Author: Dave Dishman (Page 329 of 459)

Perhaps the strangest marriage in the Bible involved Hosea and Gomer.

Hosea, told by the Lord to marry a promiscuous woman, asked around and found Gomer, who fit the necessary criteria. They married, produced children, and gave them odd names, including a daughter named Lo-Ruhamah (which means not loved), and their son Lo-Ammi (not my people). Hopefully, the kids discovered therapy in adulthood.

Later, Gomer left Hosea for another man. He found her and swapped her back for 15 shekels of silver ($140 today) and 430 pounds of barley ($3,000 in today’s organic barley prices, assuming Hosea trafficked in organic barley).

This absurd marriage demonstrated the relationship between the Lord and the people of Judah and Israel. In the midst of their promiscuity with other gods, the Lord stayed faithful. Despite wandering hearts, reconciliation beckoned.

As Hosea returned for Gomer, the Lord returned for his people. In a vision for the future, Hosea purchased Gomer back for himself, just as the Lord purchased each one of us for himself through Jesus Christ.

The life of an Old Testament prophet? No thank you. But the language of promise spoken by such a prophet? Yes, please (note the Lord’s message of hope for Israel, including those kids with unfortunate names):

I will show my love to the one I called ‘Not my loved one.’ I will say to those called ‘Not my people,’ ‘You are my people,’ and they will say, ‘You are my God.’

Hosea 1-3 in week thirty-two of reading the Bible cover to cover

Photo by Edwin Andrade

If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.

While one might apply this truth to any number of bad ideas, and to those who pursue them (filling the internet with videos capturing their fascinating lack of sight), Jesus referred to an older group of influencers.

These blind advisors were religious leaders—Pharisees—who lived piously, specifically following the straight and narrow as it appeared to them.

Somewhere, however, their path angled downhill toward legalities and the thin-slicing of truth, leaving behind the uphill issues of compassion and concern for others.

As a religious leader myself, I pause and wonder—where might I be unseeing as I try to influence those around me?

The issue Jesus referenced involved caring for parents, which some Pharisees avoided using a bit of religious chicanery. Jesus saw through their clever arguments and into their hearts, curled black on the edges.

One lesson jumps from the page—my internal attitudes count more than my outward piety. But it’s so much easier to look like a good person than to allow a good heart to grow.

I relate to those Pharisees. Just give me a few rules to follow, and I shine. Ask me to develop into a person who considers others before myself, and well, I need Jesus.

Matthew 15 in week thirty-one of reading the Bible cover to cover

Photo by Ashley Jurius

In what looked like a slap to good oral hygiene, Amos pronounced a curse against the people of Israel:

I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities…

My grandmother, my mother, my wife, and scores of dental hygienists preached the value of clean teeth to me over the years. The sermons continue on a rigid, twice a year schedule. Happily converted, I now brush—and floss—daily, but I apparently still lack good technique. Always room to improve.

In the case of Amos’s audience, teeth stayed clean because they chewed on nothing. Amos, a shepherd and fig-picker, pronounced these devastating words during the reign of king Jeroboam. Israel refused to return to the Lord, and so God cut off both rain and harvest. But disaster after disaster failed to turn hearts away from their worship of devils and back to the Lord.

How to I respond to lousy circumstances? When I hear bad news at the dentist, I’m pretty sure I have no one to blame but myself. But when I face challenges due to circumstances beyond my control, like the ongoing hassles of the covid infestation, do I listen for the Lord, or just mutter my complaints and move on?

Amos speaks the antidote for Israel’s dire situation: For thus says the Lord to the house of Israel—Seek me and live.

Good advice. Whatever my circumstances, whatever my challenges, whatever my attitude toward them, the Lord’s message remains—Seek me and live.

Amos 4 & 5 in week thirty-one of reading the Bible cover to cover

Photo by Diana Polekhina