Hosea 3:2: “So I bought her for myself for fifteen shekels of silver, and one and one-half homers of barley.”

October 26th, 2021 by Pastor Ed in devotional

God told Hosea to go and buy back his adulterous wife. According to sources from about the same time period, 15 shekels of silver was equivalent to a year’s wages. So Hosea had to take all the cash he had on hand, as well as throw in some of the farm, to restore his wife. Hosea’s wife received freedom to become everything she was designed by God to become. God too has purchased an adulterous people. This simple picture is one we should all recognize. Before we came to salvation, we were in slavery and needed someone to supply the redemption price to buy us out of prison. The Apostle Paul said it this way:

But when the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. (Titus 3:4–7)

The blessings of heaven await all that will turn to the Lord.

For several weeks, Wycliffe translators searched for a word or phrase in a West African language to translate “redemption” or “salvation.” They were told that the tribes they were translating for would fight each other, take prisoners, and march them in iron collars to a city on the coast where they were sold to Arab slave traders. If another tribe member recognized one of their relatives or friends among the slaves, they could buy them for a price. The redeemed slave would then have the iron collar removed. In the tribe’s native language, the process of setting the slave free was described as “taking his head out.” The translators found their phrase and translated “redemption” as “taking his head out.” That is an apt picture of how Jesus rescued us, buying our freedom with the price of His own blood.

“LORD, we are eternally grateful for Your redemption and desire to be used by You this day to share Your grace with someone new.”