Tag: Understanding the Old Testament

Morning Musing: Amos 8:8-10

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“Because of this, won’t the land quake and all who dwell in it mourn? All of it will rise like the Nile; it will surge and then subside like the Nile in Egypt. And in that day – this is the declaration of the Lord God – I will make the sun go down at noon; I will darken the land in the daytime. I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation; I will cause everyone to wear sackcloth and every head to be shaved. I will make that grief like mourning for an only son and its outcome like a bitter day.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Have you ever learned something new about something you thought you understood just fine, and it gave you a totally different perspective on it? That happens every now and then. When it does, you can’t see the old thing in the same way any longer. That happened for me with this passage a few weeks ago. These verses are obviously a prophecy of judgment. It is a judgment coming because of the people’s sin. As I was reading through the devotion on Amos that inspired this journey, though, the author introduced an idea that let me see them in an entirely new light. Let me share that with you.

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Digging in Deeper: Amos 8:1-2

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“The Lord God showed me this: a basket of summer fruit. He asked me, ‘What do you see, Amos?’ I replied, ‘A basket of summer fruit.’ The Lord said to me, ‘The end has come for my people Israel; I will no longer spare them.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

If you really want to learn the nuances of a foreign language, one of the best ways to go about doing that is by learning to read its poetry. Poetry is heavily rooted in imagery and sound play. Because of this, while you can translate the poem in order to understand all the words and maybe even grasp the poet’s point, without knowing the original language, there are elements the poet intended to be understood in certain ways you are nonetheless likely to miss. This all comes into play in these couple of verse from Amos. Let’s talk about how and what it means for us.

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Digging in Deeper: Amos 7:7-8

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“He showed me this: The Lord was standing there by a vertical wall with a plumb line in his hand. The Lord asked me, ‘What do you see, Amos?’ I replied, ‘A plumb line.’ Then the Lord said, ‘I am setting a plumb line among my people Israel; I will no longer spare them.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

This morning will be a bit of a different kind of reflection than we usually have together. This is a pair of verses that have been preached many times by many preachers over the years. And in nearly all of these sermons the point has been roughly the same. God is going to hold us accountable to His righteous standards, and if we don’t meet them, judgment is going to come. This is all based on Amos’s using the imagery of a plumb line. It makes for a compelling sermon, but the trouble is that it is almost certainly not the imagery he was actually using. Let’s talk about it.

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Digging in Deeper: Amos 4:11

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“I overthrew some of you as I overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were like a burning stick snatched from a fire, yet you did not return to me – This is the Lord’s declaration.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

We don’t like to hurt. And that makes perfect sense. Pain is no fun. It is a signal that something is wrong. We don’t like facing up to the fact that something might be wrong…especially if it’s our fault. What’s even harder for us to reckon with, though, is the idea that God might have caused our pain. Yet that is exactly what we find here in the next part of Amos’ prophetic record. Let’s talk about what God was doing and what it might mean for us.

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Digging in Deeper: Amos 4:4-5

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“Come to Bethel and rebel; rebel even more at Gilgal! Bring your sacrifices every morning, your tenths every three days. Offer leavened bread as a thanksgiving sacrifice, and loudly proclaim your freewill offerings, for that is what you Israelites love to do! This is the declaration of the Lord God.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

On occasion I’ve heard a popular Christian speaker joke that he has the spiritual gift of sarcasm. Formally defined, sarcasm is “the use of irony to mock or express contempt.” Irony, of course, is expressing one thing by saying it’s opposite as a means of drawing attention to it. The speaker’s point is that he’s got a knack for poking fun at things that don’t fit with his worldview framework. Sarcasm can be funny, but it can also be pretty mean-spirited. Either way, it can be an effective way of expressing a point in a certain context in fairly unmistakable terms. One of the places we wouldn’t normally expect sarcasm, but in which we nonetheless find it remarkably often, is the Scriptures. Here is a perfect example. Let’s talk this morning about why God is being sarcastic and what we should do with it.

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