God’s Enduring Love: Hosea

 Remember Anna Nicole Smith?  I remember reading this online at Yahoo.Anybody who arrived from Mars and wanted to know what all the fuss was over this Anna Nicole Smith would do well to watch just one clip: her appearance at the 2004 American Music Awards. Prancing onstage in a tight-fitting black gown – she grabbed your attention. Her looks were outlandish, but there was beauty beneath the excess.

And then she spoke. “Like my body?” she asked, tracing her fingers over her breasts. Her slurred words spilled out dangerously. She was clearly very high on something, and you wondered if she would survive, literally.

It was hard to watch. And, of course, harder not to.

Her strange life seemed to veer from one outsized struggle to another. She struggled famously with her weight and with her family. She sometimes even struggled to speak without slurring. She had a TV show that could be so embarrassing you’d want to watch it with dark sunglasses on. Much more tragically, she lost her 20-year-old son. Five months ago she had a baby daughter and now two men claim to be the father.

In other words, she was a perfect pop culture icon. [1]

I really feel for Anna Nicole Smith.  Not only because she was dysfunctional.  Not only because she was addicted to drugs or alcohol, or she had a hard life.  Many people have those in one form or another, perhaps not at the same level as she did.  I feel for her because she was ultimately distracted, and wanted so much to be satisfied in life. To live life large.  She thought fame, fortune, drugs, alcohol, sex, her gorgeous body and her pretty face, her rich husband, her TV show, kids – having a family she never had… She thought those things would make her happy and satisfied.  She was distracted from real and lasting happiness.  She placed her trust in pop culture, and it killed her. 

Jonah, More than a Fish Story

 We just finished my series on Ruth, and I hope that everyone got as much as I did out of it.  While most people think that Ruth doesn’t have near as much substance or content as, say, an Isaiah or Romans, and they are right, this little book does have a wealth of good stuff about God, His relationships with human beings, and His provision through hardship and suffering. My next Old Testament project will be Jonah.  Again, this book is very short, only four chapters, but is stuffed full of content about God, rebellion against God, and God’s mercy to men from all nations and places. 

My outline will be roughly:

1:1-3      Running from the Lord

1:4-16    When God grabs you

1:17        The Sign of Jonah

2:1-10    Repentance

3:1-10    Obedience and its effect

4:1-11    Compassion contrasted

There are several themes in this study that will come out as we make our way through this little book.  One is the compassion shown by Jonah and by God, or better yet compassion as contrasted by God and Jonah.  Jonah runs from God because he lacks compassion for the Gentiles, fearing that they might repent and God will show compassion on them instead of Israel.  Jonah lacks compassion for the sailors in chapter 1, even though they wind up fearing the Lord at the end of the chapter.  Jonah has no compassion on the Ninevites, yet God moves and he witnesses one of the most dramatic times of repentance recorded.  In contrast with Jonah, God is shown as the one that shows His compassion on both the Israelites and the Gentiles, for all nations of the world.  God even has compassion on His rebellious prophet.    

Another theme is God’s sovereignty.  Despite his best efforts, Jonah cannot run from God.  God shows Jonah He is the creator God by controlling creation (the wind and the seas), creatures (the big fish and the big plant), and events (Jonah does go to Nineveh).  No one or nothing is outside the sovereign control of Yahweh. 

Resources:

Some resources that you may want to check out that I have used in preparation for this project. 

Sermon series by Arturo Azurdia:  http://www.spiritempoweredpreaching.com/sermons.htm

Jonah, by Hugh Martin, Geneva Commentary series.

The Minor Prophets, volume 1, by James Montgomery Boice.

The Message of Jonah, by Rosemary Dixon.

Obadiah, Jonah, Micah (Tyndale Commentaries), by Desmond Alexander.

Hosea-Jonah (Word Biblical Commentary), by Douglas Stuart.

Jonah: A Study in Compassion, by O. Palmer Robertson. 

Salvation Through Judgment and Mercy: The Gospel According to Jonah, by Bryan Estelle.

There are other commentaries and books, but these are some of the main ones.  There are number of great sermons on Jonah from many of the Puritan writers as well as Charles Spurgeon.