Kesetiaan Allah: Nabi Hosea Mengahwini Gomer seorang Pelacur

“Negeri ini tidak mengenal makna kesetiaan ataupun kasih.

Penduduknya tidak mengakui Aku sebagai Allah” (Hosea 4:1, BM)

Ada orang mengatakan bahawa Alkitab ialah sebuah buku yang sangat bosan untuk dibaca. Saya berpendapat, jika ada pun mereka ini membaca Alkitab mereka sekurang-kurangnya akan membaca kitab Kejadian sampai Keluaran dan kemudian berhenti atau tergendala pada kitab Imamat. Mungkin ada juga yang membaca sedikit sebanyak buku Mazmur dan Amsal, tetapi jarang diantara mereka ada membaca tentang kitab yang ditulis oleh nabi Hosea. Ramai orang suka membeli majalah untuk membaca tentang artikel-artikel seks, hiburan sensasi, berita hangat, dan cerita-cerita yang menarik – tetapi tidak ramai yang tahu bahawa semua ini mereka boleh baca di dalam Alkitab, terutamanya di dalam kitab Hosea.

Ceritanya sangat menarik (Baca Hosea bab 1 hingga 3). Hosea dipanggil untuk menyampaikan perkhabaran TUHAN kepada umatnya sendiri iaitu orang Israel di kerajaan utara. Pada masa itu, berbanding dengan kerajaan selatan yang mempunyai sedikit sahaja raja-raja yang takut akan TUHAN untuk membawa mereka ke jalan yang benar, kerajaan utara langsung tidak ada seorang pun raja yang takut akan TUHAN. Kesemua mereka sangat jahat – membawa ramai orang jauh daripada TUHAN dan memimpin orang untuk menyembah berhala. Oleh kerana kerajaan utara agak makmur dan kukuh, mereka merasakan bahawa mereka tidak memerlukan TUHAN lagi! (Bukankah ini seperti Malaysia sebelum banyak peristiwa dahsyat yang berlaku kepada kita?).

Maka TUHAN memanggil Hosea untuk memberitakan perkhabaran-Nya kepada kerajaan utara melalui enam raja-raja terakhir yang memerintah sehinggalah seluruh kerajaan Israel jatuh ke tangan kerajaan Asyur. Perkhabaran TUHAN adalah mudah sekali: Umat-Nya Israel sangat tidak setia kepada-Nya kerana telah melakukan “penzinaan” melalui penyembahan berhala.

Tahukah kamu bagaimana TUHAN ingin menyampaikan isi hati-Nya kepada orang Israel yang tidak setia dan degil ini? Dia berfirman kepada nabi Hosea, “Kahwinlah dengan seorang perempuan yang suka pelacur; dan anak-anakmu juga akan menjadi seperti dia. Umat-Ku sama seperti isterimu itu; mereka tidak setia kepada-Ku dan telah meninggalkan Aku” (Hosea 1:2, BM). Wow! Bayangkan kamu mendengar firman seperti ini semasa kamu sedang bersuka-suka melayani internet! Sangat diluar jangkaan perintah TUHAN kepada Hosea!

TUHAN ingin menyampaikan perkhabaran kepada orang Israel dengan cara yang sangat mengejutkan sekali (Ini barulah, ‘Dahsyat luar biasa!’). Pada masa dulu, kehidupan seorang nabi seringkali diperhatikan oleh orang ramai – mereka ingin mendengar perkhabaran daripada TUHAN, walaupun mereka selalunya akan menolok perkhabaran itu sekiranya mereka tidak senang dengan isi kandungannya. Jadi, bayangkanlah reaksi mereka apabila mereka melihat Hosea, seorang nabi pergi ke tempat pelacuran dan membawa Gomer, seorang pelacur ke gereja (sebagai contoh) dan berkahwin dengannya. Ini bukanlah artis sensasi yang berkahwin, ini ialah seorang nabi berkahwin dengan pelacur!

Tidak lama kemudian Gomer mengandung dan melahirkan tiga orang anak. Kita tidak pasti samada anak-anak itu ialah dari Hosea atau tidak, namun yang pasti walaupun Hosea berusaha untuk menjadi seorang suami yang baik dan setia, Gomer, seorang pelacur yang tegar, telah lari bersama-sama dengan kekasihnya meninggalkan Hosea. Ini bukan drama Korea atau cerita cinta di TV3, ini ialah kisah cinta yang benar berlaku kepada TUHAN dan Hosea!

Ceritanya tidak berakhir begitu sahaja, TUHAN sekali lagi berfirman kepada Hosea untuk melakukan sesuatu yang diluar jangkaan kita manusia, Dia berkata, “Pergilah lagi dan cintailah seorang wanita yang suka berzina. Kasihilah dia seperti Aku mengasihi orang Israel, meskipun mereka telah meninggalkan Aku dan menyembah tuhan-tuhan lain, serta suka mempersembahkan kuih kismis kepada berhala” (Hosea 3:1, BM). Jadi, Hosea membayar wang untuk mendapatkan Gomer semula, mendisiplinkan dia, mengasihi dia seperti sediakala, dan menjaga dia dengan penuh kasih sayang (untuk mengetahui kisah selanjutnya, bacalah kitab buku Hosea dalam Alkitab Perjanjian Lama).

Apakah mesej yang TUHAN ingin sampaikan kepada kita sekarang? Secara ringkas: TUHAN sangat mengasihi umat-Nya – orang Kristian yang menjadi umat-Nya melalui Yesus Kristus – dan walaupun kita melakukan kesilapan dan jatuh kedalam dosa, Dia ingin kita kembali kepada-Nya. Dia akan melakukan apa sahaja untuk memberikan kita peluang untuk datang kepada-Nya semula. Persoalannya, setelah membaca tentang pelanggaran dosa umat-Nya dan kisah cinta TUHAN kita, apakah respon kamu kepada kasih-kurnia-Nya?

Alkitab, sebuah buku yang bosan? No way bro!

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.

Try Commending Others

I read a story, a great story it is: an old gentleman used to stop by at an antique shop to sell furniture. One day after he left, the antique dealer’s wife said she wished she had told him how much she enjoyed his visits. The husband said, “Next time let’s tell him so.” The following summer a young woman came in and introduced herself as the daughter of the old gentleman. Her father, she said, had died. Then the wife told her about the conversation she and her husband had after the father’s last visit.

The young woman’s eyes filled with tears. “Oh, how much good that would have done for my father,” she cried. “He was a man who needed to be reassured that he was liked.” “Since that day,” the shopkeeper said later, “whenever I think something particularly nice about a person, I tell him. I might never get another chance.”

What a story! Let us make it a habit to find something in others that we can commend on. “There are some great people who make others feel small,” writes G.K. Chesterton. “But there are other great people who make others feel great.” Let us be humble and yet be great at making people feel appreciated and liked. Let us give more praise to others. Let us never tired of commend others when we see the good things that they have done because we might never get another chance again.

“I will speak evil of no man…

and speak all the good I know of everybody” (Benjamin Franklin)

God helps us. Amen.

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.

Athenagoras of Athens on the Christian God

In this defense of the Christian faith against pagan criticisms, written in Greek around the year 177 and addressed to the Roman emperors Marcus Aurelius Antonius and Lucius Aurelius Commodus, Athenagoras sets outs the main features of the gospel in a lucid and reasoned manner. The early Christians were accused of atheism on account of their refusal to worship the emperor. In this extract, in which Athenagoras explains what Christians believe about God, important anticipations of later thinking of the Trinity can be detected. The work is known by various names, including Apologia, Legatio and Supplicatio pro Christianis. In excerpted of his writing he wrote,

“So we are not atheists, in that we acknowledge one God, who is uncreated, eternal, invisible, impassible, incomprehensible, and without limit. He is apprehended only by the intellect and the mind, and is surrounded by light, beauty, spirit, and indescribable power. The universe was created and ordered, and is presently sustained, through his Logos (that is, Jesus Christ)… For we acknowledge also a “Son of God.” Nobody should think it ridiculous that God should have a Son. Although the pagan poets, in their frictions, represent the gods as being no better than human beings, we do not think in the same way as they do concerning either God the Father or God the Son. For the Son of God is the Logos of the Father, both in thought and in reality. It was through his action, and after his pattern, that all things were made, in that the Father and the Son are one…

[The Son] is the first creation of the Father – not meaning that he was brought into existence, in that, from the beginning, God, who is the eternal mind (nous), had the Logos within himself, being eternally of the character of the Logos (logikos). Rather, it is meant that he came forth to be the pattern and motivating power of all physical things… We affirm that the Holy Spirit, who was active in the prophets, is an effluence of God, who flows from him and returns to him, like a beam of the sun.”

[Source: Apologia, X, 1-4; in Athenagoras: Legatio and De Resurrectionem ed. W. R. Schoedel (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), pp. 20-2.]

“I [Jesus Christ] and my Father are one” (John 10:30)

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.

Athanasius Against All the World: Interest or Commitment?

Athanasius, early bishop of Alexandria, opposed the teaching of Arius who declared that Christ was not the eternal Son of God but a subordinate being. Hounded through five exiles for his faith in the full deity of Jesus Christ, Athanasius was finally summoned before Emperor Theodosius, who demanded he stop opposing the teaching of Arius.

Athanasius firmly refused, so the emperor bitterly reproved him and sternly asked, “Do you not realize that all the world is against you?” Athanasius quickly answered, “Then I am against all the world!”

What a commitment to the Lord Jesus! Anthansius was not afraid of telling and defending the truth even the whole world (as if) was against him. You see, there are lots of difference between those who just interested of being Christians and those who really committed Christians. For example, when you’re just interested, you profess to be Christian only when circumstances are right and good. But when you’re truly committed to the faith, you will stand firm, defending the truth as you see clearly in the Scripture, your passion for God’s honor and glory consume you and even when people around you may backsliding and you’re left alone, those who are committed will say, “I will not move. I’m committed to the Lord even the world is against me!”

Are you just interest to be a Christian

Or are you truly committed Christian?

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.

Saksi Yesus yang Tidak Sempurna

Biar Tuhan membentuk, menggunakan dan menyempurnakan kita; kita bersaksi bagi Dia.

Jika Tuhan ialah Penyelamat dan kita ialah hanya alat bagi-Nya, maka kita tidak perlu menjadi sempurna untuk bersaksi bagi-Nya. Sedangkan Tuhan menggunakan keldai Bileam untuk menjadi alat bagi-Nya apabila Dia ingin melakukan sesuatu – apa lagi kita (baca Bilangan 22:22-35). Jika kita ingin menyenangkan Tuhan Allah dan cuba untuk hidup secara konsisten dengan iman kita kepada-Nya, kita tidak harus membiarkan Iblis menutup mulut kita dengan mengingatkan kembali segala kesalahan dan kesilapan kita yang lalu. Kita tidak bersaksi kepada orang lain untuk menerima Kristus kerana kita sempurna, tetapi kerana Kristus yang sempurna. Jika kita menjadi hipokrit, tiada sesiapa yang akan mendengar kita; tetapi jika kita bersaksi bahawa kita ialah pendosa yang diselamatkan melalui kasih kurnia-Nya, orang lain akan mudah tertarik kepada Kristus.

Baca Firman Tuhan, Dia seringkali menggunakan orang yang tidak sempurna untuk bersaksi dan melakukan kehendak-Nya. Abraham seorang pengecut, Yakub seorang penipu, Paulus seorang pembunuh dan sebagainya. Oleh kerana kita tidak sempurnalah, kita boleh berkongsi tentang kesalahan dan kesilapan kita. Oleh kerana kita ialah pendosa, kita boleh bersaksi tentang pengampunan Tuhan. Jika Dia hanya ingin menggunakan orang yang sempurna, maka Dia hanya ada satu pilihan sahaja – Yesus Kritus! Bersaksilah tentang Yesus Kristus kepada orang lain. Biar Roh Kudus menjadi kekuatan dan pendorong bagi kita. Apa yang kita, manusia yang tidak sempurna, boleh lakukan ialah – menjadi alat bagi-Nya. Amen.

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.

God is Looking for the Weak and Little Men

When someone asked Francis of Assisi why and how he could accomplish so much, he replied: “This may be why. The Lord looked down from heaven upon the earth and said, ‘Where can I find the weakest, the littlest, the poorest man on the face of the earth?’ Then He saw me and said, ‘Now I’ve found him, and will work through him. He won’t be proud of it. He’ll see that I am only using him because of his littleness and insignificance.’”

S. Craig Glickman explains, “Humility is not thinking less of yourself than you are. Nor is humility always talking about your faults and shortcomings as compared with everyone else’s superiority and achievements. Humility is simply a recognition of the truth about ourselves and then most often, a forgetfulness of self that allows genuine concern for others and a genuine worship of God.” Humility is not denying the power you have. It is realizing that the power comes through you, not from you; a feeling that the greatness is not in you but through you; that you could not do or be anything else than God made you for.

“I used to think that God’s gifts were on shelves one above the other; and that the taller we grew in Christian character, the easier we could reach them,” writes F.B. Meyer a Bible teacher. He then continues, “I now find that God’s gifts are on shelves one beneath the other; and that it is not a question of growing taller but of stooping lower; and that we have to go down, always down, to get His best gifts.” Yes, in the Kingdom of God, the lowest are the highest. Be humble.

“Those who exalt themselves will be humbled,

and those who humble themselves will be exalted” said my Lord Jesus

(Matthew 23:12, NLT).

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.

Seeing the World Through Jesus' Eyes

[The writer]* found it is helpful exercise to ask himself, “How did Jesus go about His ministry as depicted in Scripture?” He has since made a conscious effort to adopt these values as his own in every area of his life, including evangelism. Here are some observations of a script according to Jesus, a man who was the same on outside as He was on the inside.

Jesus saw through the eyes of the Kingdom of God

Like the frontline troops of an army advancing to reclaim lost territory, we are bringing the kingdom of God to bear in this life. Jesus was committed to establishing beachheads in Satan’s territory. He was committed to raiding the camps of darkness and setting free the men and women being help captive. As we wait and look for Jesus to come and win the final battle, our primary call is to evangelism.

Jesus saw through the eyes of Scripture

Our desire is to do and teach simply what the Bible says. Its message holds power when it is read and believed just as it is, without imposing any presuppositions and preconceptions onto the text. We must also go beyond knowing the message of the Bible to obeying it.

Jesus saw through the eyes of mercy

Ours is either to make names for ourselves nor to build lasting institutions, but to meet the needs of broken people through a ministry of mercy. The church is the place where righteousness and mercy meet.

Jesus saw people through the eyes of simplicity

The Son of God did nothing for religious effect. Rather, He operated in a natural, low-key manner.

Jesus saw people through the eyes of integrity

It is vital that what we say is the same as what we do. We must always be careful to speak the truth, deal honestly, and live uprightly.

Jesus saw people through the eyes of culture

Jesus had the ability to speak the cultural language of His day so that people could understand His message of God’s love. We too need to help others to see the gospel can be relevant to their everyday lives.

Jesus saw people through the eyes of reality

Jesus walked in the Spirit and recognized the supernatural works of God. He functioned equally well on the rational plane in His teachings. He both brought and explained the power of the kingdom of God.

Jesus admits the secret of His success: “The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he sees the Father do” (John 5:19). If we are to succeed in bringing the good news to those around us, we must place our expectation for success in the right place.

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.

[*Taken from Steve Sjogren, Conspiracy of Kindness: A Unique Approach to Sharing the Love of Jesus (California, USA: Regal Books, 1993, 2003) pg. 50-51]