Q&A: Hosea 11

Hosea 11 - Q&A

Here are some brief answers to our questions from our Sunday evening service.

The first 5 questions are answered fully in the youtube video below... the questions are listed with a summary answer, but please see the live video for the full answers.

1. Why is God specifically depicted as a lion roaring in this passage? (rather than a father calling back his kids or something like that)

This is one picture of God. Draws our attention to his strength and commanding power.

2. From a confession in an earlier service today...Why did God 'adopt' us as his children? He created us.

This is one aspect/picture of our relationship with God. He adopted us, bringing us BACK into a relationship with him after we broke that relationship through our sin.

3. What is Wilston doing in two weeks? Is this his last time with is at St Phil’s? How can we pray for you when you head back?

His last week with us is next week. Then he heads back to East Malaysia to rejoin his wife, and to serve in the Anglican Church, in particular teaching in their theological college. Please pray for his travel, his marriage, and his ministry work ahead.

4. From Hosea, we learn about the love of God. Are mercy, judgement, forgiveness and reconciliation the elements in his love? (Continued in the next question)

5. If all are the elements in his love, the voluntary sacrifice of Jesus is the pinnacle of the revelation of his love. Right?

Yes! Add judgment to that. Judgment is also loving as part of God's justice. For example - we see this in God's great act of love on the cross of Christ.

6. How can God's heart/mind change if he always knows what he will do in his plan?

God is omniscient. He knows all things. A changed mind doesn't mean he made a mistake. He adopts human language to explain what is happening. God is unchanging.

We could say that God may change action, but not character.

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Questions not answered in Q & A:

8. How can we stop sinning?

If only we could! We cannot. Our broken human nature means that as much as we try, we do fail in this each and every day. However, the Holy Spirit is at work in us to change our hearts to not WANT to sin. It is the desire to sin that God is able to change. Until heaven, we will fal again and again, which is why God calls us back to confess our sins and repent, turn away, from them. 1 John 1:8-9 says:

9. How can we helpfully understand what the displaced people in Deuteronomy might feel - we focus on our adoption INTO God’s family, but what about those put OUT.

God's judgment on his people was discipline. Again and again, they are warned and warned, punished, and redeemed. We can look at those in Deuteronomy as God's people being disciplined as a nation SO THAT they might return to him, with confession and repentance, and follow him once again. There is a great verse in Ezekiel that shows God's heart so clearly here: