Prophets in a Minor Key

A different format for paid posts with a new literary genre

Photo by Worshae on Unsplash

Yep, going there

Well friends, we’re jumping into Hosea. Hosea is one of the most interesting - and intimidating - books of the Bible. While you may have heard sermons from this book (what better place to see the contra-conditional love of God on display?), you probably haven’t heard many Scripture readings from this book. The subject matter is difficult to deal with, and the mirror it holds up to our own souls is perhaps more difficult to deal with still.

But I really want to grow in my knowledge of the prophets, and especially the so-called Minor Prophets, or the book of the Twelve. So beginning with Hosea, my goal with paid version of this newsletter for the next period of time is to work our way methodically through these books.

Notes on the structure of these newsletters

As we work through Hosea (and the other 11 minor prophets), my format will be somewhat different from when we were moving through the Proverbs. In Proverbs you (largely) find individual sayings intended to be de-contextualized, that is, carried around by themselves and meditated upon, without necessarily needing to know anything about the literary or historical context. A proverb is usually a stand-alone literary unit. This was reflected in structure of this newsletter: pretty scattered.