Amazing Love – Review

Amazing love: The Story of Hosea is a film within a film. It starts off with our main character Stuart who is a youth pastor (played by Sean Astin from fantastic movies such as “Rudy”, and “Lord of the Rings”) in his Church office.

A woman named Helen (Patty Duke) from the congregation steps into Stuart’s office and explains that she was able to get her troubled grand daughter Ashley (Savannah Jayde) to go with the youth group for a weekend of camping.

Ashley doesn’t appear to happy about this trip and is only attending to appease her concerned grandmother.

Sean Astin as Stuart and Erin Bethea as Beth on set for Amazing Love; Photo Courtesy of Bridgestone Multimedia Group.

They head to the youth van outside and meet up with four other students, Steve (Kenton Duty), Carrie (Sammi Hanratty), Cooper (Terrence Hardy Jr.) and Gameboy (Creagen Dow) as well as Stuart’s wife Beth (Erin Bethea).

Ashley already has a bad reputation amongst the teens due to her desire to date “guys with money”.

She appears selfish and self-involved.“She’s already checking her nails” was one of the comments made by Carrie while loading up the van for the trip.

When they arrive at the campgrounds we already see a wedge between the “core four” students in the youth group and Ashley.

The only student who wants to befriend her is Steve and he has to put up with Carrie’s continual accusations of Steve just wanting to date her, and him being way out of her league.

Stuart tries his best to bring the students together by asking them three questions: 1) What’s your favorite book from the Bible. 2) What can you tell me from that book, and 3) What part of your character do you wish that you could change and why?

Sean Astin as Stuart with Erin Bethea as Beth for Amazing Love; Photo Courtesy of Bridgestone Multimedia Group.

These questions elicit various responses from these students such as “Amos” from Gameboy, “I don’t know” from Cooper, and “Neat” from Ashley.

The entire time this is happening you can feel the tension in the group between Carrie and Ashley.

The story leads you to believe that there is a reason to the conflict that they display but doesn’t give us any more information about it.

An incident occurs within the group and Stuart tries to resolve the conflict by introducing everyone to the story of Hosea.

We get to watch for a majority of this film the story of the Old Testament prophet Hosea. After Stuart is done reading the story of Hosea his wife Beth begins to share a little bit about her personal story with God and love.

Afterwards we see our teenagers beginning to seek out God’s word and actually read their “favorite books of the Bible” and we get a glance into Ashley’s life and her struggle.

Were the judgments made by the teens in regards to Ashley right? Or is there something else that is going on behind the scenes that we don’t know about?

Savannah Jayde as Ashley, Erin Bethea as Beth and Sean Astin as Stuart on set for Amazing Love; Photo Courtesy of Bridgestone Multimedia Group.

I personally enjoyed the film “Amazing Love: The Story of Hosea”. As a youth pastor myself I can relate to every portion of the film.

From loading students in a van, to dealing with heartbreak due to various issues, “Amazing Love: The Story of Hosea” did a good job of connecting God’s word to our issues today.

This film was really good. At first I found myself wanting to watch the story of the youth group more than of Hosea but then as the story of Hosea played out, my feelings were switched.

They did a fantastic job explaining the story of Hosea. This would be a great watch with the family or with your youth group. No need to worry about language or adult situations in this one.

Elijah Alexander as Hosea plays an incredible role in Amazing Love; Photo Courtesy of Bridgestone Multimedia Group.

The Biblical Worldview:

“Amazing Love: The Story of Hosea” is obviously loaded with a strong Biblical theme.

Hosea was a prophet during the worst time of Israel’s history and we get to see how God used Him not only during Israel’s time but also in the current culture of the youth group in the film.

There aren’t any really questionable scenes but it is implied that Gomer is a harlot and has slept with various men. This though is central to the biblical account so it isn’t anything to look away from.

The main theme of this movie is that God loves us no matter what we do. It is important that we communicate this in our every day relationships.

The Biblical Discussion:

“Amazing Love: The Story of Hosea” spends a lot of time explaining the story of the O.T. prophet Hosea as well as crossing the bridge from Hosea’s time to now with the theme that God loves us no matter what happens.

Hosea was a prophet during the final days of Israel before the Assyrian empire came through and destroyed them and took them as slaves.

All throughout the story we see how God uses Hosea and his relationship to his harlot wife Gomer to convey the love that God has for His people.

Elijah Alexander as Hosea and Tehmina Sunny as Gomer in Amazing Love; Photo Courtesy of Pure Flix Entertainment.

When the Lord began to speak through Hosea, the Lord said to him, “Go, marry a promiscuous woman and have children with her, for like an adulterous wife this land is guilty of unfaithfulness to the Lord.” 3 So he married Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son. (Hosea 1:2-3)

It also does a great job of communicating that God promises to restore His people to Himself if they turn their lives to Him.

The Lord said to me, “Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another man and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes.”

2 So I bought her for fifteen shekels[a] of silver and about a homer and a lethek[b] of barley. 3 Then I told her, “You are to live with me many days; you must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will behave the same way toward you. (Hosea 3:1-3)

God’s love for His people is greater than anything that we can ever fathom. I pray that we would love like Jesus today.

Click here to watch the official movie trailer for Amazing Love

To learn more about Amazing Love, Visit ChristianFilmDatabase