 |
Home | Mission Statement | Video Gallery | Audio Gallery | Photo Gallery | Daily Manna | Testimonies | | Links | Contact us |
 |
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things Phil 4:8 |
 |
| Archived Manna: | |
Dear
Friend,
If you do not already have a habit of gathering daily manna the first thing in the morning (we can look at the example given to us in Exodus 16 and find the pattern for make it a habit. Establish your life and your schedule to allow you the necessary time to do your daily collection first thing every morning to give you the strength to make it through the day. And remember that today’s manna will not be sufficient for tomorrow; tomorrow’s manna must be collected tomorrow morning. Wednesday, September 9, 2026
Today's Passage : Today's Passage :The Flight to Egypt: Hosea’s Prophecy Bible Verse: Matthew 2:7-8, 13-15 "Then Herod invited the wise men to meet him privately and found out from them the exact time when the star appeared. Then he sent them off to Bethlehem saying, “When you get there, search for this little child with the utmost care. And when you have found him come back and tell me — so that I may go and worship him too.” * * * But after they had gone, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up now, take the little child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you. For Herod means to seek out the child and kill him.” So Joseph got up, and taking the child and his mother with him in the middle of the night, set off for Egypt, where he remained until Herod’s death. This again is a fulfillment of the Lord’s word spoken through the prophet — “Out of Egypt I called my son.” " Message:
We said in the Introduction that two of the great themes of Matthew were “Christ as King” and “Christ as the fulfillment of the prophets.” We saw the first of these abundantly in Matthew 1 and the first verses of Matthew 2. In the later verses of Matthew 2, we see the second fleshed out.
We are fortunate to be studying Exodus, for the quote from Hosea — “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son” (Hosea 11:1) — makes the parallel between the Old and New Testament events explicit.
Hosea’s words were not, on their face, meant as a prophecy of the Messiah. He did not necessarily mean to predict that the Messiah would flee to Egypt and then return to Israel. Matthew and his Jewish readers knew this full well. But they also understood Hosea thoroughly: not only Hosea the Bible book, but also Hosea the man; and we must understand them as well, if we are to grasp the implications of the verse. (Don’t worry: we are not going to divert for a month-long study of a minor prophet!)
During the descent into widespread idolatry that characterized the reigns of the post-David kings, God commanded Hosea to marry an unrighteous woman. She lapsed into notorious adultery after their marriage. Hosea denounced her and sent her away; but he repented his action and, rather than stoning her to death, forgave her.
Flight into Egypt by Gustav Dore 1865
If this sounds familiar, it is because Hosea’s life and writings were, like the life of Moses, a parallel to the life of Christ, a preliminary chapter that formed a pattern which the Messiah would realize fully. Think of a dressmaker’s pattern, first made in flimsy paper, then perhaps sewn in muslin, as nonverbal “prophesies” of the final dress. (There is a five-dollar word for this in Biblical scholarship: “typological hermeneutics” where an event in the O.T. repeats in the N.T. A good example would be the life-saving miracles of God giving manna to the Hebrews, compared to Christ giving bread to the apostles at the last supper.)
So the quote from Hosea turns our attention not to the words spoken by the prophets, but to the events they lived through. In Exodus, after God has made his promise to Abraham, the Hebrews are taken into slavery and then delivered by Moses and the first covenant into Canaan; but they violate the law — in effect, committing adultery by worshipping other Gods. In Hosea, Hosea himself is a metaphor for God as the cuckold husband of Israel; the book draws a distinct parallel between Hosea’s marriage and the relationship of God and the Hebrews. Hosea’s forgiveness of his wife is a rudimentary pattern anticipating God’s ultimate act of forgiveness.
Thus, Hosea prophesies the doctrine of righteousness by grace that will come to fruition in the life of Christ. That Christ actually goes to Egypt and returns integrates the symbolic detail of events thousands of years apart, tying the Old and New Testaments together. But much more important is Hosea’s metaphor of God as the husband of adulterous Israel; for the metaphor of Christ as the bridegroom will inform the entire Gospel.
The theme of the forgiving bridegroom recurs in the Gospel of John. Christ interrupts Pharisees about to stone an adulteress, with the famous line, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” The story is a vivid demonstration of the new covenant, in itself, but remembering the life of Hosea and realizing that Christ Himself is also a “wronged husband” adds another dimension. (John 8:1-10)
Meditation : Prayer : ow, to God the Father, who first loved us, and made us accepted in the Beloved; to God the Son, who loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood; to God the Holy Ghost, who sheds the love of God abroad in our hearts, be all love and all glory in time and to all eternity. Amen. |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
 |
