Finding Jesus in Hosea

Key Text: Hosea 1:1

This prophetic book sobers us and fills us with renewed hope. As ugly as Israel’s adulterous faithlessness has been, it cannot extinguish God’s resilient redemptive love that defies human calculation or annulment.**

**Taken from the Introduction to Hosea in the Gospel Transformation Bible (ESV)

Series Outline

Week One: Finding Jesus in Hosea 1

This week serves as an introduction to the whole series by looking at its major themes, outlining the structure of the book, and setting it in its redemptive context.

This prophetic book sobers us and fills us with renewed hope. As ugly as Israel’s adulterous faithlessness has been, it cannot extinguish God’s resilient redemptive love that defies human calculation or annulment.

Book Outline

Chapters 1–3 use Hosea’s own marriage as a parable for the relationship between God and Israel. The dominant image is of Israel as an unfaithful wife. Chapters 4–14 detail the comparison, with its series of accusations, warnings, appeals, and motivations for God’s people to return.

  1. Biographical: Hosea’s Family (1:1–3:5)

  2. Accusations, Warnings, and Promises for Israel (4:1–14:9)

Week Two: Hope in the Midst of Heartbreak (1:2—2:1)

An unfaithful wife and the children of her prostitution are a reason for great sorrow, but God gives reason to hope even here.

Week Three: Redeeming Unfaithfulness (2:2-23)

Unfaithfulness to God has devastating consequences, yet God does not treat us how we deserve, but instead makes a way of reconciliation.

Week Four: A Love Reclaimed (3:1-5)

Rubbish is usually thrown away, but God redeems and restores the broken.

This remainder of the series now goes back and deals with the accusations, warnings, and promises for Israel (and us)

Week Five: Good Reasons for God to Give Up On Us (4:1-19)

God has good reason to give up on his relationship with Israel. What can we learn from these disastrous traits?

Week Six: An Incurable Condition (5:1-14)

The unfaithful heart of mankind has no natural cure.

Week Seven: Turning Over a New Leaf is Impossible (5:15—7:7)

We do not have it within us to ‘turn our life around’—we need transformation.

Week Eight: A Rebellious Identity and Religious Desperation (7:8—8:3)

A confused identity, foolish relationships, and religious desperation to achieve results, conditions our hearts to abandon God.

Week Nine: The kings and gods we make for ourselves (8:4-14)

When God is ignored, we make kings and gods to replace him, with disastrous results.

Week Ten: Signs of a ‘sell-out’ heart (9:1-17)

Our hearts are prone to prostitution. We ‘sell-out’ to other desires and passions apart from God. What are the warning signs?

Week Eleven: Money Steers the Ship that Wrecks on the Rocks of Lust (10:1-15)

The relationship between prosperity and idolatry have a history that is meant to warn us.

Week Twelve: How Has He Loved Us? (11:1-7)

How has God loved us? And how have we responded?

Week Thirteen: God’s ‘Relenting’ Love (11:8-11)

God’s love is shaped by his relenting heart.

Week Fourteen: Yesterday’s journey determines today’s destination (11:12—12:14)

To adequately deal with the problems of the present, we need rot understand how we got here in the first place. This is about how our past shapes our present.

Week Fifteen: The Real Us (13:1-16)

God doesn’t deal with our ‘projected images’, he deals with who we really are.

Week Sixteen: A Relationship of Grace (14:1-9)

Despite our unfaithful hearts, God has committed himself to us in a relationship of grace. Restoration is assured, not because we have changed our ways, but because God has chosen to love.

Conclusion: The Christ Of Challenge

Key Text: Revelation 22:6-21

He is the God who requests all to come to Him.

For more in depth reading on this series, I highly recommend Danny Akin’s book on Revelation which is a part of the Christ-Centred Exposition Series. You can find out more here. This resource helped shape the outline of our teaching series, and was a useful resource in helping to make this often confusing book accessible.

Another good resource on this book is Revelation For You, by Tim Chester.