[CS-FSLUG] TD: CS-BibleStudy: Hosea Chapter 1

[Nigel Ridley]

On Mon, 16 Aug 2004 01:19:08 -0500
Timothy Butler <tbutler at uninetsolutions.com> wrote:

> Hi everyone,
> 	Earlier this year, I was encouraged by Brian Derr and Kelly
> 	Armstrong  
> to bring back the weekly CS-BibleStudy. At the time, they were kind  
> enough to offer to help, but things happened and I never got around to
>  
> getting the ball rolling. It is time to just get the ball rolling and 
> 
> see where we go. This time around, we are starting in the book of  
> Hosea. If anyone would like to help by preparing questions one week,  
> please e-mail me off list and we can decide how to get that arranged.
> 
> 	Answer the questions below and perhaps consider adding your own 
> 	
> questions for the discussion.
> 
> Here's a link to BibleGateway for chapter 1:
> 
> http://www.biblegateway.net/cgi-bin/bible? 
> passage=HOSEA+1&language=english&version=NIV
> 
> Icebreaker: Have you ever been called by God to do something difficult
>  
> and perhaps didn't make the least bit of sense at the time? How did
> you  respond?
> 
> Study Questions:
> 1.) Why do you suppose that God wanted Hosea to live out,
> symbolically,  the problems of Israel by marrying an adulterous wife
> and having  unfaithful children (other prophets didn't have to do
> this!)?

To make it plain to Israel that they were an adulterous generation.

> 
> 2.) God says the people aren't His people but then, in verse 10  
> indicates that will change and the people will become known as "Sons
> of  the living God." What do you think this return to a relationship
> to God  will be?

This will happen when God fulfills His promises to the Jewish people --
see Eze. 36:22-32; Jer. 31:31-34 and especially:

35 Thus says the LORD, who gives the sun for a light by day, and the
ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, who stirs
up the sea, so that the waves of it roar; the LORD of hosts is his name:
36 If these ordinances depart from before me, says the LORD, then the
seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me forever.
37 Thus says the LORD: If heaven above can be measured, and the
foundations of the earth searched out beneath, then will I also cast off
all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, says the LORD.
Jer. 31:35-37

> 
> 3.) Judah and Israel/Samara never reunified.  Yet this passage
> promises  reunification. Do you think this refers symbolically to the
> removal of  separation through faith in Jesus in the future (for them)
> or perhaps  something still in the future -- perhaps an end times
> reunification?

For sure it will be an end time reunification when God brings them back
to the land:

14 "I will bring back the captivity of my people Israel,
 And they will rebuild the ruined cities, and inhabit them;
 and they will plant vineyards, and drink wine from them.
 They shall also make gardens,
 And eat the fruit of them.
15 I will plant them on their land,
 And they will no more be plucked up out of their land which I have
given them," says the LORD your God.
Amos 9:14-15

> 
> 4.) Before starting study in Hosea, do you have any preexisting  
> feelings toward this book of the Bible?
> 
> 
> Have at it!
> 
> 	-Tim
> 
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
> Timothy R. Butler       Universal Networks      www.uninet.info
> ==================== <tbutler at uninet.info> ====================
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> 

Blessings,

Nigel

-- 
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