God told the prophet Hosea to do some strange and unconventional things. First, he was told to marry a prostitute. Next, their children were given bizarre symbolic names. Finally, after Hosea’s wife left him to return to her former life, he was told to go find her and take her back.
All of these events were to be used by Hosea as object lessons for the nation of Israel. Specifically, his marriage to an undeserving and unfaithful wife point to God’s unconditional love to an undeserving and unfaithful people – both then and now.
Hosea is sometimes called a minor prophet. This doesn’t mean he wasn’t important, but merely that the book named after him is shorter. (Compare this to the major prophets, whose books are much longer.)
Dig into the intriguing lives and ministries of the Bible’s twelve minor prophets in Peter DeHaan’s book Dear Theophilus, Minor Prophets: 40 Prophetic Teachings about Unfaithfulness, Punishment, and Hope.
A lifelong student of the Bible, Peter DeHaan, PhD, wrote the 1,000-page website ABibleADay.com to encourage people to explore the Bible. His main blog and many books urge Christians to push past the status quo and reconsider how they practice their faith in every area of their lives.
