Hosea 11:1-11 | Food for Thought
Questions
The love, compassion, and steadfastness of the Lord is put on full display in this passage.
If you’ve been keeping up with Hosea so far, how does the tone of God’s words in this passage strike you in comparison (or contrast!) to the others?
This passage - especially situated within a judgment-heavy book! - says a lot about the Lord. His heart “recoils.” His compassion “grows warm and tender.” His promises to “not again destroy Ephraim.”
How do you square his judgment against sin (which he sees through!) with his promise to not destroy them again?
How can God’s heart “recoil?”
What does all this tell you about the Lord himself? (Who he is, what he’s about, the way he relates with real people in the real world against the backdrop of sin, righteousness, and promises, etc.)
How does the gospel make sense of the Lord’s committment to justice and his commitment to mercy? How do love and justice work together in God’s kingdom?
We have several pictures of God using his strength for the good of his people. And yet, his people are “bent on turning away” from him. They more he calls, the more they seem to go away (v. 2). What does thish tell us about ourselves?
Evaluate your relationship with the Lord. Do you have frustrations, complaints, evidence against him that tell a different story of the way God uses (or doesn’t use) his strength for good?
What do you do with those complaints, etc. when you hear passages like this one that describe his goodness to others?
On the flip side, what are some ways that you’ve seen God use his strength, provision, and power in your own life?
This passage also depicts the ways in which God’s people use their strength in all the wrong ways - strength that came from the Lord! Are you more aware of the way others (people or the Lord) are using what they’ve got or the way you are using your strength?
If our bent is towards forgetting that everything we have (“learning to walk”) is from the Lord, how does this shape the way we assess the way God’s using his strength? How might we be skewed in our evaluation of how well God’s doing his job?
How do you combat the idea in your own mind that everything you have is yours to do whatever you want with?
What are ways that you love letting the Lord be your strength / giving what God’s given you for his purposes?
What things are easy for you to forget are gifts? What are you prone towards just using however you want, in conflict / competition with the Lord?
This section begins with God describing his compassionate call to his people, as a father to a son or a shepherd to his flock. It ends with a loud declaration from him, like a roaring lion. How are the effects on God’s people different from one another?
What gospel assurance can be found in the way this passage ends?