Moral Integrity, Loyalty and the Knowledge of God

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Moral Integrity, Loyalty and the Knowledge of God

• Hosea 4.1-3, 4-6

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Gomer's Complaint

• Who is this man? This fool?
• He keeps me up, crying
• down on his knees by the bed,
• forehead battering the ground
• retching out between sobs,
• "Oh my Lord" "God have mercy."
• Once I put my hand on his shoulder
• to comfort him (truth I'd have pity on a dog in
  such a state)
• and he jerked away, angry,
• like I was poison.
• I thought he'd beat me
• then, but he didn't.

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Gomer's Complaint

• He told me to name my children
• shameful things,
• crazy things -
• Lo-Ruhama
• "Not-Pitied" Lo-Ammi "Not-My-People"!
• What does he expect
• He never comes to me,
• as a man comes to a woman
• never gave me (or my worthless father)
• any bride gift.
• Just wandered in one day, skinny and dirty,
• saying God told him to marry a whoring woman.

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Gomer's Complaint

• Whoring! What a filthy mouth he has!
• As if I don't get up before dawn,
• to grind the meal and spin.
• And if my friends should give me sometimes
• a hank of wool, a skin of sour wine (once a lame
  kid)
• Well, I work for that too, don't I?
• Wash their clothes, serve them a hot meal?
• Listen (endlessly)
• to how they're too poor to afford a wife
• or how their wives are sick, or just won't let
  them-
• better me -right? - than some foreign
  temple-floozy!
• But that was all before he
• got the name of prophet.
• Who wants a prophet's curse?

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Gomer's Complaint

• My bed is cold. The patches on my dress are
  patched.
• He keeps wandering around muttering and howling
  whoring Israel
• will be stripped naked in the street for all to
  see,
• lost amid the thorns, left to die of thirst and
  hunger.
• Only he's good with the children.
• Takes Ben-Ammi and Ruhama on his lap
• tells them about new days coming
• days of grain and wine and oil,
• when there'll be a new marriage
• marriage like the dew, like the lily flower,
  like the evergreen olive tree
• between Israel and her crazy God.

• Kris Lindbeck, "Gomer's Complaint," Cross
  Currents, Fall, 2003.

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Hosea 4.1-3

• Hear the word of Yahweh, O children of Israel
• for Yahweh has an indictment against the
  inhabitants of the land.
• for there is no moral integrity at all, no
  loyalty, no knowledge of God.
• Maledictive curses, lying, murder, stealing, and
  adultery bursts out
• and bloodshed reaches to bloodshed.
• Therefore the land will be dried up,
• and all the inhabitants will be enfeebled.
• and with them the wild animals
• and the birds of the sky
• even the fish of the sea will disappear.

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No Moral Integrity at all

• Words that may be used to define "'emeth"
  include
• Faithfulness
• "Rock-Solid Reliability"
• Trustworthiness
• INTEGRITY

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Pentecostalism's Dark Side

• "Rampant Sexual and Financial Scandals"
• "Tendency to condone dishonesty on the part of
  influential and popular evangelists and
  ministers."
• "Playing fast and loose with truth is rampant in
  Pentecostal circles, and is excused and even
  joked about as "speaking evangelistically."

• Roger E. Olson, "Pentecostalism's dark side."
  Christian Century 123, no. 5 (2006), 27-30.

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No Loyalty/Loving Kindness

• The word "chesed" is a unique and important word
  in the Old Testament. It involves
• 1. A real need that one cannot fulfill by
  themselves
• 2. A person, with a singular ability to help and
  yet not obligated to help
• 3. The gracious act of helping under such
  circumstances

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No Knowledge of God

• Hosea uses the "Knowledge of God/Yahweh" (da'ath
  elohim/yahweh) in a unique way
• 1. A Cognitive Aspect
• 2. A Moral Integrity Aspect
• 3. A Relational Aspect

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Anti-Intellectualism

• "Endemic to Pentecostalism is a profound
  anti-intellectual ethos. It is manifested in a
  deep suspicion of scholars and educators and
  especially biblical scholars and theologians."
  (Olson, 27)
• "Abiding anti-intellectualism is one of our
  flaws. . . . There's a kind of theological
  independence that scoffs at education. Yet you
  can't do theology without intellect. You can't.
  (Russell Spittler in Christianity Today, 50, No.
  4 (2006), 41)

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Spiritual Moral Chaos

• Maledictive curses
• lying, murder, stealing, and adultery bursts out
• and bloodshed reaches to bloodshed

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The Responsible Self

• Four areas of concern for a responsible moral
  existence
• 1. Response Responsibility is based on our
  responding to an action What shall I do?
• 2. Interpretation Our responding presupposes an
  interpretation of the action What is going on?
• 3. Accountability Accepting the consequence for
  our responses
• 4. Social Solidarity The community of faith is
  the social context in which our moral
  responsibility is judged.

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Cosmic Ecological Disaster

• Therefore the land will be dried up, and all the
  inhabitants will be enfeebled

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Hosea 4.4-6

• "Let no one indict, Let no one reprove!"
• With you, O Priest, is my indictment.
• You will stumble by day,
• and also with you the prophet will stumble by
  night,
• I will even destroy your mother.
• My People are destroyed from the lack of
  knowledge.
• As you rejected knowledge,
• So, I will reject you from being my priest.
• Since you have forgotten the teachings of your
  God,
• I also will forget your sons.

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Don't indict - Reprove

• The phrase is possibly a cry from the people or
  the priest/priests
• "Pentecostal leaders need to take the next step
  in the movement's maturation process and
  institute safe means of criticism and correction
  within their organizations. They need to become
  more self-critical and less defensive of leaders'
  positions and pronouncements. A hallmark of
  spiritual abuse is treating the person who dares
  to point out a problem as the problem. Such
  behavior is widespread in Pentecostal circles."
  (Olson, 30)

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The Priest

• The priest/s is/are indicted will "stumble in
  day light /or "today"
• The judgment involves the family "your mother"
  "your children/sons"
• The prophet?

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WHY?

• My People are destroyed from the lack of
  knowledge. 4.1-3
• As you rejected knowledge . . . Since you have
  forgotten the teachings of your God
• Hosea 4.7-11.