Posts from December 2020

Aren’t you glad to see the end of this year? I suspect most people will be happy to put 2020 in the rearview mirror! We have learned new words (pandemic, coronavirus, etc.), new habits (social distancing, masking, compulsive hand sanitizing), and in some cases, new attitudes (“mask-shaming”). This year brought a lot of unfamiliar stresses into our lives –quarantining, hospitalizations, working from home, even the deaths of friends and loved ones. Social and political tensions have been “through the roof”…

Not much is known about the prophet Joel. It appears that he prophesied to the southern kingdom of Judah, since his prophecy is directed toward the “elders” and priests. Neither is there any mention of either Israel (the northern kingdom) or the Assyrian Empire, which was the dominant nation during Joel’s lifetime. Joel’s prophecy begins with the warning of a coming plague of locusts; this plague is destined to destroy the nation’s crops and plunge the people into famine and…

The very last of God’s prophets to speak to the apostate northern kingdom of Israel, Hosea is sometimes called the “death-bed prophet of Israel.” As the ten idolatrous northern tribes neared their rendezvous with Divine punishment at the hands of king Sennacherib and his Assyrian Empire, Hosea warned of the destruction coming upon them because of their faithlessness. His message was vividly illustrated by the behavior of his own wife – Gomer was as shamelessly unfaithful to him as Israel…