What it means ‘to love unconditionally’ and ‘loving the unloveable’? Hosea Chapter 2 & 3
In the story of ‘Hosea’,
- God shows us the meaning of ‘Unconditional Love’ by first ‘Loving the unloveable’
- To accept your lovers flaws (even though she is a prostitute and you have to buy her back from her pimp)
- Showing mercy to the sinner or the unfaithful can guide them onto the right path again (you can forgive – it don’t mean you are a doormat, there’s a difference)
Hosea Chapter 1, 2 & 3
(To add, this chapter also teaches me that God gives us what we need and not always what we want directly, through God’s wierd methods of teachings we can embrace wisdom no matter how strange the lay out seems to be…)
First of all in Hosea chapter one, God tells Hosea to take ‘Gomer’ the unfaithful woman to be his wife!
Whilst HE is going to be faithful to HER, she’ll give herself to whomever she wants to!
This looks ‘unfair!’ right? and will most likely break his heart and cripple his (Hosea’s) mind time after time!
Lets say the moral of this whole story lays out to this saying “A spirit of prostitution is in their heart; they do not acknowledge the Lord!”
But God commands him to do this so just as it shows and teaches him how Israel treated their God in return.
God teaches Hosea and Israel what it means to love his children ‘unconditionally’ even though they’re addicted to adultery, or like being obsessed with other Gods and being determined to walk away from the one true God that loves them.
Lets go to chapter 2 & 3 of Hosea;
- Hosea Chapter 2 (You can tell from the tone sets out Hosea is not sympathetic of the situation)
2 “Rebuke you mother, rebuke her, for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband. Let her remove the adulterous look from her face and the unfaithfulness from between her breasts.
3 Otherwise I will strip her naked and make her as bare on the day she was born; I will make her like a desert, turn her into a parched land, and slay her with thirst.
4 I will not show my love to her children, because they are the children of adultery.
5 Their mother has been unfaithful and has conceived them in disgrace.
She said, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me my food and my water, my wool and my linen, my oil and my drink.’
- Hosea decides on a plan of action ‘to be cruel to be kind method’ | consequences #1:
6 Therefore I will block her path with thronbushes; I wil wall her in so that she cannot find her way.
7 She will chase after her lovers but not catch them; she will look for them but not find them.
For then she will say, ‘I will go back to my husband as at first, for then I was better off than now.’
8 She has not acknowledged I was the one who gave her the grain, the new wine and oil, who lavished on her the silver and gold which they used for Baal.
Hosea decides on a plan of action ‘to be cruel to be kind’ method | consequence #2:
9 Therefore I will take away my grain when it ripens, and my new wine when it is ready. I will take back my wool and my linen, intended to cover her nakedness.
10 So now I will expose her lewdness before the eyes of her lovers; no-one will take her out of my hands.
11 I will stop all her celebrations: her yearly festivals, her New Moons, her Sabbath days – all her appointed feasts.
12 I will ruin her vines and her fig trees, which she laid were her pay from her lovers;
I will make them a thicket, and wild animals devour them.
13 I will punish her for the days she burned incense to the Baals; she decked herself with rings and jewellery, and went after her lovers, but me she forgot.” declares the LORD.
(Just as we forgot our blessings God granted us, until then we don’t realise what we’ve got until it’s stripped off from us, may we repent and ask for mercy again?).
Hosea has shown so far by stripping her off her luxuries and the necessities that she had forgotten he’s given her, Hosea is determined to let Gomer his wife go ‘COLD TURKEY’ , to save her from her addictive yet destructive situation she is in – that is only causing an embarassement to all.
Just like God stripped off Israel of the things he’s provided for her. He is going to stop them finding their lovers – in God’s case – in finding other false Gods.
- From Hosea chapter 2:14 -23 suddenly there is a change of tone to a more positive, sympathetic, forgiving and generousity in Hosea!
- Hosea ‘fixes’ the situation or ‘redresses the imbalances in their relationship’!
14 “Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her.
15 There I will give her back her vineyards, and will make the Valley of Anchor a door of hope. There she will sing as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt.
Hosea’s plan of action, the positive ‘I show you love – you show me love = WE ARE EQUALS’ method | consequence #1
16 In that day, “declares the LORD. “You will call me ‘my husband’; you will no longer call me ‘my master’.
Just as Hosea decides to show love to the unloveable wife – God shows us ‘unconditional love’ by first to nurture us, to first fight for our safety, well being, spiritual oneness with God so maintaining the communication lines between God and children is connected first and foremost to build the foundations of trusting in the one true God.
17 I will remove the names of the Baals from her lips; no longer will their names be invoked.
18 In that day I will make a convenant to them with the beasts of the field and the birds of the air and the creatures that move along the ground. Bow and sword and battle I will abolish from the land. So that all may lie down in safety.
19 I will betroth you to me for ever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion.
20 I will betroth you in faithfulness and you will acknowledge the LORD.
21 “In that day I will respond,” declares the LORD – “I will respond to the skies, and they will respond to the earth;
22 and the earth will respond to the grain, the new wine and oil, and they will respond to Jezreel.
23 I will plant her for myself in the landl 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’
In Hosea Chapter 3 – Hosea is reconciled with his wife, God advised him…
3 1 The Lord said to me, “Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress.
Love her as the LORD loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and loved the sacred raisin cakes.”
- – Here Hosea purchases back his wife off his wife’s pimp – just like in that movie ‘True Romance’
2 So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and about a homer and a lethek of barley.
3 Then I told her, “You are to live with me for many days; you must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will live with you.”
– Love Story the end and they live happily ever after….. awwww awsome!
4 For the Israelites will live for many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred stones, without ephod or idol.
5 Afterwards the Israelites will return and seek the LORD their God and David their king. They will come trembling to the LORD and to his blessings in the last days.
Jesus never gave up on us – no matter what the situation…
