Hosea 4:6a -
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge;
because you have rejected knowledge,
I reject you from being a priest to me.
I am slowly coming to understand how often the nation of Israel screwed up throughout history. In fact, the majority of the record seems devoted to them getting up to one sort of evil or another.
Israel's behavior is like a man who is more interested in a series of one-night stands than in a faithful, longstanding marriage to a loving woman - no matter how perfect she is. He never knows what he's missing.
The writings of the Old Testament prophets were, in the words of one Bible teacher, "minority reports". God's message ran starkly contrary to the nation's behavior. Most of the Israelites had little time or patience for the persistent calls to repentance.
Still, the prophets risked their lives to call their countrymen back to the God who had chosen them as His own from among all the other peoples of the earth.
And the Lord stood ready to reveal Himself to the ones He loved - but they would have none of Him.
In Hosea's day, he saw a willful ignorance of God and His ways as the heart of Israel's ongoing troubles.
The Hebrew word translated "knowledge" here, da.at, means discernment, understanding, or wisdom.
Would Hosea be able to say the something similar to American believers today?
"My Church is destroyed for lack of knowledge"?
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