What is Look at the Book?

You look at a Bible text on the screen. You listen to John Piper. You watch his pen “draw out” meaning. You see for yourself whether the meaning is really there. And (we pray!) all that God is for you in Christ explodes with faith, and joy, and love.

If there was a wedding, it had to be one of the most awkward ones in history.

Plenty of marriages begin blissfully and then crash into misery years in (maybe even months), but this was different. This marriage wasn’t destined for disaster; it was a tragedy before the dress touched the aisle. The whole town knew what kind of girl she was. Many of the men knew firsthand. As the groom said his vows, “I take you for better or worse . . .” the idea of worse, even at the altar, seemed like some dreadful understatement. And the idea of better, like some naive fantasy.

As he stood there, he knew exactly what he was getting into. He knew tears were waiting to be shed. He knew how many long nights he might sleep alone, wondering where she could be, whether she was safe, what man might be holding her in his arms. He knew the excruciating conversations he might have to have with their children. He knew — and yet he married her anyway. He took her to be his. Why?

The Lord said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.” So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim. (Hosea 1:2–3)

Bitter Paradox

We don’t know whether Hosea and Gomer had a typical Hebrew ceremony, but their marriage would have received lots of attention. It was meant to. As the two became one, God was seizing the wandering eyes of his unfaithful people.

When God told Hosea to take this loose woman as his lawfully wedded wife, he was making a statement — a loud and offensive statement. “Why her, Lord?” Hosea might have rightly asked. “Because the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.” Their love toward me has grown cold and complacent, they take my grain and wine and protection for granted, and they’ve crawled into bed, again and again, with the gods of this world. Not just whoredom, but great whoredom. They worship passionately at the altars of carnal pleasure, of plenty, of comfort, of pride, and then dare to come home and offer me whatever little they have left.

And God had warned them. But they would not listen, so he painted them a picture instead — a dark, shameful, and painful picture. He planned a wedding no one would want to attend. He held up a mirror and made them want to look away. He sent Hosea to love and cherish Gomer, “a wife of whoredom.” A bride who could not be trusted. A bitter paradox.

The Kind of Whore He Loved

What made Gomer such a whore? We’re not told much, but we meet her through the adultery of God’s people.

Wayward Israel shows us that Gomer was the kind of woman who says, “I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink” (Hosea 2:5). In other words, I’m not getting what I want at home, so I’ll look for a man who will give me what I want. She was the kind of woman who took what her husband provided and used it to attract and please other men (Hosea 2:8; see James 4:3). She was the kind of woman who gave other men credit for all her husband had done for her (Hosea 2:12). She was the kind of woman unworthy of a good man.

And yet he loved her. Hosea chose her, sought her, bought her, and loved her. “So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a lethech of barley. And I said to her, ‘You must dwell as mine for many days. You shall not play the whore, or belong to another man; so will I also be to you’” (Hosea 3:2–3). Can you hear the sermon God had prepared? Israel, let me show you who you really are — and let me show you who I really am. If it were not for the devotion of Hosea, their marriage, like so many marriages, would have only preached worldliness, selfishness, and alienation. It may have painted sinful Israel well, but it would have been graffiti across the love of God.

The relentless love of a faithful husband, though, made the whore into an emblem of mercy, and their marriage into a miracle of grace.

Heaven’s Wedding Homily

Their wedding would have been jarring not mainly because of Gomer’s bruised and tattered history, but because of the strange and unexpected brightness in his eyes, eyes that were shadows of the loving eyes of heaven. Feel the sudden contrast halfway through these verses:

I will punish her for the feast days of the Baals     when she burned offerings to themand adorned herself with her ring and jewelry,     and went after her lovers     and forgot me, declares the Lord.

Therefore, behold, I will allure her,     and bring her into the wilderness,     and speak tenderly to her. (Hosea 2:13–14)

She dressed up for another man. She slid off the ring I bought for her. When she left, she walked right past our kids. And even when the other man would not have her, she chased him. She spent it all to have him. And she forgot me. Therefore . . . what? How would you finish that sentence in the wake of such betrayal?

“God wants the wife no man would want. He woos the woman most men would have deserted.”

Therefore, I will allure her. That’s the climax of this sermon called marriage: God wants the wife no man would want. After all she’s done to make him leave, his love burns warm. He woos the woman most men would have deserted. And he will have her, even though it will cost him in the worst way possible. One day soon, his Son would come and bear the name No Mercy (Hosea 1:6), so that we, the wife of whoredom, might be called beloved.

Scandal of Betrothal

As God watches the bride he saved out of slavery plunge herself into adultery, he knows full well he will one day bring her home. He promises to find her, rescue her, and woo her.

I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the Lord. (Hosea 2:19–20)

He repeats himself three times because he knows how inconceivable, even scandalous this love would be: “I will betroth you. . . . I will betroth you. . . . I will betroth you. . . .” The repetition drives a stake of hope into all our fears that God might not forgive us. “I can forgive. . . . I will forgive. . . . I will love you as if you had never left.”

Notice he says, “I will betroth you,” not just, “I will take you back.” Ray Ortlund presses on the wonder of this love:

The mystery of grace revealed here is a promise of covenant renewal — although even the word renewal is weak, for this oracle promises not merely the reinvigoration of the old marriage but the creation of a new one. . . . The ugly past will be forgotten and they will start over again, as if nothing had ever gone wrong. (God’s Unfaithful Wife, 70)

The wife of whoredom was received like the epitome of purity — like the most desirable bride. The night of forgiveness and reconciliation was as a wedding night. No matter what she saw in the mirror, his eyes now told her she was new and irresistible, his “lily among brambles” (Song of Solomon 2:2). When Hosea went to the altar and resolved to delight in his adulterous wife, he preached a text that had not yet been written:

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. (Ephesians 5:25–27)

Premarital Counseling of a Prophet

What might Hosea’s love for Gomer mean for marriages today? While we are not prophets commissioned to marry prostitutes, our marriages are prophetic in their own way.

Like Hosea’s countercultural love, every faithful Christian marriage resists and confronts a world in love with sin. Every loyal spouse is a foil for the ugliness and destructiveness of our mutiny against God — and a lighthouse alluring more sinners into his mercy. Every vow that holds, despite all the reasons to leave, tells someone that real Love exists, that forgiveness is possible, that there’s more to life than Satan can offer.

“Who might see your marriage and be shaken free from worldly and empty ways of living?”

We don’t know how many in Israel saw Hosea, realized the pitiful thinness of their earthly lives, and went deep with God again. Who might see your marriage and be shaken free from worldly and empty ways of living? Who might finally meet God because you stayed, loved, forgave, and pursued your spouse?

If Hosea and Gomer teach us anything about marriage, though, it’s that the love of God shines brightest through us when marriage is hardest. Can you bear to believe that? Happy, flourishing marriages may sing the gospel in big, bright major chords, but the minor chords of difficult and devoted marriages are often all the more arresting. Their beauty is haunting for being so much harder to explain.

The uniquely challenging aspects of our marriages really can become the greatest stages for true love — for displaying what it means to be chosen, forgiven, and treasured by God through Christ. This is the glory of the marriage covenant, and its beams are strongest when they shine through our marital weaknesses and struggles.

My wife and I raised perfect children.

By the time they were ten years old, they had memorized the New Testament. They came each morning to the family breakfast table with cheerful songs on their tongues, the melodies caressing their freshly brushed teeth. At an early age, they volunteered to launder their own clothes and never once complained about their studies.

They never used a whiny tone of voice with their mother, and they affectionately call me “dearest father” to this very day. I can’t recall correcting them. They were thrilled to share their belongings with each other. We never heard a mumbling word.

Yeah, right.

There are no perfect children. Vicki and I didn’t raise any, and my parents didn’t raise any either. Neither did yours. We live on a fallen and cursed planet. You are a sinner, and your children are too. They not only fall short of the glory of God, but they fall short of the expectations of their inglorious dads.

“Don’t give up on fatherhood just because perfection seems continually out of reach.”

But all is not lost. Fathers, don’t give up on fatherhood just because perfection seems continually out of reach. God extends more than enough grace to compensate for our shortcomings as dads. Children of defective parents — your children — can end up relishing God.

When Dreams Hit Reality

Expectations breed strong emotions, and unmet expectations even stronger ones. When our expectations collide with real life, the mismatch can erupt in a whole range of emotions — from dismay to sorrow to fuming anger. Mostly fuming anger. That’s what happens when people do what you don’t expect them to, or don’t do what you do expect them to.

Desires launch assumptions, which are then fueled by narratives we have subtly adopted. Such as:

Unlike other children, my children will never make a big mess or be fussy in church.
I will lose standing in the community if my kids don’t go to college.
My children will replicate only my good traits and not my flaws and sinful attitudes.
My kids will be spiritually advanced for their age.

Acting wisely and avoiding emotional hijacks requires winning the crucial battle — an unceasingly ongoing one — to align your expectations with reality. Those children you love dearly will sin dreadfully. As you have. Observe the one reality you cannot avoid in your parenting: you and your sinful nature. Your children not only live with your sin — they inherit it.

“Those children you love dearly will sin dreadfully. As you have.”

But parenting is not to be dreaded. To dread parenting exposes a misplaced love that you perceive to be in danger — like a love for your reputation if your kids mess up, or a love for your schedule if your kids make a mess when you’re already running late. The steadfast love of God is never in danger, and if your aim in parenting is to draw attention to his love, you have nothing to dread on that score.

Safe Expectations

Some expectations, however, will certainly come to pass.

You can plan on the fact that your parenting will never go exactly according to your plan. Your parenting plan isn’t perfectly wise, because you are not perfectly wise. My wife has a placard that says, “Man plans. God laughs.” In contrast to our plans, God’s plan for your parenting is perfectly wise. You are not sovereign. He is. And in his perfection, he assigned your children their father — namely, you.

Parenting is nevertheless a humbling experience. Your parenting won’t be flawless any more than your marriage has been without disappointments. You will face regret — regret that you weren’t a better parent, that you passed on your imperfections to your children, that you displayed anger at them for being like you, that you didn’t know as much as you had hoped you would.

My kids are now middle-aged themselves, all of them parenting their own unique God-given brood. And one of the disappointments I didn’t expect early on is that they haven’t passed along to their own children some of the lessons I insisted on giving to them.

For example, when my children were still living at home, I led family discussions about everything from Charles Finney’s approach to confessing sin, to how eye traps work (seductive clothing), to the value of singing together. As a grandparent, I don’t hear those lessons emphasized in the same ways in their homes. Meanwhile, they love their children deeply, and point them to Jesus in other ways I never did.

So there’s another side to this expectation coin. God provides occasions when your children exceed your expectations, times when you wish you were like them. Some of our children treat every day as a new day, forgiving yesterday’s offenses. Some are generous to a fault. Some seem impervious to peer pressure.

In a crucial sense, your children grow you. That is, they are God-sent instruments for your growth in maturity, your sanctification, your alignment with God’s plan for your Christlikeness.

Questions for Fathers

With some safe expectations in place, what steps might dads take to remove some of the imperfections from their imperfect parenting?

Fathers who rightly relate to God are on firm footing for rightly relating to their children. So how is your own relationship with your heavenly Father? Do you “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness,” trusting that “all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:33)? Would people who know you best say that you truly want what God wants for your children? Would you say it about yourself? Would God say it about you?

How do you parent today in relation to how you were parented? Are you replicating the errors of your own mom or dad? Are you motivated to avoid repeating the same errors? Once grace enables you to become aware of their errors, that same grace can enable you to break from those errors in your own parenting. Generational sins can be broken: “Now suppose this man fathers a son who sees all the sins that his father has done; he sees, and does not do likewise” (Ezekiel 18:14).

Ask God to help you seek his kingdom first in your family, especially in those places where you are tempted to repeat the errors of the past.

Humble Fatherhood

Perhaps most of all, however, we dads need humility. Even if your way of raising children is a good way, beware of concluding your way is the best way, much less the only way. In other words, remain teachable. One day it dawned on me that my small children could teach me a few lessons about my parenting. That was God whispering to me through my children.

Fathers, your offspring won’t admire everything about you. They’ll learn stuff you didn’t teach them. They’ll be better than you at some skills and more developed in certain character qualities. Your personal flaws will exert lingering influence on them. Pray for mercy.

They may or may not follow your preferred career for them. They will not develop uniformly without setbacks, nor be identical to their siblings. Recognize individuality.

Even though you work at it — and you are wise to do so — you will not always have your wife’s enthusiastic support in every aspect of parenting, from bedtimes to how much should be spent on gifts. Be gentle. Be humble. Seek God for more grace. Although not all of your expectations will be fulfilled in fathering, you can continue to grow and step into God’s great privilege of being their dad.