Redeeming Love - 5 stars

Redeeming Love  ***** 

by Francine Rivers

The True Face of Unfailing Love.

The book is an allegory on the OT story of Hosea. As most Christians know, the Lord asks Hosea to go marry Gomer a prostitute and to love her as a wife. This was to be a type of the relationship between the Lord and Israel. .

The story is set in the 1800's during California's gold rush. Gomer is portrayed in the book as a prostitute named Angel, while Hosea is portrayed as a farmer named Michael Hosea. As to be expected of a prostitute who has led a very hard life, Angel is a very beautiful but  mean, hard, unemotional and uncaring hard hearted woman. Hosea on the other hand loves her and obeys the Lord by treating her as a proper wife and not the prostitute she is. In true prostitute fashion, she returns to her old life and ways again and again, yet in true godly fashion, Hosea goes after and brings her back again and again all the while, begging the Lord to change her heart.

The book was very well written and I thoroughly enjoyed it for the story. It is based on the book of Hosea in the Bible where the Lord attempts to show us His undying love for His people. This book is NOT meant to be a manual for how to live your life as a believer ( God will it not ask a believer to go marry an unbeliever), it is meant (just like Hosea) to teach us that:

God demonstrates His love to us that while we were still in our sin, Christ died for us. (Rom.5:8) and

even when we are faithless, God remains faithful because He cannot deny Himself. (2Tim.2:13).

I really do not care for romance novels, but the biblical story behind this story is what drew me and held me captive to the end.


Reading level:  adults only.