God Wants Our Hearts

Justin and Jewelle take up Hosea, Joel, Amos, and Obadiah, beginning with Hosea's images of God as a husband who takes back an unfaithful wife and as a tender parent who taught Ephraim to walk. These prophets show us that sin breaks God's heart. God desires love not sacrifice, rent hearts not garments, and just prosperity rather than the exploitation of the poor. From there the conversation turns to the Day of the Lord, the motif through which the prophets imagine God judging the wrongs of history. But each book ends in promise: the Spirit poured out upon all flesh, the fallen house of David raised from its ruins, the kingdom become the Lord's. Judgment is not God's last word.