Blogging the Bible

The pattern should be pretty clear now for those who have been faithfully reading through the prophets. God offers his people life and they turn away from him. He begs them to return. They do not. He brings calamity upon them as judgment for their sin and as a tool to determine all those whose hearts are truly his. Chapter 7 and 8 describe the judgment that comes even thougth scoffers tell Amos to go back to Judah and prophecy there. He tells them clearly what the Lord had told him–Go to Israel.

True to the pattern, however, the final chapter describes God’s faithfulness in keeping his promises. For the remanant (9:8 he will not totally destroy) there is a glorious future. The “tent” of David will be restored. There land will yield abundant fruit again (vs. 13) and they will live lives of great abundance.
And the key word is in verse 15 of chapter 9…Isreal will be planted and NEVER again be uprooted. This is God’s plan from the beginning of time–to live with his people in perfect harmony and for his people to enjoy him forever and ever.

Chapter four we have heard over and over again. Do we get it? Two charges are leveled against the people. First, they are trampling and mistreating the poor and abusing the oppressed. THEY ARE OPPRESSORS. God hates this. Second, they are not returning (turning) to the Lord. They are turning away and running away from him. These two conditions lead to the judgment declared in chapters 5 and 6.

Chapter 5 verses 21-24 are quite clear. These are very “religious” people, meaning they are people who are doing all the religous activities that religious people are supposed to do. But God says that he despises and hates their religious feasts and “cannot stand” their assemblies. Whoa! This is serious! They are conducting the religious feast proscribed in the law and assembling for worship and God says, “I hate it!” He goes further. Though they bring him “choice” offerings he will not accept them and has no regard for them. They are singing and playing musical instruments, presumably in worship, and he says that he will not listen adn tells them to get away!

So what does God want? Here it goes again! Justice! That is what God desires. God is a God of justice and expects his people to act justly also. Amos speaks for God and says, don’t roll out all your religious activity! Let justice roll like a river. Just as animal and plant life thrive with ample water, so human life thrives when justice is all around. Israel’s treatment of the poor and oppressed was gross injustice. So God rejected their religous ritual. First things first! Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God, says the prophet Micah (this is the verse our students did the video for). This is true religion.

Over and over again the prophets say it. The heart of God is tender toward the poor and oppressed and he desire his people to be involved in bringing justice to these folks. Justice is making sure people have what rightly belongs to them and oppression is when people use power to take away from less powerful what is rightly theirs. God hates oppression and loves justice. We must order our lives accordingly.

A contemporary of Hosea and Jonah, Amos prophesied primarily to the NOrthern Kingdom, Israel, but also makes reference to the Southern Kingdom, Judah and Jerusalem. He prophesied during a time of great prosperity. This was the problem. The kingdom’s relative prosperity made them assume God approved of all they were doing. But their prosperity brought significant religious and moral corruption.

The key verse is 5:24 which says that true piety (true religious character) is expressed as social justice. God hates injustice and oppression.

Chapter one and two bring indictments against surrounding nations and Israel and Judah. God is full of wrath and judgment because of their treatment of people. In 1:6 slavery is described–the capture and sale of whole communities. 2:7 says they trample on the poor and deny them justice. The end of chapter 3 describes great idolatry as the nation turns to all sorts of other altars and idols.

Amos expresses the judgment and righteousness of God. They thought that as long as they did all the ritual, they could do whatever else they wanted. Not so diffrerent than many Christians today. We often mistake religious activity for faith. Taking up a space in worship or saying prayers and singing songs is not what God requires. He requires a heart that belongs to him and that means that MOnday through Saturday our lives are directed by what God has revealed in scripture and by what the HOly Spirit reveals to us through that word.

How many prophets spoke this message? Every one did in one form or another. Israel (as a whole) did not listen. 1 Corinthians 10 says that all this was written for our example so that we will not make the same mistake. Will we?

Joel is not unique among the prophets. Depending on how it is dated, most scholars beleve either Joel borrowed from Amos, Micah, Zephaniah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, or they all borrowed from him! This should not trouble us. It is actually affirmation of the validity of the message of the prophets. There is great agreement among them about what the problem was, how their experiences were to be interpreted in light of God’s revelation, and what the solution and end result would be. In Joel’s case, the swarm of locusts is a harbinger of the judgment of God–the coming Day of the Lord. His word is, like the other prophets, that Israel has been unfaithful and there will be judgment as a result. But with repentance there is hope.

Joel does have one of the most famous passages that is quoted in Acts 2:16. It is the prophecy that in the later days God’s Spirit would be poured out and sons and daughters would prophecy and that on BOTH MEN AND WOMEN would be servants of God and the Spirit of God would be given to them. This is great affirmation, even in the Old Testament, of God’s impartiality in equipping people for service. Even in a very partriarchal time and place God reveals that men and women would be used by him for his purposes. The Spirit of God and the equipping for service is given to whoever God chooses in order to accomplish his purposes. God is no respector of persons and as Paul reiterates in Galations 3:28, in Christ there is neither Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female, but we are all one in Christ. There is no hierarchy in God’s economy. He is the head, the ruler of all and the rest of us all fall at his feet and worship and live to glorify and serve him alone. And Christ set the ultimate example. He, who was Lord, layed down his life to serve us. If we are to be like him, we cannot worry about our “position” or “status” but only seek to use everything God has given us to make him known. Joel is just one more voice in the history of God’s revealing himself confirming that God is in charge. Sin will be punished. And grace is available for those who repent. In this plan God uses men and women, boys and girls from every tribe and nation.

One of my all time favorite passages of scripture is Hosea 11. The author changes the metaphor for God’s love for his people from husband and wife, to parent and child. The language is full of love and tenderness. The tender and doting love of a parent is responded to with rebellion and rejection. God loves Israel and demonstrated that love by calling her out of slavery–freeing her. But the more God loved (called vs. 2) the more Israel went away. God reveals through the prophet that, like a doting parent, it is God who taught her to walk and who healed her. It was God who led her with cords of human kindness and with ties of love, lifted the yoke from thier neck, and bent low to feed them (vs. 4). Vs. 5-7 describe Israel’s obsinate response. But again in vs. 8-11 God expresses his longing to be in a close and loving relationship with them. Though they turn away, he cannot give them up (vs. 8). His heart is “changed” and his “compassion is aroused.” And his “roar” will not frighten them, but bring them home to be settled and cared for.

A careful read of this chapter reveals the deep and abiding love of God for his people. The tender and doting love that a parent has for a child, so God feels toward us! What amazing love this is!

The grand finale is in chapter 14. Beginning in verse 4. God will heal their waywardness and love them freely. He wll be like “dew” to them. They wil blossom and the roots will be strong like the cedars of Lebanon

Then the author asks, “Who is wise?” (14:9) The one wh is wise will “realize these things.” The message is clear. God’s love is deep and tender toward us. As broken as we are, we can run away or we can run into his loving arms.

To fully understand and appreciate Hosea you have to read very carefully. Tucked in between all the explicit consequences of sin and rebellion are tender and broken hearted expressions of love and devotion. God is tender-hearted toward Israel (and by implication, us) and broken hearted over our unfaithfulness and rejection of his love.

6:6 reveals what God desires and it comes from the heart. All the religious ritual (sacrifices and burnt offerings) in the world is not what pleases him. Mercy and acknowledgement of God is what he wants–a relationship with us.

6:11 and 7:1 again reveal God’s tender heart. The “prosituting” of his people–their running away after other gods/lovers–God responds to with judgment, yes. But he also reveals his desire is to “heal” the, and “restore their fortunes.” Like a devoted lover, God wants to give his people good gifts. But they reject his gestures of love.

7:13 God says he LONGS to redeem his people. 15 it is God who “trained and strengthened” them but they use it to plot against him!

Over and over again in this amazing prophetic story, God reveals himself as the spurned lover/husband. No matter how unfaithful the wife, God continues to pursue and woo his “bride.” Philip Yancey calls God the “jilted lover” of the story. However, God is relentless in his love and never gives up. He continues to “speak tenderly” to Israel and to us.

The life of Hosea, a husband spurned and humiliated by a unfaithful wife, who goes again to find her an bring her home is the story of God’s love for his people. Who would have ever thought that God would cast himself in such a “role” in the sacred writings? But that is exactly what he has done in the book of Hosea. We belong to God by creation. But we have turned away and rejected his love. In Christ he has demonstrated his love through pain and humiliation in order to “buy us back” as his own bride. Now THAT is love!

Hosea is called by some scholars “the Gospel of John” of the Old Testament. It is a love letter from God. It is not written in words alone, but written with the actual life experience of the prophet called upon by God to deliver the message of love. God asked Hosea not to speak the message, but to live the message. Hosea’s life was a tragedy and love story that God used to communicate to Israel just how very much he loved them.

Hosea experiences the horrible tragedy of love betrayed, not once, but twice. He marries a prostitute. He restores her health and gives her everything a woman could want, but she goes back to her prostitution and her “lovers” only to be left naked in the streets again. Hosea is told by God to go and get her again! Why? Because this is what God did for Israel (and by implication, for you and me!).

One of the most amazing passages in Hosea is 1:14-23 where God reveals that he will once again show his love to “her” and the Valley of Achor (a tragic blood bath of a battle) will become the Door of Hope (the way of salvation). Israel’s playing the harlot—going after other gods, other loves—will be used ultimately for God to show his love even more profoundly.

God tells Hosea to go find his wife who has betrayed him and bring her home again because that is EXACTLY what God has done and will do for his people. Though they constantly turn away, though they consistently choose to disobey and follow other gods, he will be faithful to his promise and make them his people and he will be their God.

This is the Old Testament version of the cross. We were created by God and for God but we have run off in our own ways and turned our backs on God’s love. We have tried to find it in all sorts of other people and things. But God, at great cost like Hosea (amazing cost in body and humility), has “come after us” again. His love is endless and he will stop at nothing—not even the painful and humiliating death of the cross—to let us know just how much he loves us and to “pay” for our “betrothal.”

In Hosea, God is the spurned lover and we are the wayward bride/wife. What an amazing demonstration of love!

The new movement was and is unstoppable. People like Paul, Barnabas, Timothy and the rest of the believers gave their whole lives, energy and resources to spread the message of the Gospel “to the end of the earth”.

Especially Apostle Paul gave everything he had for the cause of the Gospel. His love for the Lord Jesus Christ was very profound and intense. He went through many difficult experiences, but never gave up in proclaiming the greatness of the good news.

After Paul was put in Jail and then sent to Caesar to make his appeal, he decided to keep his commitment to the Gospel and while waiting for his sentence he was engaged in the proclamation of the good news of Jesus Christ. Thanks God he was able to remain focus while waiting for his trial.

How many of us are really committed to the advance of the Kingdom of God?

Would you be willing to even pay to proclaim the Gospel? Apostle Paul rented a house for about two years in order to proclaim the truth of the Gospel (Acts 28:30-31). The Christian faith is so wonderful and powerful that only death could stop the believers from proclaiming the great love of their master Jesus Christ.

What is preventing you to proclaim the Gospel? Whatever that could be, God is ready to give you wisdom and boldness, and strength in order that you can be successful in your service for the kingdom of God.

The new movement became more than a little section of the Jewish faith. It became a particular faith itself. Now they are planning on taking the goods news of the Gospel literally everywhere. Saul was incorporated into the new faith and along with Barnabas they started a power revolution among the gentiles.

Now churches were planted everywhere these two men went. The grace of God was brought to Jews and gentiles indistinctly. The gentile side of the church was growing in an overwhelming way that some more Jews oriented Christians were trying to impose over the new believers the laws of Moses along with the Gospel.

The church met and decided that was not necessary for gentiles to follow the Law of Moses in the same way the   Christians jews were doing it (chapter 15) for the gentiles and their leader this was a battle that they have to fight over and over until the  Christian  Jews acknowledged that Christ alone was the requirement to belong to the people of God.

This section is especially dedicated to Apostle Paul and his disciples. He was a very committed and passionate man who understood that Christ was to be preached everywhere. The best way of doing that according to apostle Paul understanding was by training new disciples whom will continue to carry on the legacy and blessings of the gospel.

This was a wonderful busy day, but also a day in which  I was unable to write. tomorrow will be another day, and we will back with our blog. Be patient, God is working with and in us. we are also living our own version of the book of Acts.

See you tomorrow!