Author Archive: joe

Amos has the message down. Actually, it is more that he has "being a messenger" down. Not only down, the words just roll.

Having marked the end of my reading yesterday, I just had to go back to chapter 4 and read it again, and from there, on through the end of chapter seven. It's like looking in an historical mirror. Compare today to then.

Better yet, compare then to now!

Amos, speaking for the Lord God Almighty lays down some very heavy stuff for his listeners. It's surprising [more]that he has made it to chapter four. Anyone today who would dare speak this way would be labeled a "quack" or "ultra-right-wing conservative". You know, one of those Jesus Freaks. Somebody who wants us to believe that the Bible means what it actually says.

Today's world (the people) would be out for Amos on radio and TV and in newspapers as someone who doesn't care about how "hurtful" their words are to people who have worked hard. After all, those people he is condemning are "good people. Look how well they have done."

Take a look at the book of Amos for yourself, and start drawing comparisons to our world. People go to church and brag about it. They give to "causes" and boast about how great that makes them.

All God wanted was for His people to return to Him – to put Him first and worship Him. But they would not. He reminds them through Amos that even though they lack water and crops and their young men are dying in battle, they only need "return."

Many would say that God is mean or vengeful, but he gave warnings time and time again. Even here, Amos reminds me so much of our world today. He says "you hate the one who reproves in court and dispise people who tell the truth." (5:10) His admonition and promise are that if we "hate evil and love good and maintain justice in the court, then perhaps the Lord God will have mercy on us/them. (5:15)"

That was it!

All they had to do was change the way they were living! Nothing had changed about the God who gave them life – freed them from Egypt – gave them victories in the desert – enriched their nation! Nothing!

Changing means I have to be different. Is that really so hard?

Friends beating him down, saying he must have done something really wrong. The old and wise reminding him that "you get what you gave."

For Job, it was kind of like someone saying to a sports team "You know, if you hadn't gone out partying all night last night, you might have been able to play hard for an hour." Job's friends, old-timers like himself were just gushing with discouragement.

Yet, for all the "down" attitudes, Job was saying "hold on, I got something to say!" Chapters twenty-six through twenty-eight were more like statements of how he remembers the God he serves.[more] Job took time to make sure his friends know that he recognized that his God was still in control.

The images in chapter twenty-nine show that Job was not just a rich man, but someone who knew how to treat others. And because of the way he had been treated, that was the treatment he passed on. He was so much a vessel for his friend, God, that people honored him for how he honored God.

Job left no stone unturned in his saga. He delivered the poor, helped the orphans. He acted righteously and with justice. People trusted him to care for them and act as an honest judge.

In the midst of all this "doing good", tragedy struck, and now a man who had done them no wrong was an outcast. All because "evil came to an evil-doer."

That is the view many took of Job. For all the good he had done was as nothing now.

Guess the question now is "How am I stacking up?"

That was the challenge from Pastor Dave yesterday. "For two weeks, read two chapters a day, Monday through Friday."

My first thought was to just push ahead in Job, but then after some thought and prayer, I am off to do both!

Okay, but what or where does the reading start? Old or New Testament? Re-read something I have already read/studied? So many places to start. So many interesting avenues.

Then, after flipping through Matthew, Luke and much of the New Testament, I went back to the Old Testament. It wasn't the Psalms or [more]the Song of Solomon. Thoughts about the Isrealites in Egypt or escaping did not "grab" me. Then it was, that Amos just kind of tapped me.

So it is! Here is the story of a well-to-do rancher (called a shepherd) in a well off country, getting a message to deliver. A message from a just and righteous God who is tired of their "stuff" – selfishness, injustice, oppression, callousness and forgetfulness.

Even though He has given them so much – has allowed them to be so great, they can't seem to remember that they were (and still are) nothing. They forget that they got where they are because He had brought them that far. As you read the story of the Isrealites, you find that so many times, they dumped what their history taught them so they could grab hold of the now. That was always when they got in trouble. If nothing else, history should be there as an empirical statement of what happened, and allow us and them to see the implications of certain actions – you know – A plus B equals C.

Amos kind of gets his marching orders. It was actually more like a super fantastic speech to be delivered for everybody to hear.

Now, in all honesty, Pastor Dave only asked us to commit to two chapters a day, but before I knew it, I had read four chapters and didn't want to stop.

This was good!