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Dr. Manny Arango
Hey, Bible nerds. This is Dr. Manny Arango and I'm your host for the Bible department podcast. Powered by Arma. This podcast follows a Bible reading plan we created to help you read the entire Bible in a year. You can head to the show notes or thebibledepartment.com to download our reading plan and join the journey. Let's be honest, a lot of us are still treating digital ministry like it's a backup plan from 2020. But discipleship isn't just happening on Sundays anymore. People need gospel centered connection every day of the week. And if you're stuck juggling five different platforms, one for giving, another for sermons, something else for events, it's no wonder engagement feels off. That's not ministry, that's a mess. Subsplash changes that one platform. Everything you need, media, giving, events, messaging, your app, your website built specifically for churches. No hacks, no workarounds, just clarity and simplicity. Because every day you wait, families scroll past your sermons, new guests click away from clunky sites, and real people miss real moments with Jesus. Don't waste another summer stuck in digital survival mode. Use it to get ahead, simplify, upgrade, get back to what matters. Head to subsplash.combible-dept and schedule a free no pressure demo. And let this be the summer your church gets focused and fully equipped. Family. Welcome to day 186. We are in a brand new book of the Bible. We're in the book of Hosea. And today we are going to study, we're going to break down Hosea, chapter one, two and three. This is the opening movement of the Book of Hosea. And Hosea is an entertaining, fascinating prophet. I'll do some compare and contrast between Hosea and Amos. Okay, we just got done studying Amos and now we are in the Book of Hosea. And so you'll start to notice differences, similarities, and we'll start to really distinguish the different writing styles and techniques and personalities of these different prophetic voices that God raised up to bring correction to, to bring rebuke, but to also bring hope and restoration to his people. So if you've done the reading today, good job. It's just three chapters, chapter one, two and three. If you haven't done the reading yet, you wanna make sure that you actually do the reading so that you have context for all of the things that we are going to talk about in today's episode. So like always, I'm gonna give you context clues and then I'm gonna give you as many nerdy nuggets as I can And I always leave with a timeless truth. So let's get some context. All right? Hosea is prophesying in the northern kingdom of Israel. Actually, as soon as the book starts, chapter one, verse one gives us context. The word of the Lord that came to Hosea, son of Berai, during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and during the reign of Jeroboam of Johash, king of Israel. Now, just by reading that, it may not be clear. Hosea is assigned to. Is he assigned to the northern tribe of Israel, or is he. Or, sorry, the northern kingdom of Israel or the southern kingdom of Judah? He is a northern kingdom of Israel prophet. Okay, so here's where he's going to be a little different than Amos. Okay, uh, Amos was a lot of, hey, God's judgment, like Amos can be, like, intense to read. It is judgment, judgment, judgment, judgment, judgment, judgment, judgment. And then right towards the end of the book, it's hope of restoration. It's, it's, you know, if it's a parent, it's kind of like, yo, I got to discipline you. So you're about to get this discipline you got. You going to get discipline, discipline, discipline, discipline, discipline. Oh, yeah, I love you. You know, whereas Hosea is discipline, love, discipline, love, discipline, love, discipline, love throughout the entire book. Remember when we studied Amos, one of the things that I said is that the two main sins of the people of Israel are going to be idolatry and injustice. Well, Amos really focused on injustice. Okay, so there is a, you know, if. If the two main issues are idolatry and injustice. Amos wasn't 50. 50. Okay? Amos, the. The overwhelming majority of the content really focused on injustice. That God wants people, and he wants his people to act according to an ethic of love when they engage with their neighbors. So a lot of content around wealth, money, finances, oppression, poverty, to how the poor get treated. Hosea is going to almost be the flip side of that coin. And so where Amos dealt primarily with injustice, he talked about idolatry as well, but mainly injustice. Hosea is going to primarily address idolatry. And the way that Hosea is going to address idolatry is through a word picture, through a sign act. Now, sign acts are very, very popular for prophets. Okay, a sign act, and the sign act that Hosea is commanded by God to illustrate or to act out is that he has to go marry an adulterous wife. In English, that may just read as, oh, someone who's fallen into adultery. No, really, there's a strong connotation for a woman who is a prostitute, and specifically a temple prostitute. Okay? Because Yahweh is going to make this very strong analogy and say that when the people of Israel follow after idols like BAAL and Asherah and worship gods that are not Yahweh, and they're actually not just being idolatrous, but they're being adulterous. They're being adulterous because they are in a covenant relationship with Yahweh and they are breaking that covenant loyalty by engaging in worship acts with gods that are not God. Okay? So Hosea has to take to himself an adulterous woman. Okay, here's where if you really get to know the prophets, you're like, lord God, please don't make me a prophet. Okay? This is where you're kind of like, oh, Lord, no, please. Okay, Like, I'm good, good with being a prophet. You can make me anything else. Really don't want to be a prophet. Okay. I kind of want to put this in context because Hosea is going to illustrate a sign act. Okay? So think about this like an illustrated sermon. But it's like your life. This is common. This happens with Isaiah. Okay? If you go to Isaiah, chapter 20, verse 1 to 4. Actually, I wasn't planning on going there, but let's do it. Isaiah, chapter 20, verse 1 to 4. Isaiah is going to have to participate in a sign act in the year that the supreme commander. This is chapter 20, verse one, sent by Sargon, king of Assyria, came to Ashod and attacked and captured it. At that time, the Lord spoke through Isaiah. He said to him, take off the sackcloth from your body and the sandals from your feet. And he did so going around stripped and barefoot. Now, some translations say naked and barefoot. Then the Lord said, just as my servant Isaiah has gone, stripped and barefoot for three years. My man's naked for three years. Just booty cheeks just out for three years. Okay, three years. Just as he's gone, stripped and barefoot for three years as a sign in portent against Egypt and Kush. So the king of Assyria will lead away stripped in barefoot, the Egyptian captives and Kushite exiles, young and old, with buttocks bared. God's out here like, yo, booty cheeks about to be out here, yo. Oh, with buttocks bared. This is the NIV to Egypt's shame. Okay? So but it's like, but I'm just a prophet, yo. My name is Isaiah. Like, why I gotta be butt cheeks out? Like, why I gotta be booty butt Bear like the in. But it's a sign act. Okay, okay. To Egypt, shame. Those who trusted in Kush and boasted in Egypt will be dismayed and put to shame. So God's words, are y' all about to be put to shame? And his way of communicating that is to get Isaiah to be booty butt, booty naked. Man, like, prophesying, like, that's just wild, yo. That's some goofy behavior. Okay? So God doesn't just tell the prophets, hey, go say this or go say that. Their lives become a part of the sermon. Their lives are a part of the prophecy. So this is also true with what? Isaiah has to name his children. One of his children. And it's so crazy that I know this off the top of my head, one of Isaiah's children is named Mahershal al Hashbaz, okay? It's one of the longest names in the Bible. And he has to name his kids based on a prophetic message that he gets from. From God. So it's not just, hey, thus saith the Lord, but there's also an element of. Of. Of his life that is surrendered to the will of Yahweh into the message that. That he's supposed to communicate. This also happens with Ezekiel. Okay? If you go to Ezekiel, I'm pretty sure it's like, Ezekiel, chapter four. We won't go there. But Ezekiel has to lay on his left side for 390 days, and then he has to lay on his right side for 40 days. So for 430 days, my man just has to, like, lay on. Lay on a side of his body. And again, it's a prophetic message. Okay, so back to Hosea. Hosea's sign act is he got to go marry a prostitute. Okay? So, like, imagine. Imagine, like, you know, you're. You're an upstanding guy. You're. You're. You're a preacher. And God's like, all right, man, are you fully devoted? You fully surrender to me? And you're like, yeah, it's like, all right, go down to the brothel and pick your favorite one. All right? And so he marries a woman by the name of Gomer. And the message that God wants to communicate is that I, Yahweh. Yahweh has married Israel, okay? Delivered Israel from bondage, Delivered Israel from captivity. Delivered Israel from the Egyptians. I delivered you. I took you out into the wilderness. The wilderness was our honeymoon. At Mount Sinai, we made a covenant with each other, okay? I was your groom. You're my bride. As a nation, we are in covenant with each other. We're in marriage covenant with one another. And you have hoard yourself out to BAAL and other gods. And I have every right to divorce you. I have every right to leave you. You. But Hosea is going to marry Gomer. They're going to have three children, and then Gomer is going to return to the brothel, okay? She is going to return to her work of prostitution. Now, a lot of scholars believe that Gomer is probably a temple prostitute. And the Bible says that Hosea is commanded by God to go down to the brothel, find Gomer, and pay whatever price he has to pay in order to get her back. Now, at this point, you know, I want to highlight a key word here, which is redemption. Okay? This is a biblical picture of redemption. I want you to remember this, that what the New Testament communicates in terms of ideas and words, the Old Testament communicates in terms of narrative. So there are three main narratives in the Old Testament that all communicate redemption. And Paul is assuming that you know the three stories so that when he uses the word redemption, you already know what that word means. The first is Abram, redeeming lot. That this is a member of his family that's been taken captive and he has to fight to go get his nephew back. The second, the story of Boaz, Boaz the kinsman redeemer, okay? And he uses his ability as kinsman Redeemer to make sure that Ruth and Naomi are actually taken care of and provided for and good. And then last, the last picture of redemption that we get is Hosea purchasing the woman who. Who he's already married to. And this is the cross that God would shed his blood for humans that are already his. The Bible says that the earth is the Lord and the fullness thereof, that God owns a cattle on a thousand hills. Everything in this world is God's. But he still pays a price to have you back in covenant relationship. So when you pay for something that you already own, not just you paid for it once, but you paid for it twice, this is redemption. That God did not just save you by waving of the bippity boppity boo wand, no, but he used his blood, the innocent blood of Jesus was shed to buy you back from sin, to buy you back from Satan, to buy you back from the decisions that you made. And so Hosea is living as a sign act. And the sign act is to communicate to Israel, although you've been a harlot, although you've been a whore, although you've been a prostitute, although you've been adulteress. Although you have lacked faithfulness, although you have not kept up your end of the covenant bargain, I am going to be faithful. However, my faithfulness will still include consequences. So Hosea begins to prophesy about the Assyrians that are going to come in 722 BC and discipline the people for their lack of faithfulness. Family. The wait is over. My brand new book, Crushing Chaos is out now and available everywhere. Books are sold. Literally today I walked into a Barnes and Noble and I signed a bunch of copies at a physical location. So you can grab this book at a physical Barnes and Noble or you can go to a Books A Million or Amazon or anywhere books are sold and grab a copy. If you enjoy reading the Bible from an ancient perspective, if you understand that the beauty of scripture is actually knowing it in context, then you'll love this book. And if there's any chaos in your personal life, I think that reading the Bible from an ancient perspective can actually help to crush the chaos in your life. I think this book is going to be a New York Times bestseller. I really do. I think we wrote a good one. I think you should get a copy today. All right, back to the episode. Okay, that is the context for all this stuff that's happening. Let me give you some nerdy nuggets. Some nerdy nuggets. And remember, this is happening during Jeroboam II's reign. So you've heard Jeroboam now a lot. Because Jonah, Amos and Hosea are all prophesying during Jeroboam's reign and they're assigned to the northern kingdom of Israel. All right, some nerdy nuggets. Hosea's family life was itself prophetic. Yahweh told him to marry a wife of whoredom, a wife of prostitution. A Hebrew phrase meaning prostitute. Most likely a cult prostitute involved in idolatrous and sexual acts of worship. Her unfaithfulness in idolatry. Her unfaithfulness in idolatry and adultery to Hosea was a symbol of Israel's idolatrous and faithfulness to Yahweh. So Hosea represents the faithful husband and so does Yahweh. And then Gomer represents the unfaithful wife, who is Israel. The names are really prophetic. I'll focus on one just cause we don't have a ton of time. One of the children is named Jezreel, which means God plants. This child shares the same name as King Omri's winter palace. I don't know if you Remember this story, okay, where Jehu slaughtered the house of Omri. The message meaning that the same thing would happen to Jehu's own house, of which Jeroboam II was actually a part of. Okay, so the name, one of the names of Hosea's children is actually going to be. The name is going to be in judgment to the king who's currently on the throne, Jeroboam ii. It's a nerdy nugget for you. The other kids names is she has not received mercy or she has not received love. And then not my people. So the, the, the kids names are also not my people. This last child was probably not Hosea's biological child. And the message is that because of Israel's unfaithfulness, they would no longer be the people of God. So the story is depicting Yahweh as a husband who's faithful to the end. Now there's a little nerdy nugget in here that I find to be really, really interesting. Okay. Hosea, chapter three says that Hosea buys his wife back from her prostitution and welcomes back to his house. Now it's. I want to make sure I got this right. I think it is 15 shekels of silver. Yep. Gomer for 15 shekels of silver and a measure of barley. And this is a relatively small price. So this is something you may not be aware of that 15 shekels of silver and a measure of barley is a relatively small price for a prostitute. And like to pay a pimp like figure for this for the whole value of this woman's potential to work for you for X amount of years, it's not just paying for her for the night or paying for her for one sexual act. It's paying for what she owes to the brothel forever. That's her potential value that she could make as someone who's working in prostitution. So this is a relatively small price indicating that Gomer had fallen to a low status. So this is how like insulting God is. God is like, and you not even a good prostitute. Like not only have you prostituted yourself, but like you, you, you not even like top of the line. Like you're not even top tier. Yo. And this reflects Israel's spiritual degradation that when Israel moves into idolatry, they become less valuable. And we've seen this theme so far back in I can't remember if it was first or two kings. It's straight up. God says when you follow worthless idols, you yourselves have become worthless. That the way that I degrade my Value as a person is through idolatry. And this is symbolized in the money that Hosea has to pay to get Gomer back. Also, Hosea 2:14 talks about the desert or the wilderness. This is actually the wilderness. I know we see the wilderness as maybe a place of testing or place of failure in the story of numbers, but God actually sees the wilderness as a place of honeymoon. Like this is actually the year following the covenant at Mount Sinai the people were supposed to spend with Yahweh, getting to know each other and falling in love with each other. My second to last nerdy nugget is that even though God tells Hosea to marry a prostitute, he does not tell Hosea which prostitute to marry. And I know there are a lot of Christians who believe that God is going to tell me who to marry. And I would contend that even Hosea has choice. Even Hosea has agency. He has a selection of prostitutes to choose from, and he has to make a choice. Hosea, Hosea is not just a signed Gomer. He's not just doomed to be with Gomer. Now, although it is a sad situation, he is still given agency and free will. Last thing, there's a Davidic hope here. Hosea, chapter three, verse five. Okay, I'm actually going to read this. It says, afterwards, the Israelites will return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They will come trembling to the Lord and to his blessings in the last days. So I need you to see that afterward the Israelites will return and seek the Lord their God. Okay? They'll seek the Lord their God and David their king. So remember, Hosea's prophesying to the northern king of Israel. These are. This is the nation or the kingdom that has broken away from the Davidic line down in the south. Not only is Hosea saying, you're going to come back to God, he's saying, one day you're going to come back to your rightful king, which is the ancestors or the lineage of David. So very pro David. Okay, so we've seen that now in multiple prophets that are very, very, very pro David. All right, Timeless truth. This is the easiest of the timeless truths. The exact same metaphor that God uses for himself and Israel is the exact same metaphor for Christ and the church. We are the bride of Christ. If you're a Christian, you are part of the bride of Christ. So for us to idolatry in any form is adultery and unfaithfulness to our faithful husband. Okay? The church, men and women, young and old, every denomination, the capital C Church, the capital C Church is the bride of Christ. And as the bride, we have to make a decision that I'm going to be faithful, I'm going to be loyal, I'm going to be committed, I'm going to check my heart for idolatry. I am going to not trust in other things. I'm not going to put my faith in whatever it is. We may not have gods like baal, but we do have things that we worship that are not God. And sometimes the stuff that we worship is literally our own worship styles at church. Okay? Humans have the ability to turn anything into idolatry. And so this book, if there's a prophetic book where the metaphor actually transitions smoothly into the New Testament, we're reading it. Hosea is gonna declare that God is faithful, Yahweh is faithful, and Israel is not. And that is the same that is true of the church. Jesus is faithful. And the church has had seasons of faithfulness, but seasons of unfaithfulness. And my prayer is that I get to be a part of helping a generation to be faithful to our covenant partner, to King Jesus. So that is a timeless, timeless truth that idolatry anywhere in your life in any capacity, should be ruthlessly dealt with and annihilated so that you can be a faithful spouse to King Jesus. All right, tomorrow we are going to continue our trek through Hosea. We got Hosea chapters four through eight tomorrow. And the book of Hosea kind of keeps getting better and better. So I'll see you tomorrow. If you're on a streak, let's go. I'm proud of you. If you're not, let's start one. I'll be right here for day one 87 as we continue to study this prophetic book. Love you. Peace. See you tomorrow. Thanks so much for joining us on the Bible Department podcast. You can find us online and learn more about the show at thebibledepartment.com and on Instagram hebibledepartment. If you enjoyed this episode and want to dive deeper into the Bible, you can get free access to our library of courses@thebibledepartment.com we'll see you back here tomorrow.