does not mean we're going to trivialize the wrong. It doesn't mean we're going to look at what happened to you and be like, oh, it's really not that big of a deal. That's not what forgiveness means. Forgiveness might mean saying, that was a really big deal. That was a huge deal. That will be a part of the forgiveness process. Forgiveness does not mean forgetting. Sometimes it does. Like we always talk about forgive and forget. There are things that you can forget. You can forgive and forget. They're small, they're passing, they're not worth your time. They're not big deals. They actually are trivial. Yeah, forgive and forget. Those don't hang on to. Don't make a laundry list of all the ways that somebody. All the stupid little ways that somebody has wronged you. But when somebody has done something destructive, you don't forget that. It's not appropriate to forget that. Forgiveness is not. Is not forgetting. It's not the same thing. Those are different things, different Hebrew words, different concepts in the scripture. You don't just forget. Sometimes you do. But forgiveness doesn't mean you have to forget it. Forgiveness might actually mean remembering it for a whole list of reasons. Forgiveness, finally, here's my last one. Forgiveness is not saying that the relationship should or has to go back to the way it once was. Sometimes we have been abused, offended, hurt, and forgiveness can completely happen in full. But forgiveness does not mean that we have to go back to like, some world where I have to act like that person never hurt me. Nope. When we acknowledge all this stuff and we engage the steps of repentance, it puts all of this stuff in its proper place. Because the steps of repentance acknowledge that the offender looks at the situation and realizes there's consequences. I realize I probably can't. We can't go back. What I've done has made it to where we can't go back and undo. Like, we're only going to be able to go forward. So here's how we're going to be able to go forward in a better way, create a more beautiful world. Here's all the consequences. It acknowledges all these things and we don't ever talk about this in Christianity, usually because we're just like, forgiveness of God, yay, I'm saved. And we lump it all together. And then we never deal with repentance. We don't deal with repentance with God. We don't deal with repentance with others. We don't deal with repentance in our institutions. And if we don't see that this is part of what Hosea is calling us to. I wanted to stop with these six verses. I just wanted to stop and slow down and back up. Because if we just read over these, we're going to miss. We'll miss the opportunity of what Hosea is calling us to.
- [32:30]
Marty Solomon
I have a couple of parts of that that I want to point out. Like thinking back to that first section when you're talking about the steps and the acknowledgment of the negative impact, and then talking about forgiveness is not saying that what happened wasn't evil. Forgiveness is not trivializing the wrong. I think this is a crucial part of the process. When you are acknowledging those negative consequences, those negative impacts on others, understanding what the other person's perspective is is probably difficult, maybe even impossible.
- [33:08]
Brent Billings
Yes.
- [33:08]
Marty Solomon
So the language that you use.
- [33:11]
Brent Billings
Yes.
- [33:11]
Marty Solomon
Don't try to sugarcoat it. Don't try to make yourself feel better about it by using softer language than is appropriate. And maybe if that is your tendency, I feel like it would be mine.
- [33:25]
Brent Billings
Yep.
- [33:25]
Marty Solomon
Go beyond what you think it actually is.
- [33:27]
Brent Billings
Yeah.
- [33:28]
Marty Solomon
Let the other person say, you know what, it wasn't catastrophic.
- [33:32]
Brent Billings
Yep.
- [33:33]
Marty Solomon
I appreciate that you think that. I appreciate that you use that word. But it wasn't. It wasn't catastrophic. Yes, it was. This. Let them backpedal it.
- [33:42]
Brent Billings
Yes.
- [33:43]
Marty Solomon
Don't. Don't try to tamp it down yourself.
- [33:45]
Brent Billings
Such a great point. Absolutely. I think it's One of the reasons why, when we engage this process, like, you don't try to defend. You don't try to explain why you did it, it always backfires. It's part of the reason why sometimes it will be inappropriate for you to do this in front of the person you've hurt. Like, sometimes you don't get to have this conversation with the person directly because of the nature of what you did to them. It would be, like, inappropriate. It would be traumatizing for them to have to stand in front of you. You've broken. Sometimes what we do breaks trust with people that much, and that's a part of it. And so we navigate this process as best as we can in all the appropriate channels and in all the appropriate circumstances. But, yeah, it's not the place to like. But here's what I meant. It's not about my intention. It's about my impact. It's not about what I meant to do. It's not about what my intentions were. It's about the impact that I had, no matter what my intentions were. So I love that you bring that up because, yes, like the words we use, it matters. If we keep ourselves centered, we screw this whole project up. If we. The process, if we center them because it's about them, it's about they're the ones that have been wronged. When we center them, it changes the process. Do you have anything else before we start to move towards a close?
- [35:05]
Marty Solomon
I'll just say don't be fooled by my comments, that I am somehow good at this. I'm terrible. Trying to be defensive never works, but I keep trying. Maybe it will the next time, but.
- [35:18]
Brent Billings
We keep giving it a whirl. Yeah, absolutely. Totally. Me too. Me too. I've learned a lot from this process, but I'm with you. I wouldn't call myself good at it at all. Well, Brent, give us this one more time, and I'll give just a couple closing thoughts before we get out of here.
- [35:33]
Marty Solomon
Come, let us return to the Lord. He has torn us to pieces, but he will heal us. He has injured us, but he will bind up our wounds. After two days, he will revive us. On the third day, he will restore us that we may live in his presence. Let us acknowledge the Lord. Let us press on to acknowledge Him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear. He will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth. What can I do with you, Ephraim? What can I do with you, Judah? Your love is like the morning mist, like the early dew that disappears. Therefore I cut you in pieces with my prophets. I killed you with the words of my mouth. Then my judgments go forth like the sun. For I desire mercy, not sacrifice. An acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.
- [36:40]
Brent Billings
Just a couple notes that I'd close with. Don't misunderstand me. Let us celebrate God's forgiveness and grace. I mean that. Let us celebrate the fact that God comes to us like winter rains, like spring rains that water the earth. Like, let us celebrate the fact that God goes back to his lair as we saw. He goes back to his place in the last episode, but he also appears when we come back to Him. Like, let us celebrate the fact that he heals us, even when it feels like he tears us to pieces, that he binds up his wounds, even when it feels like he was the one that injured us. Like, let us. Let us rejoice. Let us celebrate. Let us celebrate all the salvation stuff. I wasn't talking about today. Wasn't talking about salvation. Let us celebrate the salvation, the salvific forgiveness of God. Let us celebrate that. Amen and amen all the way to the end. I don't want to miss any of that. Don't mishear me. But let us not leverage it. Let us not exploit it to do what it was not meant to do. Don't let us offer ourselves or others or the world what I believe it was Bonhoeffer called cheap grace. I don't want us to do that. Let us. Let us be appropriately reverent in our love and our celebration and our rejoicing of God's grace and what it calls us to do. When we realize that we are the recipients of a prophetic word, that we have caused violence to others, no matter how literal or metaphorical that may be. Let us return to the Lord, for He will heal us. He will bind up our wounds. He will revive us. Let us acknowledge the Lord. Let us press on, press in to acknowledge Him. For as surely as the sun rises, he will come to us like winter and spring rains that water the earth. That's what I've got for today. Brett Billings.
- [38:48]
Marty Solomon
Amen and amen. I think we'll keep it simple. We'll just give people some extra time to. To think about this. I think this is an easy episode to be like, oh, that's nice. And then just move on and forget about it. But hopefully people have some time to sit down and consider this process. And, you know, like we said, we've talked about it before.
- [39:14]
Brent Billings
Yep.
- [39:15]
Marty Solomon
And may. Maybe you tried it back then and maybe it didn't, didn't go that well because you couldn't get through all the steps. Yeah, we, we got to work on this. We got to do this regularly or, or we'll never get good at it. And it's never going to be easy, I don't think. But it's important work, so we hope you have a chance to do that. If you have any questions about what we're doing, you can go to baymonthepeshop.com but thanks for joining us in the Baymaut podcast. We'll talk to you again soon.