How much are you worth?
If you had to put a price on yourself, how high or low would you go?
Around the 8th century BC God told the prophet Hosea to marry a prostitute. It was a shocking request – a huge challenge. But it wasn’t primarily about him. It was mainly about God’s people. It was aimed at them. They had been unfaithful to God for years and he wanted their attention. He was going to use Hosea’s scandalous marriage to Gomer as the plot-line which would uncover the truth about his people’s wandering hearts.
Hosea went ahead with the wedding. Before long they had three children – two boys and a girl. The arrival of these three children looked like the beginnings of a nice little family (despite the names God gave them – check out Hosea 1). It appeared as though Gomer had settled down. But she hadn’t. At some point after their third child, she decided to go back to her former life. She left Hosea and became a prostitute again (Hosea 3). But this time it was different. This time she was a married woman, a mother, and a prostitute.
It seemed like a tragic end to a classic love story. But this vivid real-life parable wasn’t over. It wasn’t the end. God spoke to Hosea and told him to go and get her back. But this time, instead of wooing her, he had to buy her. She had become a commodity. This is what sexual exploitation in all its forms does to people. It makes glorious image bearers mere objects to be used and abused.
The price tag on Gomer was “fifteen shekels of silver and about a homer and a lethek of barley.” (Hosea 3:2) At today’s rates, that’s around $216 for the silver and $70 for the barley. She was worth about $290. That’s not a high price for a human. She was used goods and her true value had taken a hit. But it didn’t matter to Hosea. He paid the money to get her back without a second thought. Just like God did with you.
When it comes to our condition before God, we were unfaithful, used, and abused too. Like Gomer, there were times when we brought trouble on ourselves and other times where people did it to us. What price would you have put on yourself at your worst? What value would other people have seen in you? Well, it doesn’t really matter what you or anyone else would pay. What matters is the price that God puts on you. What matters is the figure he is prepared to give to get you back. Ever wondered what that would be?
Well, silver and barley would not do. He paid the highest price of all – his own blood, his own life.
If you had to put a price on yourself, how high or low would you go?
Around the 8th century BC God told the prophet Hosea to marry a prostitute. It was a shocking request – a huge challenge. But it wasn’t primarily about him. It was mainly about God’s people. It was aimed at them. They had been unfaithful to God for years and he wanted their attention. He was going to use Hosea’s scandalous marriage to Gomer as the plot-line which would uncover the truth about his people’s wandering hearts.
Hosea went ahead with the wedding. Before long they had three children – two boys and a girl. The arrival of these three children looked like the beginnings of a nice little family (despite the names God gave them – check out Hosea 1). It appeared as though Gomer had settled down. But she hadn’t. At some point after their third child, she decided to go back to her former life. She left Hosea and became a prostitute again (Hosea 3). But this time it was different. This time she was a married woman, a mother, and a prostitute.
It seemed like a tragic end to a classic love story. But this vivid real-life parable wasn’t over. It wasn’t the end. God spoke to Hosea and told him to go and get her back. But this time, instead of wooing her, he had to buy her. She had become a commodity. This is what sexual exploitation in all its forms does to people. It makes glorious image bearers mere objects to be used and abused.
The price tag on Gomer was “fifteen shekels of silver and about a homer and a lethek of barley.” (Hosea 3:2) At today’s rates, that’s around $216 for the silver and $70 for the barley. She was worth about $290. That’s not a high price for a human. She was used goods and her true value had taken a hit. But it didn’t matter to Hosea. He paid the money to get her back without a second thought. Just like God did with you.
When it comes to our condition before God, we were unfaithful, used, and abused too. Like Gomer, there were times when we brought trouble on ourselves and other times where people did it to us. What price would you have put on yourself at your worst? What value would other people have seen in you? Well, it doesn’t really matter what you or anyone else would pay. What matters is the price that God puts on you. What matters is the figure he is prepared to give to get you back. Ever wondered what that would be?
Well, silver and barley would not do. He paid the highest price of all – his own blood, his own life.
For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.
1 Peter 1:18–19
1 Peter 1:18–19