Amos is still preaching!

D. Elton Trueblood¹ remains one of my favorite authors. Trueblood oils ones mental gears and stimulates make-believe on themes of ultimate importance. A leading twentieth century thinker, Trueblood, a Quaker, called for adult education in the local church at a level considerably higher than a typical Sunday School class.

In Your Other Vocation² Trueblood presented an argument for beginning Bible study with the Book of Amos. After recently re-reading Your Other Vocation, I began a discipline of reading Amos in as many versions as I have on hand. After the fifth or sixth reading I am moving toward agreement with my favorite Quaker!

Trueblood was persuaded that the prophets speak to every generation. Since Amos is chronologically among the earliest to speak to Israel while she flagrantly embraced national sin, Trueblood suggests, "Start there!" Amos was entrusted with defining the issues. Other prophets followed, reporting the responses of the people and the heroic exploits of men like Daniel and his companions.

Amos took on the establishment, those protecting the religious, economic and political status quo, to maintain the personal comfort of the establishment in the face of the hopeless discomfort of the disenfranchised. Inertia is the resistance of any physical object to any change its motion, including a change in direction. Israel was there! She said, "Amos, we are happy as we are! Keep quiet! Prophets who soothe us and ignore our sins are all we need."

The sins of the establishment become the ethic of the community. The poor of Amos’ era were ground down to a nub at the hands of the religious, economic and political rich. At the outset of the book Amos’ words – Holy Spirit words, prophetic words – divide between thought and intent words, sharp as razor words cut through the world of make-believe. Amos speaks on behalf of the Almighty to the arrogant elite. God, through Amos, repeatedly announces, "Israel has sinned again and again," (New Living Translation). Israel simply refused to learn from her history and continued headlong toward God’s judgment.

Near the center of the prophecy, Amos trumpets God’s Word with clarity. The judgment warnings Amos announces employ powerful figures, locusts, fire, a plumb line and baskets of ripe fruit. The contest between Amos and Amaziah is too simple and understandable for anyone to overlook or misunderstand God’s intentions. The contest between good and bad, holy and filthy, compassion and arrogance are woven into the fabric of the text.

And then the compassion and perseverance of Israel’s God, and our God, is uncovered in wonderful language of promise and power. If she will repent, Israel will be restored. Crops will grow faster than they can be harvested. Exiled people will return from captivity. The people will be planted and never be uprooted again.

I have omitted lengthy quotes, details and scripture references on purpose. Reading Amos with an open heart and the anointing of the Holy Spirit is far better than reading my comments. Because of her sins Israel reached the threshold of exile, a passage into another Egypt from which they had been miraculously delivered. Those who will read Amos will be reminded why God judged His favored people. I believe we will see our nation in the reflecting pool of God declared dissatisfaction with Israel. If we will, we can learn and repent. God is longsuffering, but He is also just. Many of our national religious, economic and political leaders embrace the spirit of Amaziah. But, we desperately need to heed the voice of Amos!

Please let me know that you read, hear and respond to Amos’ Holy Spirit call from antiquity into the present!