Hosea 14 + Luke 15 Scripture Study
By Pastor Chris Simmons – Trinity Lutheran Church, Paso Robles CA
A reinforcement/supplement study to our Sunday service meant for “Building up the body of Christ… the manifold Wisdom of God made known” (Ephesians 4+3)
For Sunday, October 12, 2025
Have you ever been lost before? Well, you’re probably thinking… What kind of “lost” are you thinking? Lost in thought? Lost as in not knowing what’s going on? Lost in the busyness? Lost in life trying to find purpose? Lost trying to find my way to the highway or destination?... There are so many ways in which we can feel “lost” ... No matter which way we feel “lost” it always leads to the same feelings of being uncertain, fearful, and anxious.
When you are lost, what alleviates those feelings? When you know there is someone out there searching for you… when they are trying to find you, looking to help you, ready to bring you home. When we are lost in a dark place, a little bit of light goes a long way in finding things.
Thanks be to God, that when we are lost, the persistent light of Jesus is close by, ready to guide us back home into the presence of God.
Blessings on your study today as we return to the Gospel of Luke, where we’ll stay until advent. We are a people who once lost ourselves but are found by the light of Christ.
- Pastor Chris Simmons
Discuss: Which of your possessions was recently lost and found? What’s the story? What was it like to be apart from it? How did it feel to be reunited with it?
Hosea 14:1-4
1 Return, Israel, to the Lord your God.
Your sins have been your downfall!
2 Take words with you
and return to the Lord.
Say to him:
“Forgive all our sins
and receive us graciously,
that we may offer the fruit of our lips.
3 Assyria cannot save us;
we will not mount warhorses.
We will never again say ‘Our gods’
to what our own hands have made,
for in you the fatherless find compassion.”
4 “I will heal their waywardness
and love them freely,
for my anger has turned away from them.
This section arrives at the end of the book of Hosea, and if you don’t know a lot about Hosea, it’s quite an intense book with a lot of history. It’s named after the prophet of the same name, Hosea’s prophetic career was roughly 800-750 BC. I mention this not to “quiz” you, but the timing of his ministry is important.
Way back in the time of the Kings Saul, David, and Solomon, Israel was one large prosperous kingdom. After Solomon died, his son Rehoboam was set to succeed him. Rehoboam got some bad counsel from friends. Making him too harsh on the Northern 10 tribes of the kingdom. They seceded and formed the Kingdom of Israel around 900 BC under their new King Jeroboam with a new capital called Samaria (that probably sounds familiar… Jesus went to that city almost 1,000 years later). The two remaining tribes formed the Southern Kingdom of Judah, under King Rehoboam, with the capital of Jerusalem.
The Northern Kingdom was conquered by Assyria around 720 BC, overthrowing Samaria and dispersing the people there.
Now, why is all this important? These are known as the “10 lost tribes” of Israel. Hosea was a prophet right before all this occurred, and it their conquering is allowed by God because Israel had strayed away from worshipping Him alone. They not only worshipped other Baal religions, but when the country grew economically weak, they sought help from other nations rather than God. This adultery is communicated through the life example God had Hosea live out. (please note the upcoming language is strong and a bit alarming)
Hosea 1:2-3
2 When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.” 3 So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.
Discuss: (with all the background knowledge you now have) Why does God have Hosea marry an adulteress? What does this say about Israel's relationship with God at that time?
Continued Discussion: Do you still see this type of relationship to God today? How is it similar or different?
Again, strong language but true. God’s people had given what was rightly reserved for God alone to an idol, the equivalent of sharing sexual relations with someone outside of the marriage. As Hosea’s adulteress wife would do to him, she would wander away from her husband, lost to him and her family.
We already read Hosea 14, which is the end of this prophet’s book. How do we start at such a low point, and climb to that ending?
Hosea 3
1 And the Lord said to me, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the Lord loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins.” 2 So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a lethech of barley. 3 And I said to her, “You must dwell as mine for many days. You shall not play the whore, or belong to another man; so will I also be to you.” 4 For the children of Israel shall dwell many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or pillar, without ephod or household gods. 5 Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord their God, and David their king, and they shall come in fear to the Lord and to his goodness in the latter days.
Discuss: Why does God have Hosea buy Gomer back? How does it reflect God’s relationship to Israel at that time? How has God bought us back?
Even after Gomer had left and was purchased as a prostitute by another man, Hosea was commanded by God to pay an even higher price to have his wife back. Although it’s extreme… it’s a demonstration of what was once lost is now found. In the same way, as the Northern Kingdom of Israel was going to be lost (eventually the Southern Kingdom of Judah will be to) God bought back his adulterous bride from their new master… sin and death.
Ephesians 5:25-27
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.
Discuss: Have you ever refinished something? Maybe a piece of furniture, a floor, or an antique? What was the experience like? How long did it take and how precise did you have to be? What did it cost you?
We hear this great promise from God in that last chapter of Hosea, chapter 14:
4 “I will heal their waywardness
and love them freely,
for my anger has turned away from them.
To be healed of our waywardness. - Wayward - ה ָובּשׁ ְמ - said like meh-shoo-BAH - it means morally or spiritually “turning back,”. A heart going in the opposite direction from God and what God intends for His people.
He promises to cure us of being and getting “lost”. To no longer go in the opposite direction away from God.
Discuss: How would you cure someone of being lost? How about someone who gets lost often? What solutions can you come up with?
Luke 15:1-7
1 Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. 2 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
3 Then Jesus told them this parable: 4 “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? 5 And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders 6 and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ 7 I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.
There are many “lost” here in this text. The tax-collectors are Jews collecting from fellow Jews and have “lost their way”. Those living in sin have “lost their sense of direction” as they have turned away from God. There are also these Pharisees and teachers of the law, whom Jesus’ teaching apparently seems “lost” upon.
Now when a sheep is lost that means it has wandered away. That’s why sheep dogs were bred and raised for generations here in the states. They run around and keep the sheep grouped together or else they would all wander off. Shepherds back then would do the same, keep the group of sheep together. Yet one could still get distracted and wander off. Now, as the parable indicates, a sheep wouldn’t come home after it got lost… it couldn’t nor wouldn’t be able to find the way. It couldn’t get lost back into the fold, a shepherd would have to go and seek it out.
How do you solve the problem of something being lost? You make it found. How is something found? Someone must go and seek it out.
Discuss: Have you ever been lost then found before? What was it like and where were you? Who found you?
There is much rejoicing on the returning of the one sheep who was lost, but is now found. That is a good thing, nothing to take away from that.
A beautiful part I think that is missed in this parable, is that the lost sheep is returned home… back into the flock of the 99 “righteous” sheep that never left.
Sure, there are some ways in which we wander, we do follow sin and temptation. There are some ways in which we don’t as well. That one sheep has a flock to return to. We as the church, as a congregation, have that great opportunity to welcome home the one that was lost back into the fold.
Discuss: Who is in Jesus' audience? How does Jesus’ parable of the sheep relate to the muttering of the Pharisees? What are the Pharisees and Teachers of the Law missing here?
8 “Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? 9 And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’ 10 In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
Jesus rolls into another parable right away here. At first glance, one would make the mistake of thinking it’s the same as the parable before it, just told differently.
In the first parable, 1 of 100 is lost, and returned home. There is great rejoicing because the one that was lost is now found. It wasn’t destroyed by wolves, eaten by lions, run off a cliff. The one sheep is safe and back in the fold with its master.
In this second parable, there is a silver coin, the woman brings a light source and carefully searches it out. What is significant here is the value of that coin. The ten silver coins are restored again. It’s not as much a focus on the singular, but a focus on the restored whole.
The focus here is this… you have value, and you add value. You have so much value that the light of the world would come into darkness to seek you out, to restore you back to the whole. As you are added back to the whole, this congregation, God’s Church, the body of Christ, you add value. You are valuable to God, and you add value to His church. It can be your gifts, your smile, your presence, it could be “righteous sheep #72”, you increase the value of where you are because that value is given to you by God. Further demonstrated in our Epistle reading from Paul in 1st Corinthians 12:17-20:
17 If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? 18 But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. 19 If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, but one body.
Discuss: How is your relationship affected with those you know who have wandered from the faith? Where does this idea of “value” factor in?
Continued Discussion: In the ways in which you’ve strayed, how has God brought you back? How has He shown you your value here to others and to Him?
Ephesians 2:3-5 - 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.
Prayer
Do you feel like you are more often “the one that is lost” or “one of the 99 sheep at home”? Do you become envious of one or the other?
Where do you feel lost right now? Purpose? How to use your gifts?
When did you last consider how valuable you are to God? How would that change the way you think of yourself?
Lord God, you sent to us the light of the world to seek us out because we were lost. Forgive us for wandering and thank you for always seeking after us. Help us be a church home that is safe for the 1 to join the 99, and to see the value added to the whole by every coin you find. We pray this all in your name Jesus. Amen.