Whoring Around

Minor Musings | Hosea 4b

A few things I tell people all the time about studying the Bible.

First, you gotta read it…a lot; over and over and over and over again even.

 

Second, know what you’re reading; a story or a poem or a letter or just what type of literature it is. 

Third, look for repeated words and phrases.  They point us to main ideas or themes or messages that the author is thrusting into our lives.

Now that’s brief and rudimentary.  There is way more to legit Bible study then just those three items (although those three items will move you a good long distance down the road).  But they get me to where I want to be to level with you about the latter half of Hosea 4.

Sometimes it’s hard to read a text over and over and over and over again.  Sometimes the type of literature is obvious, and the point of the passage feels culture-bound or cryptic, and sometimes you come across a repeated word or idea that you would rather you had not come across.  And all these together make you want to just keep moving along. 

Eight times in the latter 12 verses of Hosea 4 the word whore or whoredom or whoring is used.  Another four times words with synonymous meaning are used. 

Hosea 4 makes me want to just keep moving along.  But I can’t, because I think we’re in there, you and me.

Whore.  The word is not one you look up to define.  Its general meaning is already well engrained in social fabrics around the world.  I can’t imagine a culture in the world that may spin the word upright. 

The word brings up images that we don’t want to hold on to very long, if at all.  The word connotes reputations that we don’t want to be associated with.  The word is dark, and it blares at a volume that makes us cower and run away, lest anyone see us anywhere near the word itself. 

The whore in the text is Israel.  She’s “played the whore.”  Like Gomer from earlier chapters, Israel has struggled to hold loyalties or devotion to Him who called her away from the dimly lit street corner of sinful self-indulgence and into the brightly lit banquet hall of steadfast love and faithfulness.  She – Israel – has given over the most intimate parts of her life; her soul, to other gods and ideas and things rather than YHWH God.

In verse 7 YHWH declares He will “change their glory to shame.”  Reverse transformation.  This image spins redemption story upside-down.  It turns Psalm 30:11-12 on its head…

“You have turned for me my mourning into dancing;

you have loosed my sackcloth

and clothed me with gladness,

that my glory may sing your praise and not be silent.

O YHWH my God, I will give thanks to you forever!”

He will turn her over to the life of whoredom she pursues, but oh the dead end that will be met there.  Imagine with me the guilt and shame of an exposed life of whoredom.  The looks and stares.  The comments and rumors.  How ignoble the days must be; how despairing the hours must while?  Utterly tragic.  Can it get any worse?  Can it get any better?

Now imagine with me – though it’s risky in the sense that it may wrangle in you and me – if the idea of whoredom could be broadened?  And here is why I can’t just keep moving along past Hosea 4 too quickly…  We have a graphic visual and sexual context for the idea of whoredom, but for all intents and purposes, it’s pretty narrow.  Maybe God has something wider in view when he’s calling out Israel?  And maybe that “something wider in view” is calling us out too? 

Isn’t whoredom, at base, really just faithlessness?  Aren’t we talking about giving up hope?  Isn’t it simply giving away or selling off a part of the whole of who we are to anything other than that which rightfully owns it?  Where Hosea’s audience gave their loyalties and devotion…and offerings and sacrifices away to lesser things, don’t we sort of do the same? 

Hosea names “pieces of wood” and “walking staffs!”  These were tongue-in-cheek references to local idols and neighborhood gods.  These would finally show them the way.  These would finally suffice and satiate their “faith.”  These would finally make them happy. 

We could name bigger TV’s or SUV’s or – I better stop there because I may end up naming something on my own personal list – whatever else it is in your and my life we are faithlessly lured to haul in over a single weekend to finally suffice and satiate and make us happy. 

Be real with me and I’ll be real with you.  Honestly, at root, you and me, we lose faith.  We tire of waiting around, unless it means saving money.  We skip Sunday worship when game times conflict.  We harbor hardened hearts toward folks who don’t think before they speak…or post.  We hurry past minutes, corrective or celebrative, with those who mean the most to us in effort to save time we’ll never get back. 

Over and again we plunk down our loyalties and devotion for lesser things that, even if only for a moment in time, steal away First Chair position from the God who redeemed us from slavery to lesser things.  Really, you and me, like Israel centuries ago, we play the whore.  How ignoble the days; how despairing the hours?  Utterly tragic.  Can it get any worse?  Can it get any better?

Later in Hosea 14 there are a series of promises that point to a future day.  We’ll deal with it more fully when we get there in these musings.  But for now, with chapter 4 sitting in our laps and the idea of whoredom thrusting into our lives, I think the promise that God establishes for His people a whole new identity is key for us to hear. 

The Apostle Paul grapples with the guilt and shame of living faithlessly in Romans 7.  His strong desires wage war with his deep desires, and it’s the strong ones that seem to win out. 

“For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate…  For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing!” verse 15 & 19

Can’t you hear his exhaustion?  He’s just as tired of this whole whoredom thing as you and me.  But Paul is overtaken by a particular reality of being redeemed from slavery to lesser things; that is, living life in Christ.  And we must be overtaken by it as well. 

Paul has come to the high and lofty conclusion that in Christ, he is not defined by the sum total of doing what he does not want to do.  Verse 20 states it explicitly.  Go read it for yourself!

Go on sinning then?  Of course not.  That’s not his point.  That’s not the course of the redeemed.  Pursue righteousness with everything that beats within us.  But when – not if – we stumble into faithless whoredom, we repent, throwing off what lies behind us, and pressing on toward the goal to win the prize from Him who calls us heavenward, not earthward. 

The truth is, no matter the guilt and shame born from an exposed life of whoredom, the Bible teaches “there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus!”  That’s Romans 8:1, right after the chapter 7 stuff.  Now the new identity established for God’s people is a life where His Spirit sorts out in us the issues of guilt and shame and faithlessness.  And instead, we are freed up to live faith-full; to live like Jesus, not like the whore anymore.

Good news?  I should think so.  And wouldn’t you know it, but we started in a book of the Bible most folks miss because it’s hard to read it over and over and over and over again, or the type of literature is obvious, or the point feels culture-bound or cryptic, or we came across a word that we would rather we had not come across.  Aren’t you glad we came across it today though?