Hosea

By 18 century icon painter [Public domain],
via Wikimedia Commons

When I was younger I read the Bible looking for gold. But I don’t do that anymore.

Maybe I should explain. One of my favorite Bible teachers at Moody Bible Institute was Dr. Sims. Among the things he tried to teach me was attention to detail in my scholarship (this did not take root) and clarity of thought in my communication (this also did not take root.) During a class on the Psalms, after the background work on Hebrew poetry and the authorship, Dr. Sims selected various Psalms for deeper study and discussion. During this part of the class, he would analyze a phrase or even a word and pull out what someone called nuggets of gold. For example, perhaps by showing the meaning of a phrase in its ancient Middle Eastern culture, a verse was clarified or a thought became deeper. He never implied you needed an advanced theological degree or knowledge of an ancient Biblical language to find these nuggets. These nuggets could be uncovered through hard work and he would give us clues and point us toward commentaries and journals to find our own which we were encouraged to share in class.

(As an aside, Dr. Sims liked to start class by signing a hymn and literally every classroom at Moody seemed to have a piano in it. Naturally, someone told him I played the piano, so almost every class I took with him on Psalms and Romans began with…”Brother Carrera, could you pick a hymn for us to sing?” I was and remain a very reluctant piano player, which surprises some people but really what choice did I have in that situation.  Luckily for me, I was still in the piano rotation at my church so I could replay the hymns I had learned for Sunday past.)

Anyway, after I left Moody and moved into my post-college life, I still read and studied the Bible looking for the nuggets. It was a worthwhile pursuit and I learned many things I could use to add interest or insight to a devotional or sermon. But I don’t do that anymore.

It’s not that I don’t have the time. I have all the time I need, especially after I check my email, facebook sports news, political news, and then the sports news again just to make sure that nothing new was written in the ten minutes since I last checked the Chicago Bears forum I belong to. It has nothing to do with time.

It’s just that now I’m looking for something different.

These days, in my older years, I’m more interested in the people. I read and reread looking for clues about who Abraham really was and what he was like. I hold my breath during the David stories hoping he makes better decisions this time, but he doesn’t, and I’m amazed that the Kings of Israel and Judah don’t get it. Why can’t they see!

Well, that was all the introduction. Recently while I was teaching an abbreviated Old Testament survey class to my junior-highers, I found myself talking more about the people than the nuggets. I retold the stories trying to use modern concepts and words. I needed my kids to understand the people, to understand why they made the choices they made, and that choices have consequences, and that Jesus and God were/are in all the stories.

So we were all together, me teaching and them learning (cross my fingers) when we arrived at the book of Hosea and I had to explain Hosea. Here is what I told them. Hosea was a prophet, and prophets did what God told them to do (well Jonah didn’t, but that’s something for a different day) and God told Hosea to do something strange. God told Hosea to marry a woman who was going to be unfaithful to him. She would sell herself to men and have children whose father was not Hosea. Of course, Hosea did this. Hosea loved her, and he brought her home, and he went after her when she left. And the junior highers wondered why he did this.

“Well,” I said, “It is because we are the wife and God is Hosea. And we spent all of our time trying to have a relationship with God but also with all the other things we want to have a relationship with. And all those other things pull us away from God and God comes and pulls us back.”

Of course, they looked at me like I was crazy because after all they are only twelve years old and I’m fifty and sometimes we just don’t connect on any kind of level because I’m trying to share a deep truth and they want to make latex gloves out of white glue during class.

But every now and then during class I think of something out of the blue and I stun myself with the clarity of my thought (thank you Dr. Sims.) And here is what I thought.

I know why Hosea didn’t give up but why didn’t the wife give up? Just move out, it’s obvious she didn’t want to be there. But then I realized she was trying to do exactly that, but Hosea wouldn’t let her and I almost wept in front of the class. I try really hard not to do that too often because they are junior highers and well, you remember junior highers.

I almost wept because of the picture. The Bible only mentions God telling Hosea to go get his wife once, but I like this was a daily thing. Every morning Hosea would roll over and reach for his wife and she wouldn’t be there. So he would get up and go looking for her and bring her home. She was disheveled and drunk, and the neighbors would shake their heads. He’d make coffee and breakfast, clean her up, put her to bed, and spend the day taking care of kids that were not his. Then the next day he would do it again. And the neighbors never realized they were the ones he was doing this for. Because the lesson was for them.

They never realized, or maybe they did, that God never gives up. Every day he chases us down, brings us home, wipes off the world, feeds us, and puts us to bed. This is the picture. I’m not trying to say that we are terrible people, sinners running from God every chance we get and generally raising havoc around us. Because most of us aren’t. But sometimes, we just want to get away and flirt a little with something else and God does his Hosea act and brings us back. And in the end, the wife turned and she loved Hosea back and everything was right in the world. The neighbors had Hosea and his family over for bbq and they told him how their marriage relationship had changed because of his example and now they loved each other like Hosea loved his wife. And that was actually the whole point anyway.

This is what I need these days, to know and to see that God won’t give up, even when I want something else. The junior highers? They want to hear about when that one guy was chasing that other guy on foot and the guy in front told the guy chasing him to stop or else, and then he jammed the butt of his spear through the guy’s stomach and out his back. I hope they never grow old.