EMMAUS SCHOOL OF BIBLICAL STUDIES

Today I am just realizing how blessed I am. To be in a place where all I have to do is study the Bible. To be able to seek every day growth in the knowledge of God, and growth in my relationship with God. To be able to see truth lived out by the staff here, to struggle through difficult things alongside my fellow students, and see the rewards of our struggles in our lives, is such a blessing. I am so blessed to be able to be here right now. God has provided me with this opportunity, and I am thankful to be here right now. (The fact that it is spring and warm weather is rising upon us on this beautiful mountain isnt so bad either) Anyway, let me get down to my real reason for writing this blog: Hosea.

I have enjoyed studying the book of Hosea because of its cool message. It has been so cool to see. So, Hosea writes to the people of Israel in the Northern Kingdom, during the reign of Jeroboam II. This is a time of prosperity for Israel physically, but a bad time spiritually. They have abandoned God, been idolatrous, and broken his covenant severely. God tells Hosea to marry an adulterous woman who has left her lover. This is to serve as an example of the message Hosea spoke to the people of Israel. The message was that Israel was the same as this adulterous woman. Israel was unfaithful to God, just as the woman was unfaithful to her husband. God tells Hosea to do this as a message to Israel, to get their attention. The message is for them to return to their God, and be faithful to him as He has always been faithful to them.

It is so sad to see how God repeatedly extends his mercy to his people, treating them with tenderness, compassion, and faithful love, while they in return treat him horribly. They ignore him, go against his commands, worship other gods, and give credit to their gods for the things God has given them. God still extends his love and mercy to them. He wants good things for them. He wants them not to have to experience his judgment. He wants them to be his people, and he their God. He wants a good relationship with his people! Yet they treat him with contempt, ignore his message, and continue in their ways. Thus, God must fulfill justice, and give them the judgment they deserve, and he even warned them about.

What impacted me most about this book is the faithfulness of God. Israel is so horrible to Him, and yet he treats them with such love, mercy, and compassion. Hosea 11:3-4 gives such a beautiful picture of God’s love for his people who are also his children. He ‘led them with cords of human kindness, with bands of love. I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks. I bent down to them and fed them.’ This is such a precious picture of the tender love God has for his people. He guides them, takes care of them, cherishes them, and loves to be with them and take care of them. He loves to lavish them with his love that flows so fully from his heart.

This picture comforts me when I think about the Father’s love for me. It also grieves my heart that I would do things to hurt this God who has shown me so much love. It also makes me sad when I do things that disappoint him, or displease him. His love makes me want to please him. Doing things that he wants me to do will lead to good anyway. I have been so loved and blessed. I am thankful that I serve and am the child of such a good, faithful, and loving God.

The pain of growth, what a pain.

My daughter has leg pains. Has had them for a number of years now. We are told they are growth pains. She is a tall girl for her age so you could see why she may have some pain. Many nights we heat up a “bean bag” for her to go to bed with for her legs. She asks again why she has this pain and we again tell her it is because she is growing. Growing… what a great thing. She is getting bigger and growing into an adult. She is growing into the woman that God created her to be. But her legs still hurt. She will one day, sooner than later, do “adult” things and fulfill that part of the calling on her life. But the pain is here tonight. The pain is real and the heated bean bag does not really take the pain away but only masks it.
She loves China and has for a while now. Is that one of the things that God has called her to? She love languages. Is that part of the puzzle? But tomorrow night the pain may be back again. The pain is real. The pain is a pain. But the pain shows growth. It reminds us that she is only ours for a time, this time of growth. How wonderful to watch her grow but what a pain.
Faith is similar. Peter speaks of salvation that is ready to be revealed. We rejoice in this, even if now we suffer various trials. Why do we suffer these trials? So that the genuiness of our faith, that is being tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus returns. There is a result of this faith.
James also speaks of something similar. He says that when we face trials we are to consider it nothing by joy. Why? Because the testing of our faith produces endurance and when endurance has its full effect it produces maturity and completeness and lacking nothing. Such simple wonderful words but my legs still hurt tonight. The warm bean bag is nice but really only good to help me get to sleep. But the endurance is being produced. How long will my legs hurt? Till the growth is complete. Patience… wait… hold on… Let me heat that bean bag up again, a minute-thirty should do it in the microwave. Thanks Lord.
So what is this “joy” to look like? In Hebrews it says that for the sake of the joy that was set before Jesus, he endured the cross. Joy was right before him, it was right there. When I see Him on that cross I do not see a “happy” Jesus. I see a Jesus in pain. I see a Jesus abandoned. I see a Jesus calling out to his Father from Psalm 22, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?…” Jesus quoting the words from David’s pen, living them in a more real sense than anything I will ever have to. This joy seems to have 2 aspects. During the trial it is the firm end to focus on. And at the end of the trial it is the reward.
The joy of the Lord is my strength.

Kings and Chronicles are books about the need for people to follow God and the importance of doing life according to the ways of God.

The back drop of Kings and Chronicles is the exile when Judah was in captivity in Babylon.  These people thought they were exempt from God’s laws and ways because of having the temple in Jerusalem and also because they had the Messianic line.   History is always 20/20 vision and this was obviously not the case.    These books show us that God was measuring the kings against the standard he established in his covenant in Deuteronomy.

Because this covenant was a two way deal (God gave his law and directions for life; the Israelites would be blessed or cursed depending on their obedience.   This is a really important point to note otherwise it could be easy to think that God is a prosperity preacher!

So God is only being faithful to his covenant with Israel and keeping his promises.  Unfortunately the kings of Israel and Judah are, by and large, unfaithful and idolatrous and continue to worship idols.

The other thing we can see from these books is that people will often imitate their  leaders and as  went the leaders of Israel and Judah so went the people; so when the leaders of Israel and Judah turned to idolatry the people were right behind.   This should be a warning to any leader  that all of their lifestyle is important not just the public face.

The challenge for us out of these books are to be people who are fully committed to working according to the ways of God and who are quick to repent when we make mistakes.   God is always faithful to  show grace when we throw ourselves on his mercy.

I truly enjoyed studying Kings and Chronicles. I think Kings may be one of my favorite books of the Old Testament so far. It got me excited to study the prophets, which before I knew like, nothing about.

The author of Kings (who I concluded was Jeremiah) writes to the exiles in Babylon. These Israelites have been taken captive and are in a totally new land. Eileen in her lecture gave us some questions they probably were asking, things like, “What happened?”, “How did we get here?”, “Has God forsaken us?”, and “Is Marduk (god of Babylonians) more powerful than Yahweh?”. The author of Kings writes to give these exiles some answers. By measuring their deeds by the standard of the law, the author gives the exiles a clear answer for the reason they are in Babylon, under the oppression of their enemies. Jeremiah goes through the acts of the kings of Israel and Judah, and shows how each one measured up to the law, and the covenant and the commands  God gave them in Deuteronomy. Many of the kings disobey the covenant, and because of this, they are judged in many ways.  God tries to turn them back to him by sending the prophets, who attempt to bring them back to obeying the covenant and following God’s ways. So many of them don’t listen, however, and so God lets them go their own way, which leads to destruction.  With each king this happens over and over. A few of the kings follow the covenant, but most of them are wicked. The author shows the clear message that those who obey the covenant are blessed, but those who turn away, things will not go well with them. This shows the exiles in Babylon, the people who Jeremiah is writing to, THIS is the reason they are in exile. They have been disobedient. They have followed other gods, and have forsaken following God. Because of this God let their enemies overtake them.Though this is  a tragic answer to their question, Jeremiah also offers hope through the stories of the kings by showing that when they called to God for forgiveness and mercy, and humbled themselves, God would take them back. He loves a humble, repentant heart, and he responds to it. So the message is one not just of solemn, hard truth, but also one of hope. They can call to God, and he may deliver them!

As I studied through Kings and Chronicles and saw how over and OVER again these kings would disobey God and turn away, and lead the people away as well, it got really annoying! I was like, “what is WRONG with these people?! Don’t they know that if they just obey God, then things will go well for them!? Its for their own GOOD!!” Haha! Then I would stop. And be reminded. Hmmm. I do the exact. same. thing.  This is really humbling. Wow. I totally choose my own way often because I think it is better than following God’s ways. This frustrates me. It makes me want to slap myself upside the head and be like, ‘whats wrong with you!?’ (its funny though, I show myself a lot more grace than I would to the kings I was studying about). Instead I am hit by the grace and mercy of God. He is SO patient with us. He loves us SO much and wants the BEST for us! He wants us to obey and follow him because it is the BEST way! It’s not about obeying rules, its about doing things that are right, that will please God because it is the best thing for us! This  totally changes my motivation to do the right thing in situations. It is because it is the best thing for me and others around me. Walking outside of God’s ways leads to pain, destruction, and tragedy as I saw in Kings. Walking in his ways leads to joy, peace, safety, rest, and a good life! Now, of course, we have to think about this in light of the NT as well, with the new covenant. In the NT we see how believers should expect to suffer for believing. I do believe, however, that it still applies today because, people walking in God’s ways is how God designed the world to work. If we follow his ways, things will go better for us than if we don’t.

I want to do the right thing because it is what pleases God, and because it is what will lead to good things for me. I am so thankful for the love of God that stays on me even when I repeatedly fail, just like the Kings did. His love just doesn’t make sense to me sometimes, but I am thankful for it just the same.

As I approached this book I was given a real life challenge to see if I could take the principles of leadership in Samuel and apply them to my own life.

Samuels show us the transition of the Israelites from having God as their king to demand a king for themselves from their people.  Their motivations for wanting a king were all wrong and it was a rejection of God and a desire to do things their own way.

God brings along Saul and then David as models of kings and the writer of this point shows some stark contrasts between Saul and David.   David follows God’s ways (mostly) where Saul goes from bad to worse.  It is not because Saul doesn’t have what it takes because God gave Saul the Holy Spirit and a new heart but his disobedience to the word of the Lord is his down fall.

This shows that leaders will make mistakes but if they are willing to try and seek God and do things his way life will go much better for them and all those around him.

David has a couple hurdles on his journey to and we can see from the way he was unwilling to deal with the sins his children that it caused all sorts of problems for those around him.   If David had been willing to confront Amnon for his rape of his sister, Absalom may have felt justice was done and not felt the need to take justice into his own hands.

So I learnt from this book the importance of doing things in God’s ways and seeking his guidance.  Also I see the importance of leaders being willing to deal with issues of sin even in the lives of those close to them.