Ep. 112 | God and Sinners Part 4 (Murder and Infidelity): Cain and Gomer | Pickled Chats 7
Hosts: Hunter Hoover & Jesse Turkington
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Summary
Hunter brings Cain as a lesson about second chances and how sin propagates itself. Jesse brings the person of Gomer to talk about infidelity and how, in Hosea's case, God uses sin as an example to get the people's attention.
Passages explored: Genesis 4:6-7; Genesis 4:13; Genesis 5; Hosea 1-3
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Music created by Chad Hoffman
Artwork created by Anthony Kuenzi
Host’s Bio’s
Hunter grew up in Montana and now serves the Church in Albany Oregon where he works as a youth and young adults pastor. He and his wife Ana stay busy with two kids. Hunter loves studying the Bible and communicating it in a way which encourages further exploration of others. Hunter enjoys listening and making podcasts for others to enjoy.
Jesse Turkington is the executive director of Parable Ministries and has been a Bible teacher for the last 9 years. When Jesse was just finishing high school, he started a little Bible study at his parent’s house. Little did he know, this Bible study would change the direction of his life. He fell in love with the richness of the Bible and he wanted to pursue serious study. About 10 years later, Jesse still carries that passion for the Bible and from this passion was born Parable Ministries - a Bible teaching resource. Jesse believes that the Bible is a life changing book and that it can transform the way we view the world. The Bible presents a Creator God who desires intimate fellowship with us. His ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts. Through study and thoughtful meditation, the Bible works to untangle our situational worldview and elevate our hopes and desires - we are encouraged to think on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Jesse is all about this book and he wants to share it with whoever will listen.
Transcript
Intro:
Hey there, welcome to Pickled Parables. This podcast is presented by Parable Ministries as a Bible teaching resource. Thank you for joining us. Pickled Parables is a podcast about taking in and living out the Bible. Here we will study, contemplate, and testify to the Bible's incredible teachings and how it leads us to live better lives. To stay up to date with all things parable, follow us on Instagram at parable underscore ministries and visit our website at parableministries.com. We hope today's message finds you well. Hello, everyone, welcome back to Pickled Chats.
Main Topic:
I'm your host, Hunter Hoover, and I'm joined with the co-host at this point.
Jesse, Jesse, how are you?
Hey, Hunter, I'm good.
Good to be back here with you for another Pickled Chats.
Yeah, and we are gonna be continuing this month in our conversation about God and sinners.
Every time we do this, I forget how many we've done.
I think this is the fifth.
It'll be the fourth, and then I'll be proven wrong again.
But we are discussing this idea for those.
If this is your first episode of God and Sinners chat, welcome.
We are just exploring the idea of just the number of characters in the Bible who are portrayed, I would say truthfully, and as a result, their sin and the fact that they are sinners is in many ways put on display, not as a spectacle, but as a reminder to God's people and the people of faith and those in our modern day church lives as examples, both of maybe mistakes to avoid, but also God's ability to work alongside and often with characters, both those who are redeemed in the end and some who are not.
And we've explored kind of both those categories in the past.
So this week, we've got another batch of two to bring to you.
Who are you bringing?
I'm bringing Cain, like, almost the OG sinner.
I think you can go first, because I'm bringing Gomer from Hosea.
Yeah, so I will try to keep this brief-ish because I want to, I think, I think actually Gomer's a less known character than Cain and maybe is more interesting to explore.
But I'm bringing Cain and I want to just, so a lot of times when we do these God and Sinners, a little peek behind the curtain for the listener, is often when we say, oh, we're gonna meet, let's do God and Sinners, you know, it's easy because you have these characters and you can kind of explore them.
And usually, I know who I want and I go, oh yeah, this person fascinates me.
But this time, that did not happen.
And I was actually listening to, it doesn't happen often.
I'm pretty firm into the I'm listening to podcast camp.
I don't listen to a lot of music.
It's probably to my shortcoming and downfall.
But I was listening to a song by Forrest Frank.
He's a new Christian music guy.
But he talks about how some days he feels as if he is Cain and some days he feels as if he is Abel.
It's a play on words.
To me, it comes off as SoCal rap is kind of his style, mixed with some hymns.
It's pretty good.
But combos the name Abel with the idea of being able to do the things he needs to do.
I sat there and I went, oh, this lyric's been running through my brain.
Let's try out Cain.
Let's talk about this guy.
I'm just going to give the Cliffs Notes and I'll read a bit from his story.
It comes from Genesis Chapter 4, so right out of the gate.
I was also going to say, anytime I go to those, for me it's really the first 10, 11, 12 chapters of the Bible, I feel like I am returning to this thing where the rest of it is kind of built off of it.
Yeah, there's so much original things that are happening that then get played on time and time again, that I love the stories from those chapters.
But, so Cain's story comes from Genesis 4, and the short and sweet is, Cain was the son of Adam and Eve, so second generation humanity.
And he has a brother and his name is Abel, and the fun Hebrew is Abel's name is a...
We'll touch it up.
Abel's name is a play on Hevel, which comes out later in Ecclesiastes, and it's this idea that it's a vapor, and the tongue in cheek is, he's not gonna be around very long.
And so, as the Hebrew reader probably reading this and they're going, okay, what's this guy's deal?
But Cain, before we get to the tragedy of Cain, he is presented with this idea that he has this offering and his brother Abel has an offering, and Cain's kind of grumpy because he offers his offering, and God does not accept Cain's offering, he does accept Abel's offering.
And so Cain is upset, it says he is very angry and his face fell.
And then in Genesis 4.6, the Lord says to Cain, why are you angry and why is your face fallen?
If you do well, will you not be accepted?
And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door.
Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.
And so we, it's almost like this warning from God, like, hey, bud, your attitude's bad.
And you know that you could be accepted.
Your offering could be regarded.
And we find out, you know, it's the quality, like Abel seems to be bringing the prized first portions of his animals, where Cain is like gathering up some grain, and he's bringing in some of like maybe the lesser quality offerings.
And so God gives him this warning.
He's like, don't be angry.
Like, first of all, it's on you.
Second of all, like sin, you're right at the door, bud.
You need to turn it around.
And really, I think of all the times, especially like with my kids.
Here I am dragging my children into this example.
But where you give them the warning, like, hey, we are right at the edge of disaster.
Like we can feel it.
It's in the room.
I think you need to go take five minutes and then come back to this.
And I remember even myself as a kid, that was, I hated that and I wanted to do it now.
And then it ended in destruction.
But that's kind of what God tells Cain is like, you need to take a break.
Like, just think about this.
Sin is crouching at the door.
It's desires for you, but you can rule over it.
You can choose not to sin.
And I imagine Cain is going, what even, what, what even are you talking about?
Like, I haven't, I'm just mad at this.
The next scene is the famous Cain and Abel, where Cain kills his brother Abel, is guilt stricken.
It says his blood cries out from the ground.
And God shows up, confronts Cain on the issue.
God already knows full well what Cain has done.
And with the scene of Cain then being cast out of this region, this Eden region.
And Cain almost immediately, I think, understands what's going on.
And this is the part of Cain that I want to explore, to give you the backstory there.
So Cain is, he says to the Lord, this is Genesis 4 13.
He says, my punishment is greater than I can bear.
So his punishment was that he's going to be cast out, the ground is going to essentially wage war against him via weeds and other things.
And he's going to be a wanderer and a fugitive.
And so Cain says, my punishment is greater than I can bear.
Behold, you've driven me away from the ground and from your face I shall be hidden.
I will be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth and whoever finds me will kill me.
And then the Lord in response to this, and I think this is one of the things that sometimes I even go back and forth in interpreting.
And I think there's an argument to be made for both.
But God marks Cain.
We don't get a lot of information about whether that is a physical marking or some sort of like spiritual marking or cultural marking.
We don't get a lot of that.
We just know that God marks Cain so that way anyone who would kill him, that they would not be able to.
But if they do, vengeance would fall on them sevenfold.
And a lot of times, this is, I've heard this viewed as, well, you know, Cain is going to be a wanderer and a fugitive.
And so God has, it's kind of a curse because now he's going to be wandering and be a fugitive for the rest of his life.
There's not going to be a murder that ends his life.
But so there's that.
The argument I find more compelling is that this is actually like a gracious act from God, wherein Cain in this moment where he has given into sin, says it to God, it's too much for me.
I'm afraid of dying and God says, okay, I will spare you from that by marking you.
You might still die, but know that anyone who does bring that on you, they're not exempt from this curse of sin.
So that's kind of Cain as the sinner.
He commits the first, I would say physical murder here.
He gets first kill, not a good look.
It's one of those things, this is my kind of bad sense of humor maybe coming through, is like you read the Bible and like Adam and Eve did their sin.
And the first one out of the gate is murder.
It's like, you didn't get any warm-up.
You know, it's the first like, murder.
Okay, but Cain is cast out and then we're told that then Cain, this cast out one, he goes and he forms a city and he has a bunch, he has some kids and this is the interesting thing that I like going back through some of my notes in the past on Cain.
So he has a son named Enoch, that's going to be important in just a second, and Enoch means dedicated and so we could begin to ask like dedicated to what?
And then Enoch has a son named Irad.
It literally is like wild donkey of a man or wild, some translators dragon.
The dragon idea is very interesting, tying it to this like primordial sea monster, god taming the pre-created state chaos monster things.
If you, yeah, there's been plenty of work done recently on that, but I don't think it's an accident that like their language has this as almost a related idea.
Or it could be like this heap of an empire.
Like there could be something coming from this Irad guy.
Irad has a son named Mahu-Jael.
You got to hack your loogie on the H's.
And this name, they argue a little bit.
It's like the man of God or the man who will proclaim God or in the negative sense, it's used, the one who displays the grief of God.
He has a son named Mahu-Shael, which is man from God.
And so you have these descendants.
And in all of them, you have this kind of back and forth of like, is Cain going to be a guy who stands for God, even though he's been cast out?
It's like he's given this second chance.
And even the naming of some of his kids seem to nod towards this idea that they have this choice for God out there in the wandering and in the fugitive spaces.
And then they have a kid named Lamech.
And Lamech seems to blow the whole thing because we're getting kid, kid, and they have these names.
And then Lamech shows up.
He has two wives.
His first person have two wives and things go poorly from there.
He takes this mark that God put on Cain, which depending how you look at it, it's either a curse or a blessing.
But he takes that and he mocks it.
And he says, yeah, well, guess what?
If anybody let that even be more so for me.
And it kind of comes across as if he doesn't believe that God would do anything, which is really weird because it's like his great, great, maybe great grandfather.
I don't know.
For me, like even if my grandfather said something and I thought it was nonsense, I would be like, okay, grandpa, you know, like I wouldn't be outwardly mocking him.
That I just, so this guy's kind of a turd, not a good guy.
And so then it like the story cuts on Cain and then it like shifts focus.
It's like, hey, by the way, Adam and Eve had another son, his name's Seth.
And then Genesis chapter 5 starts to tell us more about Seth's kids.
We're not going to go through it.
We could read a name list.
One day we will read lots of name lists.
Jesse has recently read some name lists in my dusty Bible.
If you don't like name lists, having Jesse read them for you is a better path forward.
I enjoy it more.
But in this name list, there are a few names that stand out.
The first is, like a few generations removed is a man named Enoch.
And I don't think this is like, it's not the same guy, because it's a different grandfather line, but it's the same name.
This person dedicated to something.
And in Seth's case, we are answered the question dedicated to what?
because it says Enoch walked with God and then he was not because God took him.
Don't know what that looks like.
I like, in my brain, it's always like an alien induction image, not to say God's an alien and abducting him, but like it looks like that in my brain.
Probably wasn't, but that's the theater of the mind for me.
His son, so Enoch, similarity with Cain's kids and grandkids and all this.
Enoch had a son named Mathu, I want to get this right because I will mess it up.
Mathu-Salah.
So, Cain's great-great whatever, great-grandkid was Mathu-Salah and Seth's is Mathu-Salah.
Like, one letter difference in the Hebrew.
And at some point, you're beginning to go like, are these the same people?
They are not.
Again, this is related to this idea of man of God or man from God.
And then Mathu-
I'm going to batch it.
Salah.
When Seth's M guy, when he has his son, he names him Lamech.
And now we're all sitting here like, why?
Like, don't you know about your cousin's whatever.
Probably not, maybe, who knows.
But he names him Lamech and it's this like upturning because Lamech fathers Noah, who then goes on to do the big ark boat story and be this person of rest for God's people.
It's temporary.
But-
and so we get this almost like side by side parallel between Cain and then later Seth of this idea that God's sin is crouching at the door like he told Cain.
And it's like every generation of Cain had the opportunity to figure it out.
And even in their wandering and out there, God seems to still be active and evident because some of these people's names have I L, which is usually like this nod towards this God or L character in their time.
And then you get Lamech, which is the culmination of Cain's story, and it's bad.
And then you get Lamech and we're told that he produces Noah, which sends us right into the next section.
And so it's just to me, Cain, in my brain, he's like, he's not the original sinner, but he kind of he kind of made it a thing.
Like you do it once, but once you do it twice, it's kind of a thing.
Like we've seen the pattern now and we see that play out in his family line.
And like the the writer of Genesis is very much steering us towards Seth's line by taking these characters and using the same names and having the same names and highlighting them as, no, look over here.
This is how it should have been done.
And so our God and Sinners thing is like, so what do, how did God use Cain?
And I think that's kind of the trick of all this.
I think the first and foremost for me is like, it gives me this reminder about sin, that it impacts the people around me and that come after me in a big way.
And also that God, like when we sin, we have the luxury of looking back on this through the person of jesus Christ, but when we sin, God does not just go, you messed up, I'm done, see you later.
I'm not gonna hear from you.
And good luck out there.
Like even in the very moment where Cain is kind of receiving his punishment, he cries out to God and God responds to him.
And then even in the generations after Cain, we see these moments where they have the opportunity for themselves to choose to do good or choose to not sin, to various degrees of success.
And so it's a frustrating reminder, but it is a reminder that when we walk, and the key there is Enoch walked with God.
When a generation, when we walk with God, we are able, through that, to begin to resist sin in our life.
So I'll open it up, sorry, I rambled there.
I said, oh, it'll be short, and then it wasn't.
But that's kind of my musings on Cain, and God's working through Cain in the ways that we can kind of see.
That's fascinating.
I remember studying in Ecclesiastes.
I had a little phase with Ecclesiastes, where I was teaching through that for Sunday school, and then I fell in love with this, so I kept going on my own time.
But I remember discovering, I was so proud of myself, because it was something I stumbled onto, where the vanity of vanities, the meaningless of meaningless, whatever English translation you have, the Hevel Heveline of Ecclesiastes is, as you mentioned, Abel, that's his name, Hevel.
And that idea of a vapor in the wind, that thing that is there, you can see it, it's tangible, it's real, but once you try to grab onto it, it dissipates, it falls away.
And with Ecclesiastes, the idea of trying to live a good life, and you try to do all these things, you store up your riches, you manage for yourself a good household, and then we think of Job and it's gone.
And we think of these biblical examples of it disappearing.
And the, the Coaleth, the, the, the teacher, the guy in Ecclesiastes is, is essentially looking at all that and going, it's, it's like Abel.
It's like this guy who brought a good offering to the Lord, lit like, bringing the best he could, live in his, the best he could, bringing the, the, the honorable thing, and then he's murdered out of jealousy.
because he did it, like, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Not, not just accidental, but because of his good actions, he's murdered.
And, and so in Ecclesiastes, the, the struggle that the teacher is, is wrestling with through the whole book is, what's the point?
I mean, we try to live these good lives.
We think of Proverbs and Lady Wisdom and all these good things and how to live a good life.
But what's the point when it just gets taken away?
And, and he reaches the point in, in Ecclesiastes, if like, love the Lord, enjoy good food, have good drink and just do your best.
And that's, that's what he gets to.
That's, that's the premise of Ecclesiastes.
And so in talking about Cain, the other side of Abel, this man looking at someone being genuine, bringing the, the best of his flock or the first of his flock.
And, and rather than looking internally into himself and going, man, I wonder why my offering wasn't accepted.
I w like, I wonder what's going on with me that I could fix.
Instead it's, it's flipped outward toward Abel.
And it's like that guy, he, he just usurped me.
He, he just took what I brought to the Lord and he took that away from me.
And he, then he becomes bitter.
He holds it in, the Lord comes to him and warns of this sin crouching at his door, which could overtake him.
We get this sense of like, man, it's so fascinating when you compare it to Adam and Eve with the serpent in the store and that the beast of the field type thing.
And it's like, well, are we talking about like the beast overwhelming his humanity?
Like, what are we talking about there?
That's interesting.
And it does, it just, he leans into his jealousy and murders his brother.
And then that detail of the blood of Abel crying out, that's used everywhere in the old, like after that, the Lord hears the cry of our blood just from the ground.
And it's just fascinating to see this in the full setting.
It puts itself in, I don't know.
These are all just observations.
I don't really have anything to say really, but it's just fun.
Yeah, I think that's, it's valuable even sometimes.
And like I said, in many ways, the story of Cain is, for some it might be fresh.
If you're listening to this and the story of Cain is fresh, that's great.
We're glad you're here.
But I think for many who especially have grown up in the church or grown up even just hearing Bible stories, whether it's because it happened so quick in the book or because it's such a tangible, I mean, there's so many lessons, I think culturally even Cain and Abel creep in.
It's one of those, it's kind of like, I'm trying to think of a New Testament example, but it's kind of like the Lord's Prayer where even people who wouldn't call themselves Christians or call themselves people of faith, they know of the story.
They know of that prayer.
And I think that's, in many ways, when I think of Cain and really Cain's legacy, which is not great, it's pretty net negative, we don't ever get, by the way, like there's, you know, there's, we don't ever get if Cain, if that is an act of repentance where he calls out to God, if the fact that he names his kid Enoch and then Methu, you know, these names that kind of hint towards God, if this is a nod to the fact that maybe Cain figured some things out, out in the wanderings.
We don't get a lot of that information because it's not really the point.
But whether or not he did, that idea that, I mean, just outright, pretty much the most heinous, like, version of murder.
And they're, they're, this is maybe morbid.
We can cut it if it is.
But like, their murder was very personal.
because nowadays we have these things called guns that like literally remove us in distance from the person that we seek to do harm to if we do.
Where back then, I mean, they had some weapons that were long range, but even then, like, you were still pretty active agent in that.
And, I mean, I remember reading in my child's Bible.
The Extreme Teen Bible?
Where it had like a picture of Cain.
It was like a cartoon style, but he's like got a bat, and he's like swinging it at the head of Cain.
And he's like looking away, like his back's turned to him.
The image is always something like that he is being bludgeoned.
I think the one I've seen most is like Cain with the rock above Abel.
And I'm like, please.
Oh, I've seen that on a flannel graph, yeah.
Yeah.
And I'm going, you know, there's not a spear there.
I mean, it's always depicted as pretty like hands on and very close.
And I think, and this is maybe a rant, but I think a lot of times like technology really removes us from the perceived in the moment tangible effects of sin.
And I think it desensitizes us to those effects sometimes.
Yeah, rant over.
That was a good rant.
Yeah, it was a short rant.
But, yeah, I don't know.
It's Cain's, Cain's a weird character.
Lamek's even worse.
I didn't bring Lamek because he doesn't seem to even have even a glimmer of, hey, maybe things, maybe God used, like, he's pretty awful in the short few verses he gets, where even Cain, you know, even when he's out in his fugitive wanderings, there's things that could hint that maybe he figured something about God out or sought God in some way, even though his grandkids and great grandkids fell off that train pretty quick.
Makes you wonder.
I hate to say it because I give my young adult crew grief if they tell me this, but it's one of those things where we truly might never know until we get to glory and are able to, all I know is, like, when I read the Bible, I'm definitely going to just get to sit down and hit God with questions for hours and hours.
That's definitely what I read happening.
It's not.
Anyway, it'll happen.
We'll get the thumb drive upload.
That'll be more like what it's...
Oh, that sounds pretty fun.
No, I'm done.
I'm done offering my ridiculous ideas of the afterlife.
So we can move in.
I would like to hear yours because it actually caught me off guard when you shared that you're bringing it.
Tell us about Gomer.
What a great name.
Yeah, Gomer Pyle from the Andy Griffiths show.
Oh, no.
Well, I'll be honest.
I don't know a lot about Gomer.
I don't know a lot about Hosea, which is where Gomer is.
But here we are.
I'd like to explore it with you guys.
Uh, Gomer is found in the Book of Hosea.
She's first introduced in Chapter 1.
The Lord comes to Hosea, who is a prophet.
And from what it seems, the the story, like the the instruction the Lord gives Hosea towards Gomer is, is like almost rep.
It's representative.
It's like a rennet.
It's like a a reenactment of a parable, essentially, is what it seems like to me.
And, uh, well, we'll just read the first couple of verses here to get an idea of who this lady is.
Hosea Chapter 1, Verse 2.
When the Lord first began speaking to Israel through Hosea, Hosea was a prophet to Israel.
Uh, he said, Go and marry a prostitute, so that some of her children will be conceived in prostitution.
This will illustrate how Israel has acted like a prostitute by turning against the Lord and worshiping other gods.
So Hosea married Gomer, and she became pregnant and gave Hosea a son.
And that's about 50% of my knowledge of Gomer.
But the, the representative side of this instruction is, is something I'd be interested in chatting with you about, Hunter, where we have the story of Israel being one of, I, I feel like I overuse this word, but I don't, it's just true, utterly fascinating, the story of Israel, where we see God make covenants with them.
We see it start with Abraham, or Abram, and it's so strange because it almost seems like God's painting himself in the corner, where sometimes, where he's making a covenant with them, where he's like to Abraham, I'm going to give you a son through your wife Sarah, and you're going to have so many descendants, and then Abraham goes and endangers his wife by essentially selling her into the harem of Pharaoh.
And the Lord sends plagues and disease to Pharaoh, and Pharaoh is like, hey, what's going on with this?
And it's the Lord protecting that lineage, protecting Abraham and his wife, and like going to bat for Abraham, despite Abraham's very poor decision.
And we have a lot of examples of that, where Israel seems to just put itself in a position where the Lord defends it, as he promised, but it seems like it just puts him in so many awkward positions.
So we have a whole history, a national history of that, of Israel sometimes doing really, really well, and other times doing really, really poor.
And we get to a point where the Lord comes to Hosea, the mouthpiece or the prophet for Israel, and he tells him, I want you to live out this parable for me, where people can look at your life and see what I'm trying to tell them.
And so he marries Gomer, who is a prostitute, and the Lord specifically says, this is representative of Israel being a prostitute, forsaking me, their husband, their covenant partner, and going out and worshipping other gods, other idols in the high places, and syncretism, pulling things in to their practice in their worship of me.
And it seems just extreme in my eyes.
So that's 50% of my knowledge about Gomer.
The other 50% is in Chapter 2, well, I guess, Homer has, I think, three kids.
He has a few kids with Gomer.
And then in Chapter 2, then the Lord said to me, go and love your wife again, even though she commits adultery with another lover.
This will illustrate that the Lord still loves Israel, even though the people have turned to other gods and love to worship them.
And then this is Hosea.
So I bought her back, his wife.
I bought my wife back for 15 pieces of silver and five bushels of barley and a measure of wine.
Then I said to her, you must live in my house for many days and stop your prostitution.
During this time, you will not have sexual relations with anyone, not even me.
This shows that Israel will go a long time without a king or a prince and without sacrifices, sacred pillars, priests, or even idols.
But afterward, the people will return and devote themselves to the Lord their God and to David's descendant, their king.
In the last days, they will tremble in awe of the Lord and of his goodness.
And it's a powerful, powerful thing of the representation, the dualism, if I can use that word, of Gomer and Israel.
Of Hosea going, buying back his wife.
And then trying to redeem her, I guess, in a sense, from the practices and the activity she has been engaged in.
And so that's about the extent of my awareness of Gomer, the character of Gomer.
I'll just add a little piece here.
This is speculation, but I feel, I feel I probably should say it.
The culture in this time is different than ours.
We have the gap of history.
A lot has changed from now to then.
We also have the cultural divide, where this is an Eastern culture.
Probably those of you listening, you might be in the same boat as Hunter and I.
We are in a very Western culture.
We have very different priorities, different values and different things like that.
But when it comes to prostitution, the activity is still the same.
The reasons for it might differ.
For Gomer specifically, it's possible.
This was her livelihood.
Maybe this is something she had to do to survive.
And so we have to remember the representative idea of what Hosea's marriage with Gomer looked like was to represent Israel and its relationship with God.
But representations aren't always one for one.
Gomer was a human being who the Lord loved.
And it's possible, she, she, I mean, often for a lot of people who get into prostitution, they're down on their luck, they are looking for a way out.
This looks like a quick way to make a little bit of money.
They're okay with it.
And sometimes they just get into that a bit and then they can get out.
Other times, a lot of times they get stuck in it.
And it's a psychological kind of prison where you feel like, this is all I can do now.
because I have done this now, I can't do much else.
And this works for me.
And so there's a lot of room I think we need to give Gomer in the sense of we don't know her character, we don't know.
It seems from Chapter 1 to Chapter 3 that Hosea married her and she left to go back into prostitution.
That seems to be the case.
He buys her back.
I don't know.
But it's so, so hard.
I mean, the experiences of women who go through things like that, it's very, very difficult and it's very hard.
And I want to be careful not to throw a blanket statement condemning Gomer without knowing the full facts of what she was in.
We need to remember that this is representative of Israel with its relationship to God.
But also, we need to accurately say, prostitution is wrong.
That's not the structure of marriage.
It's not the structure of how genuine, divine love is received between people.
And so that's something to say as well.
But what do you got, Hunter, about Gomer and Hosea and Israel and God?
Yeah.
A few thoughts.
The only one thing I want to say in follow up, and I want to say it not because I think it's what you're saying.
I don't want someone to hear you and then end their thought with you saying like, this is a representative, this person is representative of Israel.
Like, my understanding is that that is 100% true.
And Gomer is a real person that really existed in history.
I think there's a temptation sometimes when people picture something as representative, we slide into this, well, they may not have been a real, like, this is a story.
You know what I'm saying?
And I know that's not what you're saying.
I just want to make sure, like, y'all listening, like, I truly think that Gomer is an established, real live, they walked this earth person of history.
And the reason I say that is because we get like, we're told like who her father is, it's this guy named Dibleyim.
And while you were chatting, I was trying to just dig up some dirt on this guy.
And he gets like one mention in the Bible, and here we are.
So his name means like this twin cake or twin, and when you said in your introing, Gomer, this duality, man, it was like, okay, maybe we're getting a nod here, even just from the name of her dad.
I also have a question for her dad.
Like, what were you doing that your daughter is taking up this, whether it's out of enjoyment or for livelihood?
Sort yourself out, get your house in order.
It would be my feedback to Mr.
Dibley of history.
But the other thing that strikes me about the story, and if you look in your Bible and you're like, man, I mean, he talked a lot about Hosea 1 through 3, but it's longer than that.
The rest is like God laying it on pretty thick about like, this is what this means.
And so, like the picture of the real life, everybody look at this story, it happens at the front end, and then we get like God through Hosea interpreting pretty much his firsthand experience to them about why.
But what's striking to me is that God tells Hosea to do this, and like for me, a modern reader, the idea of anybody saying, you know what would be a good idea?
Not a good idea.
Do you know what's an idea that I want you to do?
because God doesn't really ever say it's a good idea.
It is just, he desires it.
But he says, go marry a woman who is known for and is categorized by sexual infidelity.
And I think even the people in Hosea's life, I mean, I'm thinking honestly, Jesse, if someone came to me, if one of my buddies came to me and they were like, hey, I'm thinking of marrying this girl.
And like, for lack of a better way of saying it, just to bring it into today, she was very well known by many.
I would be like, yeah, I think you need to take a hard pass on that one.
Like I would try to talk him out of it.
And I imagine many in Hosea's life probably did.
But then Hosea probably, like many of the prophets did, sounded like this crazy person where he's like, no, no, no, no, I don't know, God wants me to do this.
And I imagine his friends and family being like, bad idea.
But I think that's the point.
The point is that it is a bad idea.
And then it gets flipped when we are, you know, we find out that Hosea is the God character in the story, the representative where in many ways, on paper, it seems like an incredibly bad idea for God to get so intimately involved with us sinners down here.
And so that bad idea, it like, yeah.
And you know, I tend to, I like the idea.
And I think, you know, he goes back and buys her back.
And I think we don't really get a lot of closure to the person of Gomer.
Like I want the sentence in Hosea that says, and after he purchased her back as his wife, she was faithful to him and they lived happily ever after with their three kids whose names are very sad for the people of Israel.
That's what I want.
And I don't think we get it because towards the end of Hosea, it shifts completely to the representative side where it's like, we're not even talking about Gomer over here.
Now Israel, it's all, it's as if they're saying, you get to write the end of Gomer's story.
Gomer's real person, but you, Israel, as the Gomer character here, what are you going to recognize that God has chosen you and has been faithful to you and has, I mean, created a family through you and you have left and he has done everything to buy you back.
Are you gonna get the picture and stay faithful to God now or are you going to return to your sin?
And I don't think we get closure on Gomer on purpose.
Like I think we as the reader are supposed to have this like tension of well, I sin.
Am I going to continue to return to my sin?
That I don't think that Hosea was writing, he was writing about nations and their sin and rebellion against God.
But like there are implications that we can draw on our own lives about our own sins.
But yeah, she's, and I don't know, I would have to go read, I was trying to skim it.
But I don't remember ever talking about Gomer even repenting.
I think Hosea does tell her that she has to be done when he buys her back.
Yeah, yeah, that's in Chapter 3.
Yeah.
Verse 3.
Yeah.
And so, yeah, she's, she's a tough character because, I mean, it, it's pretty, it's one of those profit moments where it's pretty on the nose, like, hey guys, you're the bad guy in the story.
Sorry.
Like, you know, not sorry, but a little bit.
Yeah.
And just the, the faith of Hosea to, to do it, I don't know.
I, you have to be, I, I, I, I think I would pull a Jonah on it myself, like truly, if I would kind of be, surely not, surely not.
Yeah.
And just that he is able to, you know, be in tune with what's God, what God is telling him to do and, and does it and commits.
I mean, it's not like he marries her and then says, okay, contract signed, covenant signed and agreed on.
Now you go over there and I'm going to go home.
And we did it.
No, like he, he has kids with her.
He, they have a family.
Yeah, it's and yeah, I, man, Gomer's tough because then she also like leaves her kids to return to this lifestyle at some point.
It's like, oh boy.
I like in my brain, I like to think that Gomer figured it out having been bought back.
But again, I think it's left open-ended.
So that way the reader and the people that Hosea delivered his message to would, would have this moment of like, okay, we have to respond to this, like, yeah, no, I think that's a good one.
I'll add, kind of in a closing, I suppose, a lot of the Bible, I would, I'm personally in the position of, I would call the Bible amongst its many types of literary genres, I would categorize them all as meditative literature.
It brings about questions, a lot of times, that make you go, wait, but that doesn't make sense, purposefully.
And it causes us to not just throw the book aside as like, it doesn't make sense, but to pull it closer and go, why doesn't it make sense?
And to think about it and to pray about it, it's the Biblical practice of meditation.
There are different, in our world today, many types of meditation.
There's one that's where you try to empty your mind and calm yourself down and stuff like that.
What we see in the Bible, the way that Biblical meditation works is taking information in, letting it sit and kind of mull it over, kind of like how a cow chews its cut.
You think, you take in information, you bring it back to mind, you just mull it over, you take the information in again, and you just ruminate on the scriptures.
And so I would encourage you, dear listener, with whatever passage you read, we see this a lot in jesus' parables, where it's like, that just doesn't make sense, though, to read through it, sit in it, and be okay with being uncomfortable with not knowing.
That's kind of the hard spot to be with meditation.
Biblical meditation is, I don't know.
And this doesn't make sense.
And with everything I know about God, this seems contradictory, and I just don't get it.
Why would God, who has this very specific idea of marriage, tell Hosea to go throw that all away?
Like I don't understand what this all is.
So I would encourage you, please meditate on Hosea, or whatever passage you are fixated on, and think through it, meditate on it, let it just sit in your mind, because it will nourish you, and it will challenge you with that difficulty of not really knowing.
Yeah.
No, that's a good point.
And I think, yeah, I think the danger, you talked earlier about like Eastern and Western thought, I think one of the dangers in a lot of Western thought is we put a high priority on like what we can know, and like what we can figure out and understand.
And not that those things are not of value.
But I think one thing that we ought to do, like you're saying, is check the moments where we might be tempted to do more work than maybe is helpful to make a system that helps us know a thing that we might gain more from just admitting, hey, like this is weird, and I'm going to struggle with it a little while.
And you might come to a conclusion in a gleaning after, you know, weeks to years to a lifetime of struggle.
That's the other thing is I think we want answers fast.
Like, we live in the internet age where, like, I want my answer now, and that is not the point, for sure.
So, no, I appreciate that comment.
That's a good reminder.
Yeah.
And if you get to the point of where you just, you need a prayer, I would recommend, there's a great passage in Mark of jesus healing this demon-possessed boy.
His father brings the boy, and he's like, if you can heal him, like you can do that, right?
And jesus is like, if, like, why are you doubting?
Wrong answer.
And the father says immediately, I believe, I believe, but help me in my unbelief.
And that is a prayer of meditation.
That is a prayer of like, look, I believe, like I'm here, but there's stuff, I just don't know.
And as you were saying of that microwavable faith, of where you just get the results, it's okay to sit and not actually know.
But to just say that prayer of God, I believe, but you gotta help me in my unbelief.
Yes, microwavable.
Eh, that's too good.
No, yeah, that's, and I think there's a lot like, that idea of being okay with, that helped me with my faith.
I think that is kind of the marks of spiritual maturity.
I think there's value, especially early on in your faith, to getting lots of answers to those questions.
because it helps build a foundation and a good starting point for some things.
I guess if you are in Christian ministry, it's okay to not float, it's okay to not float the big problems out to people out of the gate.
Like, middle schoolers don't need to be, I mean, there's probably a middle schooler out there that, you know, their faith is, but they don't need to be chewing on, like, big theological concepts that Christian's been arguing about for 1500 years.
They're probably at a point where they're getting established in who they are in jesus and growing in the gospel, and that's good.
Yeah, I'm rambling again.
Jesse, do you have any closing comments, questions, concerns?
Not really.
I enjoy these conversations with you.
I didn't know really who I was bringing until about five minutes before we started this, but here we are.
I mean, it was kind of intimidating to bring someone that I don't know a lot about, because like as a Bible teacher, just like a little confession here, listeners, I like as a Bible teacher, I usually bring stuff that I've researched and I've like mulled over and looked into.
And this was kind of off the cuff of like, I don't know a lot about this person and there's probably stuff to know that, but here we are.
Yeah, I'll look it up later.
Yeah.
Well, and we, I think that's the value of like us exploring these things together too.
And yeah, well, very good.
Thank you all for being here.
Marta will tell you about all our other things.
But yeah, we go, go check out some of our other projects.
I know Jesse's, he's nearing the end of recording the, the New Testament for my dusty Bible.
So go check those things out.
And he's doing good work over on TikTok.
Thank you all for being here, Jesse.
Thank you for sharing.
I appreciate it.
It was, it was encouraging and, and good reminder.
Yeah.
And we will, we will catch you all next time.
Love you all.
Yeah.
See you guys.
Outro:
Thank you for listening to Pickled Parables. If you enjoyed this message, please rate us, subscribe and share with your friends. If you're interested in more things like this, check out our secondary podcast called My dusty Bible. To stay up to date with all things parable, follow us on Instagram at parable underscore ministries and visit our website at parableministries.com. Parable is a volunteer organization and we would deeply appreciate your prayers. Thank you for joining us today. We'll catch you later.
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