The Library
SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY —
“AT CLAREMONT
WEST FOOTHILL AT COLLEGE AVENUE
CLAREMONT, CALIFORNIA ~
LIFE AND SERVICE SERIES
STUDIES IN THE PARABLES OF JESUS
HALFORD E. LUCCOCK
HEART MESSAGES FROM THE PSALMS
RALPH WELLES KEELER
ELEMENTS OF PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY
WILLIAM 8. MITCHELL
AMOS, PROPHET OF A NEW ORDER
LINDSAY B. LONGACRE
35
LIFE AND SERVICE SERIES 55.5
Lie
Edited by HENRY H. MEYER
Amos, Prophet of a
New Order
BY
_ LINDSAY B. LONGACRE
Professor of Old Testament Literature and Religion
in the Iliff School of Theology = -_
THE METHODIST BOOK CONCERN
NEW YORK CINCINNATI
Copyright, 1921, by
LINDSAY B. LONGACRE
Printed in the United States of America
CONTENTS
CHAPTER : PAGE
LIFE AND SERVICE SERIES.................. «
To THos—E Wuo UsE THESE LESSONS....... 9
PE HESOGHAPIY 2/05. Sia. cee tag art de rade ae be cid ate 10 |
| I. Tue Puace or Prornets iv Human Lire... 11
Il. Toe Tres anp THE Man.................. 18
Iil. THe Gop or Nations anD oF MEN........ 25
i Dy ete CHOSEN , PEOPUB Si. 5 os 5 fee's cay Bs 4
‘ VY. Tue DecriTruLness or RICHES............ 39
i VI. Tae ProrpHEet AND THE Business Man...... 46
Beet CRUE. WORSHIP... eile chien aud Ae es 53
_ VIII. Ars Nationa, Disasters Divine Puniss-
‘y MEGNTTS SE «ii, /h lites cht abate y ta Ue eae en 60
Me 1X: PROPHETIC VISIONS... 2.0 004002005 4euh's 68
4 X. Tuer JupGMENT—ACCORDING TO.AMOS....... 76
PereX LFA BisSssEp PW vORB e462 tale cba diios « 84
“XII. Propwers AND THE CHURCH................ 91
XII. Notes tHat INTERPRET AMOS............-- 99
THEOLOGY LIBRARY
SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY
AT CLAREMONT
CALIFORNIA
LIFE AND SERVICE SERIES
A NUMBER of causes have combined to create a need
for special elective courses for adults. Perhaps chief
among these causes is the rapid increase in the adult mem-
bership of our Sunday schools during the past fifteen years.
The organized class movement has been influential in bring-
ing into the Sunday school many thousands of men and
women, so that now it is not uncommon to find schools in
which the adults represent decidedly more than one half
the total attendance.
With increase of numbers has come a desire for variety
in the courses of study offered. With one or two small
classes, meeting usually as part of an assembly including
the entire membership of the school, there was little de-
mand for any other than the Uniform Lesson. As the
adult classes increased in number and size the conviction
grew that different types of classes required different kinds
of study courses.
‘The sentiment in behalf of a variety of study courses has
been strengthened by the growing recognition of the prin-
ciple of grading. This principle has won almost universal
recognition as applied to the elementary and secondary
groups in the church school. But why should grading
cease automatically with the close of adolescence? Are we
to believe that adult life is lived upon a dead level? We all
know that this is not true, and, accordingly, the general
acceptance of graded courses for the children’s and young
people’s departments has tended to strengthen the convic-
tion that something akin to graded courses should be pro-
vided for adult classes.
Again, there has been a growing recognition of the im-
portance of the elective principle. Why may not adult
men and women, who may be presumed to know something
about what they need as well as what they want, be per-
mitted to choose their study courses instead of having only
one course urged upon all who look to the Church School to
q
¢
6
8 LIFE AND SERVICE SERIES
meet, in part at least, their needs for the discussion and
study of the problems of religion and for the stimulation
and development of their religious lives? It is clear that
the desire of thoughtful men and women to choose what
they shall study is steadily growing.
The Life and Service Series, in common with a number
of other series of studies, is offered in response to the need
for special elective study courses. It includes a number of
textbooks, each consisting of thirteen lessons, that is, studies
for a period of three months for groups meeting once each
week. Both in subject-matter and in form of treatment of
the respective subjects these courses, it is believed, will be
found to offer a desirable and pleasing variety.
Some of them will be found especially adapted to the
needs of voluntary study groups in colleges and prepara-
tory schools, and others for high-school credit in Sunday
and in week-day religious instruction.
In Amos, Prophet of a New Order, the author has pro-
vided a strong, vital study in-popular form of the personal-
ity and message of the prophet Amos. In style the book
will be found to be as vigorous and interest-compelling as
it is morally significant and vital in content. It should
prove a most valuable study for a large number of adult
classes. THE Eprrors.
TO THOSE WHO USE THESE LESSONS
THE study of the little tract commonly known as the
book of Amos is of value chiefly as it leads to some ac-
quaintance with the prophet himself, in order that through
him one may get a glimpse of the way God speaks to men.
Accepting the fact that God spoke through Amos, we are
concerned with the subjects on which he spoke and with
the questions (1) How far do the same or similar sub-
jects concern us to-day? and (2) How far do his words
_ apply to present-day conditions ?
In pursuance of this purpose the little book of Amos has
not been followed mechanically from the first verse to
the last, but the various sayings that deal with the same
subject are brought together in the successive lessons.
This permits a more orderly treatment of the teachings of
this great prophet—a prophet much greater than the
small size of his book would lead one to expect.
The first step in the study of the lessons is to read from
the Bible the words of Amos himself. Only after the text
has been read with care can this book be used with profit.
Linpsay B. LoNGACRE.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Tue following books are both useful and interesting. The
first two are small commentaries. The others are more gen-
eral and more practical in their treatment. A teacher should
have at hand at least the volume of “The Cambridge Bible.”
“The Cambridge Bible’: Joel and Amos.
“The New Century Bible’: The Minor Prophets, Volume I.’
“The Expositor’s Bible’: Book of the Twelve Prophets,
Volume I.
“Messages of the Bible”: The Harlier Prophets.
The Message of the Earlier Prophets to Israel, Brooke.
The Prophets of Israel, Cornill.
History of the People of Israel, Cornill.
The Syrian Christ, Rihbany.
| CHAPTER I
THE PLACE OF PROPHETS IN HUMAN LIFE
“Wat went ye out to see? a prophet?” Thus Jesus
challenged the bystanders regarding John the Baptist.
Long before the days of Jesus and of John, another
prophet had appeared whose message was as unexpected
and as vigorous as that of the Baptist, and whose appear-
ance was almost, if not quite, as uncouth.
The men of culture and fashion, of wealth and power,
who lived in that prophet’s days have perished unhonored
and unsung, while this stern, uncompromising preacher of
a new righteousness still shines as a light in the world.
We know this forerunner of Jesus and of John by the
name of Amos. Let us go out to see him!
There will be nothing about his appearance particularly
attractive. When he visits Bethel, where the king lives,
his dress, manner, and speech will show him to be from
the country. If he is to make himself heard, he must have
something to say, and he must say it with power. But
when his eye catches yours, you have no doubt about his
ability or his courage. Here is one (you feel) in whom
the word of God is “like a hammer that shatters the rock.”
What was such a man doing there?—this “prophet,”
as he is called. What is a prophet, and what does he do?
Volumes have been written on this subject, and any
good Bible dictionary has articles on “Prophet” and on
“Prophecy” which are well worth consulting. A plausible
statement to start with, however, would be as follows:
When a man of unusual devotion to God and his fellow
men, with special understanding of God’s will and man’s
duty, is so stirred in his soul that he cannot keep still about
it but must proclaim the truth that is in him, exhorting
the people to see it his way and to do as he says; and when
subsequent history shows this man to have been right,
11
12 AMOS, PROPHET OF A NEW ORDER
_ whether his own people believed him or not, that man is
. called a prophet.
The important points in this statement are (1) the
prophet’s own conviction that he has a true vision of the
will of God; (2) his concern for his own people; and (3)
the truth of his message recognized in after times. As a
matter of fact the prophets do not usually live long enough
to verify this third point; and as the majority of their
own people usually misunderstand them or actually oppose
them, the prophet must get what satisfaction he can from
his own inner consciousness and from the friendship of
the few who sympathize and codperate with him.
Trey WERE REAL PEOPLE
The prophets of the type of Amos form a small but
glorious company. ‘To say that they deserve to be under-
stood is to put it mildly. No richer task awaits any Bible
student than a prolonged and profound fellowship with
any one of them; and though that task is difficult, even a
partial success is worth the effort.
It is not easy at first to think of prophets (especially the
Biblical prophets) as real men. The fact that they are
“in the Bible” seems to remove them from the common life.
They seem to stand apart not only from us to-day but even
from the men of their own time. Yet one of the first neces-
sities is to recognize them as truly human, cheered by
human joys and saddened by human sorrows. Indeed,
they were men before they were prophets; and they must
be known as men, so far as that is possible, before their
prophetic work and character can be appreciated.
Little as we know about Amos, for instance, his rural
life alone throws a flood of light on the naturalness of the
way he looked at the luxury of the city. For him “the
simple life” was the normal and familiar life; and one can
read between the lines of such a passage as Amos 6. 1-6
the outraged feelings of a man to whom all this luxury
was useless and citified as well as heartless and wicked.
GREAT BUT LONESOME
The fact that Amos was thus natural and human does
PROPHETS AND HUMAN LIFE 13
not mean that he was any less religious or that he was not
in every respect exactly like an “ordinary man.” All
“great” men are different from “ordinary” men, yet are not
less human on that account. Abraham Lincoln and Henry
Ward Beecher were extraordinary yet quite natural and
human. Their kinship with average mortals only made
their true greatness the more noticeable.
The same kind of thing is true of the prophets, Amos
included. In their particular field they stood far above
their fellows; in matters of the common life they stood at
their side. “Stand up,” said Peter to Cornelius, “I my-
self also am a man” (Acts 10.26); and it was the same
with the prophets. Y
Great as these men were, one cannot help feeling sorry
_ for them; for they must have been terribly lonesome.
There were but few of them all told; and when we re-
member that these few were distributed over a thousand
years, it is quite clear that they could not hope to be known
and heard by “a jury of their peers.” Of course they must
have had some friends. If it had not been for these, the
prophets’ words would not have been heeded and _pre-
served. In addition to the books of the prophets, such books
as Deuteronomy and Kings show that the great mass of
_ the people paid little, if any, attention to the great
prophets. The only reason why the prophetic warnings
and rebukes were repeated over and over again to the same
generation and by successive prophets to.successive genera-
_ tions is that they were scorned or ignored by the people
to whom they were addressed in the first place.
It was a comparatively small group that gathered about
any individual prophet; and it is to some of these friendly
listeners that we are probably indebted for the reports of
the prophetic words. The situation was entirely similar to
that of Jesus himself. Even he gathered only a small
group of followers in his own day, and it is from these
that there have come down to us the words of the Master,
heard and treasured by the friendly few.
One more point regarding the prophets is of great im-
portance. Indeed, it is of much more importance to us
than it could have been to any one of themselves. It is
\<
14 AMOS, PROPHET OF A NEW ORDER
_ this: The Bible nowhere indicates that the line of prophets —
- has been exhausted or completed. .
While it is true that the Bible prophets are better known —
than any others, that is chiefly because the Bible itself is
so familiar. Such passages as Num. 11..29; Joel 2. 28, 29
(Acts 2. 17, 18); Eph. 4. 11 plainly indicate that the
possession of the prophetic spirit was regarded as the ideal
for all men. And when Paul speaks of his converts as —
“built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets”
(Eph. 2. 20) he is referring not to the past but to the
present—to the apostles and prophets of his own day.
This fact opens up a wholly new view of prophets and
of prophecy. The common idea that true prophets are to
be found only in the Bible and that these were a curious
kind of folk, unlike any others then or since, is neither
stated nor implied anywhere in the Bible. Furthermore, ©
the church has never taken any such position; it has ex-
alted and reverenced the prophets of the Bible, as was.
right and proper to do, but the church has never said that
the voice of prophecy was silenced when the last word of
the Bible had been written down. The church stands to-
day upon a foundation of apostles and prophets which,
reaching far back into the past, includes men and women
of the living present.
SPOKESMEN FoR Gop
Consider the place the prophet fills in the life of the
world. He is a man who, by virtue of gifts and insight
quite out of the ordinary, has become the very voice of God
to his generation. Not, indeed, that he is at that time
recognized as such; but later generations so recognize him.
He is above all else God’s spokesman. Not prediction but
proclamation is his main work. He is a forthteller rather
than a foreteller. He views the life of his day in the light
of his vision of God. He turns that light upon men’s
morals and motives, upon the way they think and act to-
ward each other, and he sees in these relations between
man and man the special field in which man works out his
religion and the place, above all others, where God is really
present.
PROPHETS AND HUMAN LIFE 15
- He is not so much concerned with individuals as with the.
social life in which individuals find their common interests
and their common welfare. He thus becomes, above all
else, a critic of social conditions. This is, of course, not the —
prophet’s only interest, but it is his chief one and it colors
all his thought.
THry Spoke at THEIR PErRIn
The prophet, then, is a man so convinced that God is one
_ who desires a clean, wholesome social order here on earth
that he stands right up and says so. He always sees a
higher level than men have yet attained. He sees a nobler
ideal than they have yet realized. And in pointing out
the path leading to it he necessarily points out where men
have gotten off the track. He must show the error and the
weakness of the present position before anyone can be
brought to see the need of something better.
For this reason he is unwelcome to most of his fellow
countrymen. People do not love a “knocker.” Social
changes have always been looked upon by most people as
unnecessary if not downright dangerous. Institutions and
corporations, built up on the supposition that conditions
will remain unchanged, are always up in arms against any
proposed readjustment even if it should be for the better.
They are sure it would not be better for them and so they
are against it.
This means that a prophet is a kind of pioneer—a path-
. finder through a dense growth of selfish interests and blind
indifference. If he undertakes to blaze a trail through this
territory, he must risk all the dangers of such a task.
Thorns of malice will scratch him, rocky cliffs of ignorance
will block his path, snakes of slander will bite him, the wild
beasts of pride and jealousy will attack him. He takes his
life in his hand. But he has heard the call of the “trumpet
that shall never sound retreat” and he, with God, marches
on.
How Are Propuets to Br RucoaNizEp?
Suppose such a man were among us to-day: how could
he be recognized? ‘The answer is easy (and true) that he
16 AMOS, PROPHET OF A NEW ORDER >
may be recognized now in the same way that Amos was
. recognized in his day. This, unfortunately, does not carry
us very far, for there is no doubt that only a minority of
_ Amos’ contemporaries regarded him as a true prophet of
the living God. Many more regarded him as a questionable
» and dangerous character, and some never knew him at all.
There is something pathetic in the thought that many in
- Israel lived and died without knowing that an Amos had
been among them. .
The few who realized that in Amos a great leader had -
arisen were men who, on their own account, had already }
become aware that things. were not as they should be; that —
business, politics, religion, society at large, all came far ~
short of the glory of God and the welfare of men. They
realized that “new occasions teach new duties,” and that
the time was ripe for just such changes as Amos demanded.
In this spirit they were ready to recognize and to welcome
one who stirred their souls and voiced their hopes.
Prophets have never been recognized by curiosity seek-
ers but only by those prepared to codperate with them.
“Deep calleth unto deep.” If there is a prophet at hand to-
day—and there is no reason why there should not be—
we can be pretty sure that he will show the marks that
prophets have shown through all past history: (1) He
will speak with unfaltering conviction, courage, and can-
dor. (2) He will show utter disregard for personal advan-
tage of power, publicity, or success. (3) He will definitely
challenge the social order. (4) For this challenge he will
be denounced and opposed by representatives of com-
mercial, political, and religious institutions. (5) He will
leave in the minds of some the seed of such novel, vital
principles that these will take root and grow, and after
ages will point back to him as a great pioneer in the life
of the spirit. (6) He will pay the price of spiritual great-
ness in being misunderstood, opposed, neglected, and ap-
parently defeated. f
Only a man of supreme courage and unfaltering faith is
sufficient for these things. God’s word is a fire (Jer. 20. 9;
_ 23. 29) and it will be uttered. It is being uttered to-day,
and those who seek it find it. But let those who seek it
a gy yey —
At a I
ie
PROPHETS AND HUMAN LIFE 1%
remember that the signs by which God’s word may be
known must be learned from the story of those who have —
dared to speak it.
The question for us is not so much, How can a prophet
be recognized? as it is, Are we ready to follow him when
he appears? That readiness is the secret of recognition. |
Happy were those whom Amos could call his friends; and
who were neither afraid nor ashamed to be known as such!
} QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
__ Do we need prophets to-day?
If there were prophets to-day what would they talk
| about ?
Where might they be expected to appear?
A
a For FurtTHER READING
“Prophets” as described in some Bible dictionary or
encyclopedia.
The difficulty of recognizing prophets, even in Bible
times: Deut. 13. 1-5; 18. 9-22; Jer. 23. 9-40.
“The Prophet in Early Israel,” in the volume of “The
Expositor’s Bible” recommended in the Bibliography.
™
CHAPTER II
THE TIMES AND THE MAN
Tue keynote of national feeling in the time of Amos
was security. It was a time of social, financial, and po-
litical prosperity. This does not mean that everybody
was happy. Our own country, in its highest tides of so-
called prosperity, has never lacked great masses of people
who were compelled to live in tragic poverty, submerged
by a flood of social injustice above which they were utterly
unable to rise. Prosperity meant, then as now, the security
and success of those who held political power or financial
advantage. Amos saw this aspect of life so clearly and de-
nounced it so unsparingly that one is surprised at the
completeness of the picture revealed by his sharp flashes of
prophetic fire. ‘
He saw (1) wealth and luxury everywhere: the idle
rich (3. 12; 6. 1), with their ivory furniture and silk up-
holstery (3. 12; 6. 4), their town and country houses
(3. 15), their table delicacies (6. 4), and their cosmetics
(6. 6). He heard the music that unfailingly accompanied
private feast and public worship (5. 23; 6. 5; 8. 3, 10).
He saw the degradation of the liquor traffic (4. 1; 6. 6).
He saw (2) the wretchedness of the poor: exploited by
“gentlemen’s agreements’ (3. 10), robbed of justice
through bribery (5. 12), cheated with light weights (8. 5),
starved with adulterated foods (8.6), and sacrificed to
“big business” (2. 6). P
He saw (3) a religion ceremonially elaborate but en-
tirely lacking in ethical content (5, 21-24): the Sabbath
irksome when it interfered with business (8. 5), illegal
gains insidiously used for religious purposes (2. 8), the
vanity of published subscription lists (4. 5), and the sub-
serviency of the clergy tq men in high position (7. 12, 13).
__ It is easy for the rich and happy to believe that they
_ have divine approval. What better assurance could they
18
THE TIMES AND THE MAN 19
have than the pleasure and power in which they stand?
In these secure ones the nation felt itself not only pros-
perous but divinely favored. Since they are conscious of
representing the country, interference with them and their
pursuits would be interfering with the country’s welfare.
To disturb their order is to disturb the social order. To
criticize their religion is to prove oneself a heretic and a
blasphemer. God is on the side of those in power (they
think), and so to the security of financial and political
position the leading people of Amos’ day added the com-
_ forting conviction that they were Jehovah’s chosen people
bs
ive
Ea
4
}
—chosen to be thus superior and secure.
A New THoveut or Gop
Amos thought differently. He saw the prosperity, but
he saw more than that. He saw Jehovah’s choice at work,
but it was not a choosing that approved such conditions.
So Amos drew his own picture of this security, denied that
Jehovah’s favor was a blind partisanship, and criticized
king, priest, and people (that is, the “representative” peo-
ple) on moral and ethical grounds—grounds that for
Amos were religious. We can appreciate the daring of
such a criticism and the courage of such a critic, but we
can hardly appreciate the novelty of either.
It is not without a certain awe that one finds himself
face to face, for the first time in history, with the concep-
tion that God’s character is a character of principle rather
_than of partisanship; and that he is actuated by motives of
justice rather than of arbitrary indulgence. An idea that
has become a commonplace of religious thought must have
had an origin somewhere; and so far as our Scriptures are
concerned, this is the time and the place where this great
principle was first definitely announced. Elijah had
moved in this direction when he rebuked the social injus-
tice of Ahab (1 Kings 21), but Amos was the first to set
forth ethical righteousness as central and determinative
in the divine character.
RELIGION Reriects SociaL LIFE
It may at first seem strange that such a vital revelation
20 AMOS, PROPHET OF A NEW ORDER
lated to the kind of life that Amos saw about him. Yet this
gpigppepamte pate of God should be so closely re-
+
}
connection between history and religion may be illus-
trated at almost any stage of the nation’s progress. For
- instance, when the Hebrews entered Canaan, the land was
ee ae ee
a ee
not only populated but had its cultivated fields, its vine-
yards and olive trees, its villages and towns, and its walled
cities and great buildings. It thus formed a striking con-
trast to the wilderness in which for years the Hebrews had
been living. The whole scheme of life was more elaborate
and called into play a variety of occupations and interests —
that in the desert would be quite unknown.
The contrast is plainly indicated in two familiar phrases
descriptive of the Promised Land. One phrase starts from |
the desert life, where flocks and herds supplied the chief
subsistence, and where honey stored in the rocks by wild
bees was a delicacy. In terms of this desert welfare the
Promised Land was referred to as “flowing with milk and
honey.” ‘The other phrase starts from the life in Canaan
itself, with its vineyards and harvests; and in the words
“a land of corn and wine” one sees a picture of the land
painted, so to speak, by its own hand. }
The new life exerted a deep influence upon Hebrew
thought. The simple life of the desert had been asso-
ciated with a simple form of religion. Jehovah was thought
of largely as the Defender of tribal interests, as Leader in
war, as Master of the furious desert storms, and as the
God of the glowing stars. In Canaan the people of the
land felt their gods to be active in still wider fields. The
populated land had many shrines and sacred places where
the gods were sought. The fields needed sunshine and
showers (not the fierce storms of the desert but refresh-
ing rains), and the gods of Canaan were believed to send
these. Above all, the wonderful process of fertility itself,
_ in which the seed bears “thirtyfold, sixtyfold, and a hun-
dredfold,” was a field in which the power and activity of
the gods were especially seen. f
When one considers that in modern times all these fields
_and forces are recognized without question as falling within
the proper scope of one divine Providence, it is not sur-
THE TIMES AND THE MAN 21
prising that the Hebrews, in the years following their
entrance into Canaan, felt more and more that they would
have to pay some attention to the religion of the land if
they themselves were to live there with any security. Out
of this situation sprang some of the most difficult re-—
ligious problems with which Amos had to deal. Yet it
was due in part to such influences as these that the He-
brews began to move out toward larger conceptions of God
than either the desert or Canaan could satisfy or supply. |
———
It was not a rapid progress. They traveled by devious |
_ ways and they fell into many errors; but from time to
time great leaders arose who were able “to reprove, rebuke,
_ exhort,” and who succeeded in turning the thoughts of |
‘i, earnest souls toward larger and truer conceptions of God.
by THe Great Kine JERospoAm II
These leaders were the prophets, among whom Amos
stands out in bold outlines. He appeared in the reign of
Jeroboam II, king of Israel. The brief account of this —
long reign (2 Kings 14. 23-29) includes enough to show
that Jeroboam must have been a great king—a fact con-
firmed by the picture of the kingdom given in the book ©
of Amos. This is indicated by such statements as 2 Kings |
14. 25: “He restored the coast of Israel from the entering ~
of Hamath unto the sea of the plain [literally, Arabah]” ;
and verse 28: “He recovered Damascus, and Hamath.” In
looking up these places on the map note that they indicate
the widest expansion of the northern kingdom, comparable
' even to the successes of David himself. Such triumphs
are all the more impressive in the case of Jeroboam be-
cause they are reported by one who evidently ‘could not
regard this king with entire approval (verse 24).
Toward the close of Jeroboam’s reign a serious danger
appeared on the nation’s horizon in the shape of the great
empire of Assyria. If this great nation should start out
on a campaign of conquest, Israel would be as helpless
before her as Belgium was before Germany at the beginning
of the Great War. The Hebrews knew this. Amos knew
it. But Amos not only saw it as a possibility, he felt it
as a practical certainty and looked forward to it with
22 AMOS, PROPHET OF A NEW ORDER
horror. He saw no way of escape for his people. They
would be captured and slaughtered by Assyria, as a help-
‘* less lamb might be caught and devoured by a wild beast
(Amos 3. 12).
- This conviction on the part of Amos undoubtedly had
its influence upon his message and will account in part
for its sternness and vigor. This is another illustration
_ of the way history and revelation work together. It is not
enough to say that the message of Amos was divinely in-
_ spired. This is quite true, but it hardly pictures the prac-
' tical side of the truth. It should also be said that the
_ message of Amos was inspired by what he saw in the life
of his people and by what he recognized as a national
{ danger. Amos went even beyond this: he not only saw
_ the danger but regarded it as having a divine meaning. He
_ interpreted it as growing out of God’s purpose of punish-
ment (Amos 2. 14-16; 3. 13-15; 5. 27; 6. 14).
4
i Was Amos A PaActiFist?
This attitude that Amos takes toward a foreign foe de-
serves a moment’s attention. The nation of Israel, even in
its days of greatest expansion, was a comparatively small
affair. It was only one of a group of little states that lay
between the Arabian desert and the Mediterranean Sea.
Each little state had its own ambitions, political policies,
_ religions, wars. No one of them could ever have any as-
surance of an enduring peace, for it could never know when
one of the neighboring states, or a group of them, would
start out on the warpath. So that Israel, along with her
neighbors, lived almost constantly on the defensive and
was engaged in frequent wars.
In view of this situation any religious leader would
necessarily have something to say or do about Israel’s foes;
and it is in this connection that Amos shows what a re-
markable change had come over the spirit of Israel’s re-
ligion during the two hundred or more years that Israel
had been a nation. In the early days, when Samuel, Saul,
and David were welding the little state into shape, the
Hebrews were in almost continual conflict with their west-
ern neighbors, the Philistines. There were prophets in
THE TIMES AND THE MAN 23
those days as well as in the days of Jeroboam Il. And
those early prophets had very definite ideas about the
meaning of the Philistine invasion. With no uncertain -
voice they stirred up their fellow countrymen to repel the
invader. The historical portions of 1 Samuel show clearly —
that there was no doubt in that day that the advance of an —
enemy called for no reaction but resistance. There is no
evidence of any idea that the religious and social condi- —
tions among the Hebrews had anything to do with a
foreign invasion.
__In the days of Amos the prophets thought differently.
_ When they saw invasion threatening their little state they
_ understood it as a call not to resistance but to repentance. ©
_ “This threat of annihilation at the hand of Assyria,”
_ said Amos in effect, “is Jehovah’s warning to you to reno-
vate the whole social fabric: reform your religion, your
politics, your business and your social life.” In the early |
days the Spirit of Jehovah was understood as calling men
to arm for battle; but Amos understands the same Spirit
to call rather for purification of the national life. It was
a long step from the picture of a Saul in 1 Sam. 11. 6, 7 to
the picture of an Amos in Amos 3. 9-12. But the contrast
between the two shows clearly the direction of that path of ~
righteousness along which Jehovah was leading his people.
It has just been said that it was a long step from Saul
to Amos. It was a long step, but not the last one. It
would be most inadequate to-day to suppose that warfare
alone indicated the wickedness of either side. Questions
_about both parties to the conflict must be asked and an-
swered if there is to be fair treatment for both. But such
questions are unsuspected until raised by a growing ap-
preciation of the will and character of God. Prophets
and teachers who came after Amos led men to still wider
views of men and nations. Other principles, building on
those announced by Amos but reaching even further than
his, were yet to be proclaimed.
The book of Amos clearly shows that his point of view
was not widely accepted by those who heard the prophet
propose it. But Amos said it, and it took root. The root
has grown slowly and uninvitingly, “like a root out of a
24. AMOS, PROPHET OF A NEW ORDER
dry ground,” and but few men desire it even yet. The days
{gy may be long and many before its proper fruit blesses the
“S world. Who has wisdom and courage sufficient to cultivate
this fruit?
QUESTIONS To Discuss
If Amos had been brought up in the city instead of the
country, would he have seen the luxury, the poverty, and
the religious ceremonies as clearly as he did?
To what extent do ease and comfort, peace and quietness,
_ indicate God’s favor?
_ Has the modern recognition of the social side of Chris-
- tianity been due, to any extent, to the development of
_ modern social life? Consider here the influence of popular
- education, of world-wide trade, and the information made
_ possible by telegraph and the daily press.
_ Why does Amos seem unimpressed by the real greatness
of Jeroboam and his reign?
Under what circumstances does patriotism cease to be
true religion?
Is there any difference between a 100 per cent American
and a 100 per cent Christian?
To what extent is a preacher’s popularity a proof of the
truth of his message?
4
4
ia)
CHAPTER III
THE GOD OF NATIONS AND OF MEN
Amos 1. 3 to 2. 5!
Dors Gop LovE aN Enemy NAtTIon?
From the days of George Washington to the present —
time the question has not been settled “whether the United |
States should have any part at all in European affairs.
Relations between nations are a subject that has never yet
been placed upon an enduring basis. Nations are natu-
rally suspicious of each other. Our beliefs in God as the
God of the whole earth and in the idea that normally men
should live at peace with each other have had only slight
influence in determining our foreign policies. In view of
this obvious fact it need cause no surprise that in the days
of Amos the common relation between nations was one of
enmi
The feeling was supported by the (to us) curious notion
that there was no one deity who had equal control of all |
1The contents of this interesting passage are no more remarkable than the
form in which they are expressed. The references to the successive nations are
taken up in well-marked paragraphs, or stanzas, each one of which opens and
closes with a kind of refrain, It is evident that these ‘‘refrains’’ are poetical
in their character and are not to be taken literally. The opening words ‘‘For
three . . . for four’ simply indicate that the measure of iniquity is full,
and that punishment can no longer be delayed. As a matter of fact, only one ©
transgression is specified in each case. (See a similar use of numbers in Prov. \
80. 15, 18, 21, 29.) Similarly the words ‘‘I will send a fire . - - and it —
shall devour’’ are not intended to indicate a destructive catastrophe of any kind.
This is the kind of passage in which the familiar division of the Bible into
verses is particularly misleading. Verses were devised originally as a scheme
by which any part of the Bible could be conveniently referred to; and this is
their proper use. They were not intended to offer texts complete in themselves, ©
nor to indicate a Biblical outline, nor to destroy the continuity of a passage
(as in this case). Above all it should be remembered that they did not appear
in the original Hebrew. manuscripts.
25,
26 AMOS, PROPHET OF A NEW ORDER
\s nations. Any particular deity was supposed to be the deity
of a particular people. This deity was worshiped by his
own people and by them only. His power was not sup-
posed to extend beyond the bounds of his own nation. This
belief was held by the rank and file of the Hebrews, not
only in the days of Amos but long afterward as well.
Originally the term “God of Israel” was meant literally,
locally, and exclusively. Only a few of the more en-
lightened leaders seem to have had any other idea (see, for
example, 1 Sam. 26. 19; 1 Kings 11. 33; 2 Kings 17.
27-33).
Amos was one of the few, and probably one of the first,
_ to think of Jehovah as having any real part in the affairs
of other nations. Such an idea would appear wholly
_ new and strange to his fellow countrymen ; and the passage
before us, when Amos uttered it, must have been listened
_to with great surprise. For here Amos is calling a roll of
nations with whom (it was commonly believed) Jehovah
_ had nothing to do; yet Amos is saying that Jehovah would
call these other nations to account.
Amos does not stop with the simple assertion of Je-
hovah’s foreign control; he is convinced that Jehovah is
concerned with the behavior of these nations toward each
other. They are not there simply as pawns in a huge game,
to be swept off the board at the will of the player; they
have their own aims and accountabilities, and Amos, with
_ true prophetic daring, asserts that their accountability is
to Jehovah. Note that the nations referred to make up
practically the whole of the political world in which Amos
lived; and that he is really claiming Jehovah as the God
of his world, and not only of his nation. From this stand-
point he sees that Jehovah’s interest and concern extend
to the relations which these nations hold toward each
other.
Does all this seem foreign and distant—a matter of
ancient history and a dead past? If so, consider the re-
ligious and patriotic ideas that found expression among us
during the great war. As a matter of theory, of “faith,”
the Christian nations that fought so bitterly believed in
God as the God of the whole earth. Yet each one of them
THE GOD OF NATIONS | 27
prayed to God as if he were the God of that nation alone.
God was appealed to as a particular and partisan Deity—
powerful enough, it is true, to vanquish his foes, but in-
terested chiefly, if not exclusively, in the particular nation
concerned.
Was there not a conspicuous rarity of prayers indicating
that God was believed to have a concern for the relations |
of these nations with each other? He was appealed to for
victory, but not for help to refrain from mistreatment of
_ the enemy. We all rested stupidly down on the old level
of winning the victory, blind to the fact that the way na-
tions behave toward each other is, in the sight of God, of
more consequence than the supremacy of our own or any
other nation.
This line of thought leads still further. The discussion .
of the League of Nations raised many questions about the
rights and relations of nations among themselves. At
times it has seemed that a true internationalism was almost
within reach. “Internationalism” is, of course, too modern
a word to apply to the position which Amos takes, but he
was actually taking the first step along the path that leads.
to it; for no real internationalism can be built upon a
basis that omits the larger dictates of human equity or
attempts to build itself solely on the basis: of power and
selfish advantage. Faith in the God of Amos means faith
in a God of the world as a whoie, and not faith in a parti-
san or selfish God. Such a faith sees all nations as mem-
bers of a world family. Only in such a faith can a true
internationalism be established.
It is even easier for nations than for individuals to be-
come self-centered, to seek political power and commercial
advantage under the banner of a patriotism that exalts
nationality at the expense of humanity. There is a false
patriotism that has too often been either a cloak or an ex-
cuse for plans and practices that, in their narrowness and
selfishness, are even more foreign to the spirit of Christ
than they would have been to the spirit of Amos. It is
against this sort of thing that the words of Amos are really
directed ; as it is toward an ideal internationalism that they
really open the way.
>
*
28 AMOS, PROPHET OF A NEW ORDER
— Dors Warrare Excuse Bruranity ?
Amos teaches that Jehovah is God of the nations not
only in a political sense but also in a sense that reaches
deeper than politics because it concerns men as human
_ beings. The acts here condemned include: brutal torture
of the vanquished (1. 3); town populations carried captive
_ wholesale (1. 6, 9) ; disregard of treaty obligations (1. 9) ;
————oe
implacable hatred (1. 11); atrocious treatment of women
(1. 18); desecration of graves (2. 1). In view of the re-
ports that are not yet forgotten which came to us from
the battlefields of Europe, these atrocities have a strangely
familiar sound. And, despite our horror at them, they
were done only yesterday, and by “Christian” nations!
If Amos denounced such things nearly three thousand
years ago, when brutalities were taken for granted as neces-
sary evils, what terms would he have found adequate for
the twentieth century of the Christian era? Our lesson
is a testimony to a barbarity that has not yet disappeared,
as well as to a humanity that showed itself as long ago as
in the days of this ancient prophet. Indeed, from one
point of view a large part of mankind’s career has been a
struggle between these two impulses.
A certain measure of excuse may be found for the people
to whom Amos was speaking. They recognized in such
acts the natural accompaniments of warfare. The Orien-
_ tal is proverbially cruel as a conqueror, and probably no
one ever supposed that such acts were not to be taken as a
matter of course. The Old Testament indicates clearly the
_ readiness of both people and rulers to follow these methods
(see Judges 1. 6; 8. 16; 1 Sam. 15. 3); and they believed
that they had divine approval. But here a new note is
struck and a new ideal proposed in the matter of human
relations.
Before any general sentiment against cruelty can be
developed, glaring instances must be recognized and de-
nounced. Before “man’s inhumanity to man” can be
brought under the control of high principle in this regard,
men must be shocked into attention by a sudden realiza-
tion of the enormity of extreme cases. Amos had been thus
so
THE GOD OF NATIONS 29
awakened and shocked; and in horror of what he saw he
felt himself called to be the spokesman of a new order
wherein interests of politics and power would have to give
_ way before the interests of men as men.
This idea was so new that even Amos himself had not
wholly adjusted himself to it, and he was not strictly logi-
cal in its application. He seems not to have noticed that —
the punishments with which he threatens these different |
offenders would involve the very acts which he condemns.
He ignores the fact that the captivity with which, for in-
stance, he threatens Syria (1. 5) or the extermination with
_ which he threatens the Philistines (1. 8) could not in that
day have been carried out without the cruelties inseparable
from ancient warfare. It is a question whether Amos was
in a position to think of any other way to punish a nation
than by defeat in war. The essential thing is that he saw
the inhumanities and knew them to be odious alike to men
and God; and as such he denounced them.
If the denunciations uttered by Amos had been directed
solely against the enemies of Israel, he might be suspected
of that easy patriotism which satisfies itself in scorn of the
foreigner. But the first three verses of chapter 2 do not
involve Israel. As a matter of fact, Moab’s victim, Edom,
was one of Israel’s bitterest foes; yet Amos applies his
principles in this case as vigorously as when Israel herself:
was the sufferer. In denouncing acts that are offenses
against a common humanity, rather than against nations
-as such, he takes his stand beyond and above the field of
racial hatreds and national ambitions.
It is easier to realize the advance involved in this step
when we consider our own attitude in the late war. Many
of us took for granted that a state of war carried with it
its own justification for any cruelty. Our horror, for in- |
stance, at the use of poison gas was quickly quieted when we
found that our own side could make it and use it. Of
course this was war; and Sherman’s description of war has
never called seriously for correction. But it was war too that
Amos was talking about. He would not have said, “These
brutalities are necessary in war, and we must put up with
them”; but, “If war means such inhumanities, stop war.”
ae ye
30 AMOS, PROPHET OF A NEW ORDER
~- Amos TEACHES RELIGION —
While Amos proclaimed a God of nations who was also a
, God of humanity, it would be misleading to give the im-
pression that he was interested primarily in politics or
even primarily in the principles of humanity as such. He
was interested in these; but above them, explaining them
and including them, he placed religion. He was concerned
above all else with the character of God and with the divine
will. If he referred to the political situations of his own
nation or of other nations, it was only because he saw in
these a field in which God himself was active, and in which
God’s will must rule. If he denounced actions that we
would regard as offenses against humanity, even when
these actions were directed against an enemy nation, it was
only because he had-been thrilled with a new vision of
_ God’s regard for man as man and had seen the divine im-
- portance of a right behavior of men toward each other.
_ The question “Who is my neighbor?” in the great parable
of Jesus is really anticipated in spirit by Amos with re-
_ gard to nations. In a word, his message on this point was
_ “Who is my (national) neighbor?” It is not an easy ques-
tion for nations to answer.
For him it was religion that was fundamental, and it is
abundantly clear that he regarded his whole message as a
_ message of religion. He was not assuming the role of
- statesman or teacher of ethical culture, neither was he of-
_ fering a gospel of humanity, although all these elements
?
/
appear in his message; he was first and foremost a re-
ligious teacher. As such he demanded a hearing, and only
as such has he a claim on us to-day.
It is true that in these ideas he was leading the way to-
ward a much larger view of religion than the one current
in his day. Indeed, the expansion of religion to include
the affairs of everyday life—the everyday life of business
and of politics—is still a novelty. Yet for Amos these were
the fields in which religion must operate, and their re-
ligious character rested back upon the character and will
of God.
To know God as Amos knew him—as a God of honor and
THE GOD OF NATIONS 31
equity—means to realize that men cannot be acceptable in
the sight of this God unless they themselves possess and
exercise the same principles of equity and of honor. This
reflection of the life of God in every aspect of the lives of
men was for Amos the only true religion, alongside which
a religion that contented itself with formal worship, ob- —
servance of sacred days and seasons, stated offerings, and
attendance at the temple was a worthless substitute. Not
that these things in themselves were wrong, but that they
were not of the essence of man’s most vital acknowledg-
ment of the true God.
QUESTIONS To Discuss
To what extent do national victories indicate national |
virtue ? }
What part has religion to play in the development of |
an enduring League of Nations?
Is the chief argument against war its cost in money or
its cost in men?
Can there be one without the other?
Would the religion taught by Amos involve any differ- _
ence in present-day politics?
Has it any bearing on the character of candidates or on |
the acts of office holders?
‘What advantage or disadvantage would a modern |
preacher have, as compared with Amos, in the modern |
separation between church and state?
*
;
%
CHAPTER IV
THE CHOSEN PEOPLE
Amos 2. 6-16; 3. 1, 2; 6.1, 2; 9. 7
A Patriot WHo Was Atso A CriTIC (2. 6-16)
We are familiar with the idea that the Jewish nation
has been called a chosen people. That is, we accept the
statement in its reference to the Jews of Bible times, as
part of the Bible teachings. But at the present time few
_ Christians regard the modern Jews as a chosen race}:
while, on the other hand, many a Christian regards his
own nation as the one really “chosen” for place and in-
fluence in the world of to-day. The words of Amos which
make up the present lesson give the interpretation Amos
placed upon this idea of a divine “choosing.”
He has adroitly enlisted his hearers’ attention in his
. rebukes of other nations, and now, in turning to his own,
he has caught them unawares. They cannot charge him
with being unpatriotic, for he has denounced the national
foes. Yet he has shown a strict neutrality in defending
some of these foes against others. If Amos has reserved
_ his sharpest and most searching criticism for his own
_ people, even more will a Christian conscience, without
compromise or cowardice, apply Christian standards to the
unchristian aspects of his own nation’s life to-day.
The list of crimes charged against other nations in the
earlier part of Amos’ address may profitably be compared
with the list here charged against the Hebrews themselves.
They are all too common even yet. Consider them: ex-
tortion, brutal treatment of the weaker classes, shameless
immorality on the part of both fathers and sons, suppres-
sion of all original and vigorous religious character (2.
6-8). Such conditions inevitably lead a people toward
ruin. ‘They undermine the firmness and integrity of
national character and infect the whole social body. They
32
THE CHOSEN PEOPLE 33
are perpetrated by those who have power against those
who are defenseless.
There is no doubt that to raise a protest against such
(
conditions is to invite the charge that one is a muckraker, ©
a trouble-maker, a bolshevist.. Yet it is a fair question —
whether the criticism and correction of such iniquitous —
conditions should be left entirely to the oppressed and dis-
contented themselves. Is injustice to go unchallenged
until its victims revolt, or shall champions of justice dare
_ to demand a purification of national life in the interest of
national integrity? In such a case is silence or protest
4 the truest patriotism? What the anarchist or the revolu-
_ tionist may do in sheer joy of destruction must be under-
_ taken by loyal patriots in self-sacrificing devotion and in a
true spirit of corrective construction, as Amos does in this
instance.
The difference will depend on the spirit in which the
criticism is made and the end it is designed to serve. I
may throw a man down out of sheer malice or to save him
from being run over by a locomotive. In both cases the
act is the ous but the motives are as far apart as the —
poles. A housé may be blown up by a malicious bomb
thrower or by a fire department that in this act will save
half a city from destruction by fire. In both cases the
acts are the same, but the ends sought and served are ut-
terly foreign to each other.
The voice of criticism—criticism of national institu-
- tions, of economic conditions, of labor, or of capital—may
come from an anarchist or a patriot; but the hope of the
nation depends on our ability and our willingness to dis-
tinguish between the two. Keenest criticism may express
the loftiest patriotism, and woe to the people who attempt —
to silence this kind of a critic! They are preparing for
themselves the fate that Amos saw awaiting his own na-
tion when he, the true patriot, challenged the heartless —
prosperity of his own day.
A PropHETIC Parapox (3. 1, 2)
There is a paradox here which Amos utters in the most
drastic fashion. He apparently made no effort to soften
. ~
Xe
2
34 AMOS, PROPHET OF A NEW ORDER
his message. He made no concessions to the feelings that
might be hurt by what he said. And there can be no doubt
‘that he made himself greatly disliked by the way he put
things. Yet there are times when the only way to bring
unpleasant and unwelcome facts to notice is by shocking
the hearers into attention. Of course it is much easier to
recognize this in connection with people and situations
that have long ago passed into history. We ourselves
usually resent such shocks, defending ourselves against
them and denouncing the man who makes them. It was
- undoubtedly the same way in the days of Amos. The
amazing statement that Amos here makes is directed
_ against the current understanding of the idea expressed in
the title of the lesson. No nation that regards itself as
_ the special favorite or representative of the Almighty holds
this idea in any but a sense favorable to its own self-esteem.
_ It is “chosen” for happiness, for prosperity, for power.
Amos here takes the familiar and popular statement
that had evidently become a national creed in his day—a
kind of ancient Declaration of Independence: “You only
have I known of all the families of the earth” (3. 2).
How comforting! How flattering! What a fine acknowl-
edgment of that superiority to other nations which many
a nation has believed true of itself! Amos is orthodox and
patriotic up to this point, but after this the deluge:
“Therefore will I punish you for all your iniquities.”
Could anyone imagine such heresy and such treachery?
What dismay for those who believed him! What out-
_ rageous nonsense for. those who refused to understand!
“Because God has chosen us, he will overlook all our
faults”—so thought the people. “No,” said Amos; “for
that very reason he will punish you.” The people took God
for a patron Saint; Amos thinks of him as the great Critic
and the great Corrector, whose rebukes and whose punish-
ments are the evidences of his educative purpose and his
upright love.
This word “therefore” is the pivot upon which turns
the whole question of what God desires and man deserves.
It is based on the fundamental principle in Amos’ thought
that for God to choose a nation means that that nation
THE CHOSEN PEOPLE 35
must rise to the standards God proposes, and not that God
must be brought down to the petty standards of a selfish
people, who look upon God as a dignified but subservient
promoter of their own little business affairs. And the
divine standards concern the welfare of the whole people,
and not the comfort of a favored few.
THE BLINDNESS OF HaAsE (6. 1, 2)
Men who hold positions of eminence and ease are often
very blind to facts seen quite clearly by others. The ease
and confidence of the people referred to in 6. 1, 2 took the
familiar form seen in much national pride to-day. They
are sure of their country’s strength and consequently of
their own security. They are equally sure of their coun-
which overtook other nations will never harm their own.
But they are blind—stupidly, childishly blind. They do
not try to see, and they do not wish to see.
“Open thou mine eyes,” wrote the psalmist, “that I may
behold . . .” (Psa. 119. 18). The answer to such a |
prayer is as likely to bring dismay as it is delight. When |
_try’s superiority to others. They are sure that disasters |
the things beheld are unsuspected, when they contradict |
one’s dearest hopes, when they reveal error in what was
supposed to be truth, when they show weakness and decay ©
where there were supposedly strength and vigor, the prayer.
becomes a real test of courage and of faith. Who dare >
risk the vision of more truth than he has yet beheld?
- He can have no assurance that the later vision will con-
firm the earlier. When his eyes are truly opened, he may
see that he had been terribly wrong rather than comfort-
ably right. It is a dangerous prayer.
Sometimes the new light is forced upon those who “love.
darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil”
(John 3. 19), and here Amos ruthlessly tears from the
eyes of these careless and confident ones the wrappings of
selfishness and conceit. They did not need to look far to
realize their own danger. There was the city of Calneh in
northern Syria, or Hamath the splendid, or even the well-
known Philistine city of Gath. ‘These places were at least
as important and as opulent as their own Samaria or Zion ;
‘
36 AMOS, PROPHET OF A NEW ORDER
<< yet see how they were overtaken, conquered, and brought
low. Their wealth did not defend them, nor their emi-
‘nence deliver them. And Amos here’ holds them up as
warnings of the true results of iniquitous living. He is
here doing the kind of thing that every honorable and up-
right friend of one’s people must do. But to do it with
any real power one must not only have insight and courage:
he must also be above the reproach of pettiness and parti-
_ sanship.
THE Gop or Att Nations (9. 7)
Still another word of Amos speaks this critical spirit
which is nevertheless a spirit of profoundest loyalty—a
spirit whose apparent harshness is only the utterance of
deepest desire that the people might be awakened to God’s
- real desire for them and their own true relation to him.
If it were spoken by an American in modern times, it
might run: “Are you not as the Chinese to me, O Ameri-
cans? Did I not unite your thirteen colonies into one
great nation, build up the Canadians to an imperial do-
minion, and make the Germans a world power?”
One of the experiences of life, often bitter but always il-
luminating, is the discovery that others have the same
rights and privileges as oneself. “Through childhood and
early youth one accepts the easy idea that God is his un-
conditional support and defender, and that other people
are under obligations to put into effect this good will of
God toward oneself. If these other people do this, they
are good; if they do not, they are bad. Then, suddenly,
there comes to us the disconcerting realization that the
others have the same rights as ourselves. They too regard
themselves as the center of a circle of which we form a
part, and which they suppose is to minister to them, and
thus carry out God’s will. This realization is the awaken-
ing in us of the ethical principle that means a feeling for
others, for mankind.”
Difficult as this experience is in the case of individuals,
it is even harder for nations. One’s love of country has
in it enough idealism to obscure its true character from any
1Niebergall.
THE CHOSEN PEOPLE 37
but a truly awakened conscience. Much religion, so far
as it relates to one’s country, often goes no further than a
belief that one’s own country has preference and Sty
in the sight of God. But here again Amos is unflinching
and inexorable. True to that high ethical principle which |
is even yet beyond us, he asserts that to God it is all one’
whichever nation is concerned—Negroes, Philistines, Syri- .
ans, or Hebrews. He is the God of all nations.
Amos has here emancipated the thought of God from its
narrow connection with a particular people. God ceases to
be a private patron and becomes the God of all the world.
—
This conception marked an epoch in man’s long progress
g prog
_ toward a knowledge of God. It anticipates that thought
_ of God as Father which is one of the most precious reve-
lations of the Christian faith. In its light the history of
the world will one day be written, not as a history of the
world as seen by and in the interest of American or British, —
French or German, but from the point of view of man and
of God.
From Amos’ point of view a chosen people must be a
choosing people. The divine choice is indicated and vin- ,
dicated by those actions on the part of the people which
show them as choosing the things which God desires. And
it is further clear that Amos believed God to desire such
actions because his own character would have led him to:
act in the way Amos set forth. God was no arbitrary tyrant
demanding obedience for the sake of exercising his own
’ authority and glorifying his own power; he was, in his
own nature, just and kind, and his desire for men was that
they should be and act like himself. He chose them that
they might choose him.
QUESTIONS to Discuss
How far is criticism of national institutions compatible
with patriotism?
Does God punish nations to-day? If so, do such punish-
ments indicate these nations to be God’s ‘people?
In what sense were the Hebrews God’s people? Whose
people were the Assyrians?
Are there any grounds for supposing that God approves
38 AMOS, PROPHET OF A NEW ORDER
Ss the present form of government of the United States?
What are they?
If our God is the God of all nations, what must be our
attitude toward all other nations? If a “chosen people”
must be a “choosing people,” how can a nation show that
it chooses God?
CHAPTER V
THE DECEITFULNESS OF RICHES
Amos 3. 9-11; 4. 1-3; 6. 3-6
A Menace To Nationat Vigor (3. 9-11)
IF one of us had lived in Palestine in the days of Amos
and had wanted to inquire into the state of the country,
to whom should one have gone? To some ignorant la- .
borer? To some slave woman? Of course not. Then, as
f now, he would have gone to some leading merchant or
government official. These are the men who are regarded
as representing the country and as really directing its af-
fairs; and, of course, this is largely true. But it is fair
to ask, “What proportion of the population do these con-
spicuous individuals represent, and on what do they base
their right to act as representatives ?”
In our own time it is quite clear that, despite our demo-
eratic system of election by ballot, the men finally to be
voted for are but few in number, especially for the higher
offices, and even these few are only too often put forward
by powerful influences that are far more concerned about
serving their own interests than about serving the inter-
-ests of the public.
As a consequence the answers such men might give to
the question proposed above would represent the views of
only a part of the whole nation. Speaking for that part,
these contemporaries of the prophet would have told us
that business was booming, prospects were excellent, and
the country was never so prosperous. If they spoke for
themselves, this would have been true, but it would have
left quite out of account the many whose lives were spent
in unconsidered and unmeasured toil—men, women, and
children whose work was not won by love nor inspired by a
promise of ease, but forced by the fear of poverty. And these
hosts of toilers had no time, no incentive, no ability, to se-
29
40 AMOS, PROPHET OF A NEW ORDER
lect and to secure representatives of their own. They
- simply had nothing to say. It is the tragedy of the poor
that they are unorganized and inarticulate. They are the
ones who pay the real price of advertised prosperity; and
back of all national prosperities and securities that the
world has known down to the present day stand the mute
hosts of those who toil and endure, but who may not enjoy.
When tumults break out, because some act of oppression
has bitten more deeply for a moment, they are vigorously
and sternly suppressed, with a great glow of righteous in-
dignation against lawlessness and against disturbers of.
the public peace.
These conditions are not instances of primitive depravity
any more than they are the late development of a money-
mad race. They have existed wherever and whenever
money-madness has touched the hearts and minds of men,
The madness shows itself, even in its milder forms, by a pur-
suit of the power and the pleasure that wealth affords and
by a heartlessness that pays no regard to the methods by
which the wealth was gained or to the sources from which
it was produced.
From time to time there arise men who see these con-
ditions in their relation not to a small group, but to the
welfare of the people as a whole; and against these con-
ditions these men raise courageous protest. Their chal-
lenge does not grow out of a narrow class-consciousness
that seeks to play off one class against another or to arouse
those who have not to a revolt against those who have.
They are true patriots and they desire the true life
and health of their nation, that it may take a worthy place
among the nations of the world. They are not class-
conscious so much as nation-conscious, and they see that
humanity and justice are essential elements in a noble and
enduring national life. They regard the ease-loving self-
indulgence of the few at the expense of the many as a more
insidious danger and a more threatening foe than the
armies of a foreign enemy.
Amos was one of the earliest to raise this protest, and
this is the sort of thing he was driving at in the first part
of our lesson (3. 9-11). If Amos had lived to-day and
THE DECEITFULNESS OF RICHES 41
had referred to the United States, he might have said:
“Send word to Mexico and to Canada; call them in to
investigate the life of our great cities, to see what unrest, —
_ oppression, and injustice are there. All powers of defense
are destroyed; the country is ripe for plunder. This is
plain for anybody to see. Even foreigners would be justi-
fied in condemning us, and if we got into war we would
stand no chance!”
Despite the apparent disloyalty of such words the prin-
ciple back of them is a true one. Despite the opposition
inevitably aroused by such a message and by such a mes-
senger Amos was right. History has been one long series
of illustrations confirming his position; and no one can’
see a people’s growing devotion to extravagance and amuse-
g
-ment without realizing that they are entering on the path
that has led to the downfall of every empire the world has
known and without realizing that one who tries to arouse
the people to their danger and to stem the tide of reck-
lessness is that people’s truest friend.
It is a lesson that nations have never yet learned, and it
remains to be seen whether our own country will be suffi-
ciently self-disciplined to be teachable. But one thing is
sure—the lesson will not and cannot be learned unless
everyone who realizes the situation gives himself courage-
ously and unceasingly to the proclamation of the message .
that, though uttered so long ago, is still unheeded.
THE GUILT OF WomEN (4. 1-3)
The treatment of women has long been regarded as a
kind of touchstone by which to estimate the degree of
culture a nation has reached. Our own country stands
alone in the high respect paid to women. People of other
nations are sometimes inclined to smile at us for what
they consider our oversentimental attitude, which seems
to them a sign of weakness on the part of the men and a
situation unwholesome for the women. However that may
be, it is none the less true that in this country.women have
a freedom and a position granted nowhere else.
Women, however, cannot escape the responsibilities of
their privileges, and the way they conduct themselves is
42 AMOS, PROPHET OF A NEW ORDER
an even more significant evidence of culture than the way
_ they are treated by men. If they give themselves up to
extravagance and gayety, if they debase themselves in wine
and wickedness, if they use their influence on their hus-
bands and lovers to supply exorbitant demands, then, says
Amos, they share equally in the guilt of the men who hu-
mor them; they are heartless, blind, degraded, they are
mere (this is Amos’ own harsh word) “cattle.”
One occasionally sees women, overindulged, overfed,
overdressed, corpulent, and coarse, who almost justify
the brutal word which Amos used; but the physical ap-
pearance does not always supply a true measure of the
inner spirit. Some of the most famous sinners among
womankind are reported to have been as beautiful as they
were depraved. :
The power of a good woman for good or a wicked woman
for evil can hardly be overestimated. The beautiful and
tender associations immediately brought to mind by the
words “mother,” “sister,” “wife,” are familiar testimonies
not only to the position woman holds, but even more to
that ideal position we instinctively feel she ought to hold.
The lessening modesty exhibited by girls and women in
dress, in the social dance, in the use of tobacco, in the lib-
erties they allow their escorts, cannot but arouse appre-
hension in the mind of anyone who knows that the sanc-
tity of womanhood is a spiritual barometer of a nation’s
life and who consequently realizes the wreck that awaits
a people whose women throw themselves away.
Religion cannot ignore’ this situation. It has been the
custom for some to suppose that religion has nothing to do
with such questions. Religion, they think, should confine
itself to prayer and praise, to Bible reading and church at-
tendance. The fact that such questions are raised in the
Bible, however, shows very clearly the attitude of the Bible
writers; and it is perfectly clear that Amos regards the
proper treatment of these and similar subjects as the very
essence of religion.
Luxury TriumpHant (6. 3-6)
In a few words Amos has painted a classic picture of
THE DECEITFULNESS OF RICHES 43
those who use their wealth for what many to-day would
call “a good time.” “This is the life—wine, women, and
song.” They are all there—the wine, women, and song—
in that little three-verse pen picture that Amos drew.
Wealth, extravagance, dissipation consume the time and
the attention of this high society. What banquets they -
served! What luxurious furniture! What rare wines!
What wonderful music! The splendor of these affairs
filled the town. Everybody heard about them and had
something to say about them. Amos too heard about them
and he too had something to say—something as rough and
as rude as he himself would have seemed had he suddenly
entered the hall where a feast was in progress.
_ He did more than describe the feast: he saw the empty,
aimless hearts and minds of the feasters. For the country
at large the feasters had no concern—the country on whose
security their own security depended, the country whose
welfare was the essential condition of their own, the coun-
try whose poverty and distress they themselves helped to
create. “They are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph.”
By “Joseph” Amos meant the whole northern kingdom,
usually called “Israel.” But what was this “affliction” of
which he speaks? Were there not ease and wealth on all
sides? Affliction? The happy and comfortable find it
hard to believe in the distress of others. What they do
not see never bothers them. “They are not grieved.” They
care nothing for the distress, the poverty, the toil, the
‘starvation, which paid for their luxury.
“For them the Ceylon diver held his breath
And went all naked to the hungry shark;
For them his ears gushed blood; for them in death
The seal on the cold ice with piteous bark
Lay full of darts; for them alone did seethe
A thousand men in troubles wide and dark;
Half-ignorant, they turned an easy wheel
That set sharp wracks at work to pinch and peel.”*
In our modern democracy, depending as it does on the
earnest, intelligent codperation of all citizens, there are
many who ignore not only the poor but the country itself.
_ 1Keats: “Isabella, or the Pot of Basil.”
ic
44 AMOS, PROPHET OF A NEW ORDER
Why should they care if political or economic problems
threaten to undo the land? They take no interest in the
annual elections, do not care about issues or candidates,
and do not even take the trouble to register or to vote.
“They are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph.” It
is no wonder that the poverty-stricken do not care. They
cannot. Why should they? But what of those whose
wealth and position permit untold helpfulness and noble
service? That these are not “grieved” for their country’s
welfare is quite as serious a situation as that they should
waste their substance in riotous living.
There was One, long after Amos, whom the world some-
times thinks of as “a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with
grief.” His grieving was not for himself but for his breth-
ren. He saw and felt the bitterness of their lot. He
marked out the only path along which men may expect to
find a common welfare. His Spirit alone can suffice to
awaken and to direct those whose care for themselves and
for their country will be noble and worthy, because it is
“rooted and fixed in God.”
There is no denying that such passages as those in-
cluded in the present lesson are almost bitter in their un-
compromising severity. The prophet makes no concessions
to expediency. He uses the harshest terms to describe those
whom he denounces. He is well aware that they are the
élite of the land, that they are rich, powerful, and “repre-
sentative.” He knew that he would incur their ridicule,
their scorn, and, finally, their wrath; but none of these
things moved him. In other words, he had all the marks
of men whom some to-day call radicals. And if this is
clear at this late day, it was tenfold more obvious at the
time.
The recognition of this fact is of considerable importance
in the understanding of the Bible. It means that there are
forms of radicalism—radicalism that challenges the social
order—which have a rightful place in God’s scheme of
revelation. The divine messengers are sometimes storms
and lightnings (Psa. 104. 4) and sometimes stormy, fiery
prophets whose words smite and slay (Hos. 6. 5). God
has seen fit to raise up and to bless these men, with all
THE DECEITFULNESS OF RICHES 45
their vehemence. Radicals in thought and in word, they
are no less men of God. They go to extremes. They set
forth ideas that later prophets, as radical as themselves,
do not hesitate to modify and even to contradict. Indeed,
in nearly every instance the Biblical prophets were men of
this character, and it is this kind of men who have most
signally advanced the cause of God and have enlarged the
scope of the divine revelation.
They are not comfortable men to live with, but they
themselves neither seek nor offer comfort. They call to
others to take up the message they proclaim, not because
they wish to be radical for the mere sake of being radical,
not because they wish to involve society in turmoil and
revolution, but because, in view of the conditions they
see about them, they feel that nothing can be done but to
strike at once to the heart of the matter; and they lay the
ax at the root of the tree (Luke 3. 9). He who would
follow the prophets must bid farewell to ease and comfort.
The vigor and rigor of this small but mighty company
make them seem stern and forbidding. But they are the
ones who prepare the way for Him of whom it is said “he
spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast”
(Psa. 33. 9).
QuESTIONS To Discuss
What weakness in our Nation can be traced to the luxury
and power made possible by great wealth?
- What opportunity have the rich and strong really to
know how thz poor and weak have to live?
Would Amos have had anything to say on the question
of women in politics?
Can expensive houses, clothes, and entertainments be
justified on the ground that they keep money in circula-
tion and give employment to men and women?
Would you call Amos a “radical” ?
Ve
CHAPTER VI
THE PROPHET AND THE BUSINESS MAN
Amos 5. 7-125; 8. 4-7
A PropHet’s SKETCHBOOK
One of the surprises that come over and over again to
the careful Bible student, and especially to the student of
the prophets, is the strangely modern character of many
of the subjects with which the prophets dealt. After due
allowance is made for differences of time, language, cus-
toms, and the rest, there remain passages so strikingly ap-
propriate to our own situations that they might have been ~
written yesterday instead of twenty-five hundred years ago.
A good illustration of this fact appears in the present
lesson. Amos has here sketched the business man of the
ancient Hebrew world—his methods, his customers, and
his “pull” with the courts. The picture is true not only
for its own time, but it will be true as long as the traffic
of the world is carried on for the enrichment of the few
rather than for the service of all. It is true that the amaz-
ing developments of modern business far surpass anything
of the kind the ancient world produced, but certain traits
reappear in all periods of commercial history, and the man
sketched here is true to type.
Note that Amos has given us a remarkable number and
variety of these pen portraits. His book constitutes a kind
of portrait gallery, in which one may find nearly all the
typical characters of that day. At first one does not realize
how clear and numerous these are. They are done so con-
cisely, and most of our Bible reading is done so rapidly,
that only after persistent attention does one begin to get
the vivid portrayals of which Amos was such a master.
Men and women, rich and poor, judge and priest, victor
and vanquished, proud profiteer and impoverished con-
sumer, throng the pages of this diminutive tract we call
the book of Amos. And they are not huddled together in
46
pee
THE PROPHET AND BUSINESS MAN 47
an indistinguishable mass; each is as clear-cut as a cameo
and so convincingly outlined that one feels instinctively
that they are absolutely true to life.
Here is our business man, as Amos sees him, in all his
characteristic zeal for the slogan “Business is business.”
He is against those foolish religious customs that interfere
with trade. “New moon and sabbath’—sacred days in
which business gave way to religion—were only irksome
to him. He had no sympathy with such a religion and he
hated to have the stream of trade interrupted (8.5). When
we think of what has been happening in the wheat and
flour market during the last couple of years, it is interest-
ing to see that similar questions were rife in Amos’ day.
Here are wheat merchants profiteering (as we might say)
by charging high prices for short weights and for an in-
_ferior article. Apparently they “got by” with this sort of
thing without serious interference.
Bap Mortves In BusINESS
It must be admitted that irregularities of this kind are
still matters of course in the Orient, and exactness in that
day was hardly to be looked for when weights, measures,
and money lacked the definite standards established by
modern scientific methods. George A. Barton writes:
A glance at the weights here described makes it evident that
the standards of the ancient Hebrews were not exact. If
these are representative weights, the shekel must have varied
from two hundred to more than three hundred grains troy.
This is what one acquainted with the Palestine of to-day would
expect. The peasants still use field stones as weights, selecting
one that is approximately of the weight they desire. Even
among the merchants of modern Jerusalem, where one would
expect more exact standards than among the peasantry, odd
scraps of old iron are used for weights. ... Indeed, of the
weights found at Gezer, so many were under the average
standard, and so many above it, that the inference lay close
at hand that many men had one set of weights by which to
purchase and another set by which to sell.*
A standard coinage, issued by a government, necessarily
obviates the delay, the bother, and the easy inaccuracy of
1Arch@ology and the Bible, page 161,
a
48 AMOS, PROPHET OF A NEW ORDER _
\
weighing out a certain amount of metal (gold, silver, or
bronze) whenever a payment had to be made; but Amos
lived long before the day of a coinage of this kind.
It is all the more significant that in the face of a certain
amount of inexactness, which might be natural and ex-
cusable under the circumstances, Amos denounces the
practice that is fraudulent as a matter of principle. Such
action is utterly foreign to the character of God as Amos
understands him and so must necessarily be foreign to any
man who desires divine approval. For God cannot ap-
prove any act or principle which contradicts his own
nature.
Much has been said and written, and vastly more will
be said and written about the iniquities of trade and the
possibilities of overcoming or preventing them, but all will
be vain until the heart of the trader is touched to new
motives and new aims. He has sought profits at the ex-
pense of his fellows, and the world generally has ignored
the price the people have had to pay in order to provide
these private profits. He has valued his property vastly
more than the persons of those who developed and _ pro-
tected it, and the world has closed its eyes to the folly of
permitting such a sacrifice of man upon the altar of Mam-
mon. There are in the Bible many denunciations against
the idea of human sacrifice and against those who “made
their children to pass through the fire.” Horrible as such
practices seem to us, they were at least done in the supposed
interest of deity and as acts desired by the gods. But what
can be said and what would some of those old prophets
have said of those who make men, women, and children
pass through the fire of our cotton mills, glass factories,
and steel plants—a fire that burns out the real life of the
victims yet dooms them to a continued existence deadened
in every faculty? And this sacrifice is made not at all in
the interest of any deity, even the most barbarous and
primitive, but solely in the interest of the selfish and self-
appointed deities who claim the products of the sacrifice.1
1If this statement seems unduly severe, let it be recalled that in the fall of 1902,
during the strike of the anthracite coal miners in Pennsylvania, Mr. Baer of the
Reading Railroad publicly claimed that he held the coal properties by divine right;
’
i
7
‘THE PROPHET AND BUSINESS MAN | 49
Poor Man’s JUSTICE
Amos sees as clearly as any modern investigator that the
brunt of this burden falls on the poor. They have to pay
the prices asked or do without their shoes or their flour
(8. 6). If they pay they must take what they get whether
the quality is what it ought to be or not. If it be asked
why they do not bring their cases to court, it must be said
that justice is the most expensive commodity on the mar-
ket, and few, if any, of the poor can afford it. So far as our
own courts are concerned, this is due primarily not to any
reluctance on the part of the court to administer justice
impartially to all, but to the traditional machinery of the
law, which, in the course of its development, has resulted
in raising almost insuperable obstacles in the path of those
who most need protection.?
In Oriental countries justice is notoriously difficult to
obtain, and Amos is both daring and original in the way
he strikes at a situation recognized by all and opposed by
none but the victims, who were usually helpless in the
matter. His denunciation of the way justice toward the
poor is perverted by the bribes of the rich (5. 7-12) takes
its place alongside his denunciation of the fraudulent con-
duct of business as a scathing indictment not alone of his
own people but of all peoples among whom these evils are
found—and where are they not?
Tur CONSCIENCE OF A NATION
It needs only a moment’s reflection to realize that this
indictment cannot be made until one sees the facts of so-
and as recently as December, 1920, the Wall Street Journal said: ‘‘When the real
adjustment comes, the unskilled worker finishes where he belongs—at the bottom
of the list.. He will be able to live on two dollars a day when he is lucky enough
to get that amount regularly. He will thank goodness that he has no family of
five or, indeed, anybody but himself to support; nor will any employer pay him on
a basis of any such fatherhood.” The New York Christian Advocate, from which
this quotation is taken, entitles its article “The Red Rag” and says, among other
comments, that, ‘‘to the Journal writer the unskilled laborer is no more than a lump
of coal or a ball of crude rubber, nothing but a necessary factor in production of
wealth.”
2See Justice and the Poor, a report issued by the Carnegie Foundation and
carrying the indorsement of no less an authority than Elihu Root,
¥<
50 AMOS, PROPHET OF A NEW ORDER
cial life with an unprejudiced eye and then is moved to
challenge them on the basis of high principle. Amos saw
the facts and was urged to speak by the high principle
which refused to be silenced. Looking back upon his
position from the vantage point of our own later day, we
can see without difficulty that in Amos the awakening
conscience of the Hebrew people found a voice.
Amos himself was, of course, a Hebrew. The fact that
he belonged to a pitiably small minority, so far as these
ideas were concerned, made him no less a member of his
own race and a citizen of his own country. Time alone
could tell whether he or those fellow citizens who opposed
him were on the path of true progress or most truly ex-
pressed the characteristic genius of their people. And
time has told. There is no doubt to-day that Amos repre-
sented the best and highest tendencies of his time. ‘The
inclusion of his book in the sacred canon of the Hebrews is
proof enough that subsequent generations of his own people
recognized his greatness.
There is something strange, at first, in the idea that men
whom a nation honors as its greatest men were in their day
that nation’s severest critics. Yet that is true of all the
prophets. No nation has ever been more sternly or more
bitterly rebuked than the Hebrew nation was by its own
prophets; but the true life of the Hebrew spirit is seen in
the fact that, though belated, it awoke to some sense of
where its true greatness appeared. This means that the
nation came to regard as part of its most precious litera-
ture, its sacred Scriptures, those protests which revealed as
well as rebuked conditions that other nations accepted as
matters of course—protests that challenged the accepted
order of social, political, and religious life. Indeed, at
the time they were uttered many of the Hebrews them-
selves resented these criticisms and opposed the critic.
The resentments and oppositions are all but forgotten 3
the critic and the criticisms endure.
Why is this? Because those to whom the Scriptures
have come are dimly, blindly aware that somehow these
Scriptures contain a divine wisdom that is able to make a
nation wise unto salvation—a wisdom that finds its work in
|
THE PROPHET AND BUSINESS MAN 51
establishing an equitable social order. That divine wis-
dom has been only partially apprehended, much still awaits
recognition and application ; but it is there and it will some
. day appear. “There is nothing hid save that it should be
manifested.”
Gop Spears To-Day
How shall this wisdom be brought to light? In two
ways: First, through the awakening conscience of the
nation itself as embodied and made vocal in the persons of
men and women who are there to meet just this emergency.
Such men look with the clear-seeing eye of an artist upon
the world about them, they look within their own hearts,
they look into the Scriptures and read its imperishable
words, they look to God, the Father and Lover of mankind;
and the rays that shine out from all these sources are
brought to a burning focus in their hearts. They realize
the heavenly joy that would come to the world if men
would walk in this light. They utter their denunciations
of the accepted state of affairs. Their protests echo from
city to city, arousing the same resentments and oppositions
which met such protests in days of old. They call for the
new heavens and the new earth wherein dwelleth right-
eousness. And those who have ears to hear know that
once more the voice of God is calling to his people.
Second, through an awakening church. ‘True, there
are those who regard the church as hastening to decay, who
realize that every institution tends to become a lifeless,
rigid thing, unable to respond to the needs of current life.
Yet in the last few years the church has shown some sur-
prising signs of vitality. These signs appear especially in
just the field with which the present lesson has been con-
cerned—namely, business. There is not room here to set
down the official action of the great Protestant denomina-
tions, the Roman Catholic Church, and other religious
bodies that set forth in terms appropriate to the present
time the call of religion to a reconstruction of the social
order according to the principles which found their earliest
proclamation in the words of Amos. In this call the
church voices the awakening conscience of the community,
i
4s
52 AMOS, PROPHET OF A NEW ORDER
speaks with a truly prophetic spirit, and moves on to that
leadership which is rightfully hers whenever and as long
as she listens obediently to the voice of her Lord.
QuEsTIONS TO Discuss
What do Amos’ character sketches show of his powers
of observation ?
Are there any in your community whose characters
Amos would have sketched? How about yourself?
Are methods used in business to-day which aid dis-
honesty? Is this due to accident, ignorance, or to set
purpose ?
Are the poor able to pay as much for legal advice as
large corporations? What bearing has this on the admin-
istration of justice to everybody impartially ?
Does religion encourage us to reveal and to rebuke such
conditions or to keep still and not make trouble?
What is God’s word to-day to the church in the matter
of business? How is the church responding to it?
CHAPTER VII
TRUE WORSHIP
Amos 3. 13-15; 4. 4, 5; 4-6, 14, 15, 21 27
THE PLAcE WHERE WorsHIP Was FASHIONABLE
ONE of the best-known incidents recorded in the book of
Genesis is the one told of Jacob, who “lighted upon a cer-
tain place” on the evening of the fateful day of his flight
from his brother Esau (Gen. 28. 10-19). This “certain
place” was none other than the “Beth-el” of Amos 3. 14.
' Its fame went even further back. It was supposed to have
been the place where Abraham, having come to a land
which God would show him, built an altar to Jehovah
(Gen, 12. 8y.
As the years passed, the town at this place became a city
of more or less importance. But not until after the death
of Solomon, when the whole group of northern tribes (that
is, Israel proper) threw off the yoke of the Davidic dynasty,
did the city reach its greatest glory. It then became vir-
tually the capital of the northern kingdom—the city where
the king dwelt. Not the least of its importance was due to
its sacred history. There was no shrine in the land that
. was more venerable, and when the great altar was set up,
with images of the “gods which brought Israel up out of
Egypt” (1 Kings 12. 28; compare Exod. 32. 4), it was
natural that the people should accept it as indeed the place
of “the king’s shrine and a royal temple” (Amos 7. 13).
What Jerusalem later became to the Jews, what Mecca
became to the Mohammedans, what Rome became to
Europe in the Middle Ages, Bethel was becoming to the
northern Israelites.
Here, one might think, would be the best kind of place
in the world to preach religion; and so it would—if the
religion preached was of the kind the city practiced. But
Amos, a prophet o /c@ Dew order of things, saw in Bethel
j 53
54 AMOS, PROPHET OF A NEW ORDER
\s a symbol and center of wickedness. As Rome inflamed
Luther, so, two thousand years earlier, had Bethel inflamed
Amos. One’s idea of God necessarily determines one’s
idea of worship; and no one could think of God as Amos
did and suppose that the worship officially conducted in
Bethel could have divine approval.
What kind of worship did the God of Amos desire?
That is the question whose answer, as given by Amos him-
self, has placed Amos in the front rank of the religious
teachers of the world, has revolutionized our ideas of re-
ligion, and has helped to establish the unique place held by
the Hebrew people as the bearers of a divine revelation.
Tur WorsHip Amos ConDEMNED
Amos’ answer was twofold. In the first place, he said,
Jehovah did not desire the kind of worship Bethel stood
for. But he did not say it as mildly as that; he said it
fiercely and in bitter scorn. Could sarcasm be more biting
than “Come to Beth-el, and transgress; for this is the sort
of thing you like’? The words in 4. 4, 5 are all in this
strain, and their harshness should not be overlooked. Amos
did not mince matters, did not compromise in the slightest
degree, made no allowance for possible exceptions, but
struck out from the shoulder to smite the sin he saw.
When we read such hard words, our first thought is
that there must have been something so desperately wicked
about the popular worship that the people ought to have
known better and ought to have acted differently. When,
however, we notice the practices which Amos condemned,
we cannot but be amazed at the idea of finding in just
these things any ground for such rebukes. Notice what he
specifies: sacrifice, tithes, thanksgivings, free-will offerings
(4. 4, 5); feast days, solemn assemblies, music, both vocal
and instrumental (5. 21-27). These constitute the very
stuff of which most religion (even yet) is made; and will
Amos, with one daring gesture, sweep them all away as
not only useless but wicked ? :
The ceremonies and ritual that Amos saw at Bethel—
that is, these observances he rebuked—are generally re-
garded as having come down from very ancient times, sanc-
TRUE WORSHIP 55
tioned by Moses himself; and there can be no doubt that -
the people at large obeyed them in good faith and in good
conscience. Yet Amos goes so far as to say that in the
_ early days, when the Hebrews were in the wilderness under
the guidance of Moses, they did not bring sacrifices and
offerings to Jehovah.
If Amos was right about this, we shall have to revise
some of our ideas of what actually occurred during those
years in the wilderness—a subject that would carry us
far beyond the proper limits of the lesson before us. It
may be said in passing, however, that this word in Amos
tends to confirm the view of recent scholars that much of
the elaborate system of worship observed later among the
Hebrews grew up during the centuries following Moses.
However that may be, it is clear that Amos had no regard
for them, and that there was nothing in their past history,
as there was nothing in their current practice, to prevent
him from denouncing them in the name of the Lord.
Perhaps the radical character of Amos’ position will
stand out more clearly if it is recognized that he includes
in his list acts that are urged upon us to-day as necessary
parts of our own religion. Consider the whole matter of
tithing and of free-will offerings, which Amos mentions
specifically in 4. 4, 5. Consider the whole matter of church
attendance, special days, and special music, which he
speaks of in 5. 21-27. Are these not exactly the things
that make up a large part of our own church life? We
know they are. They are no different, either in spirit or
in fact, from the acts upon which Amos pours out his
scorn.
This view of religion comes with something of a shock
to one who does not realize what radicals the prophets were.
He begins to feel as those first hearers of Amos felt when
it seemed to them that Amos was pulling down about their
ears the whole splendid structure of religious life and prac-
tice, which at the first had been ordained by God himself
and had been confirmed by generations of reverent and
obedient observance.
Yet it is also clear that if Amos had simply approved and
encouraged the type of religion he saw about him at Bethel,
ts
»*
\
56 AMOS, PROPHET OF A NEW ORDER
we should never have heard of him. The men who do
no more than indorse the well-established institutions of
their time are not the ones who make history, whether
they act in the field of politics, art, science, or religion.
Progress always springs from protest. Advance means
change. No customs are sacred simply because they are
ancient. The test of all life (including the religious life)
is its ability to survive the upheavals caused by new visions
of truth. It is only by means of such a process that the
indestructible elements can be revealed. The “yet once
more” (Heb. 12. 27) has perennial applications; and re-
peatedly, in succeeding ages, it “signifieth the removing of
those things that are shaken, . . . that those things which
cannot be shaken may remain.”
Tsk WorsHie Amos DESIRED
Amos, however, had no satisfaction in destruction for
its own sake. He wished to pull down only that he might
build up. And the second part of his answer is positive
and constructive. He said, in effect: “There is a kind of
worship that Jehovah really desires. He really desires
that men should ‘seek him’—not his temple but himself— ;
and there are plain, straightforward acts of worship which
will be abundantly acceptable to him.” But how different
these acts are from those heretofore regarded as worship-
ful! This new worship that Amos proclaims finds its ex-
pression in hating evil and loving good, in seeing not only
that justice is administered in the place of justice (“the
gate”), but that it overflows the land like a flood (5. 14,
15, 24).
There had come into the heart of Amos a revelation
of that tremendous principle that a city’s religion is not
to be measured by its churches and cathedrals, its churchly
ceremonies, offerings, and solemn assemblies (and how
solemn they are!), but by its treatment of the “righteous,”
the “just,” and the “poor” in their citizen life (2. 6, 7;
5. 12; 8. 4-6). He does not ask for mercy nor for charity,
but for justice. In our separation of church and.state we
have assigned worship to the church and justice to the
TRUE WORSHIP. BY
state. The position of Amos is that the exercise of justice
is the kind of worship God desires.
What Amos means is just this: Acceptable worship
must be what God likes (compare “this is what you like to
do,” 4. 5), and God likes justice between man and man;
especially does he like the poor and the weak to receive
justice at the hands of the rich and the strong. And that
means, stated even more generally, that Amos finds the
religious center of gravity in man’s behavior to his fellow
men. He probably would say that man’s attitude toward
man is his attitude toward God. The attitude toward man
is not a by-product, a side issue, an accessory, of one’s at-
titude toward God; it ts that attitude. The field of true
worship, as Amos presents it, is thus entirely shifted from
ceremony to service, from ritual to righteousness, from the
mysterious to the matter-of-fact, from the priestly to the
practical.
There is no denying the fact that if Amos was right, it
was necessary to make a wholesale revision of the re-
ligious ideas of his day; and in so far as those ideas are
current in our own day, the same wholesale revision is
necessary if we are to accept Amos’ point of view. He held
that the essential field of religion, of true worship, was
not in a church building, but in the place of daily business,
not in the celebration of special days, but in the humanizing
of “week” days, not the church use of money, but the com-
mercial use of money, not in private advantage but in
public justice.
It has long been the custom among us to regard business,
week-days, commerce, and the courts as secular instead of
sacred. This is where Amos completely shifts the empha-
sis. These are sacred. In them men are to worship. The
acts and days and places that custom has so long called
sacred Amos will have nothing to do with; but in the com-
mon life, day by day and man to man, he demands, with
an insistence that the centuries cannot silence, that men
shall exercise the basic principles of humanity and justice
as the pure expression of the worship God desires. To
seek these is to seek God. To know these as the founda-
tions of all righteous living is to know God as heis. Until
58 AMOS, PROPHET OF A NEW ORDER
Swe are ready to address ourselves to a thoroughgoing ap-
plication of this rule of Amos in our church and com-
munity life, it will be idle to discuss the possibility of
applying the Golden Rule. The rule of Amos precedes the
tule of Christ.
Amos Spoke WitH A Port’s Passion
The prevailing tone, which sounds through nearly all the
words of Amos, is so stern and so forbidding that it is of
special importance not to let his denunciations hide his
demands. He has this positive message that, if men would
accept and practice, undoubtedly carries within the seed
of all the highest developments of a nation’s life; and his
interpretation of true religion in terms of common life is
what gives him his undying fame.
It may be asked whether he was quite as severe as the
words of his book would indicate. Did he really mean that
ceremonial worship was wicked? Did he mean that special
times and seasons, special acts and offerings, were really
odious in the sight of God? Or would he have said that
these were all right provided the other things—humanity
and justice—prevailed throughout the daily life? Would
he have said that if humanity and justice were made su-
preme and dominant, the temple and its ritual would have
been harmless ?
Unfortunately, we cannot answer these questions. We
have nothing but his book upon which to base an answer;
and the position taken in his book is the one set forth
above. It is a familiar fact, however, that when a great
soul has been set on fire by a new and overwhelming reve-
lation of truth and duty he is not likely to stop in the ut-
terance of his great message to discuss pros and cons and
to weigh modifications and exceptions. The prophet, like
the poet, “mad with heavenly fire, flings men his song
white-hot.” It would be as useless, as it would be imper-
tinent, to raise questions of application and consistency.
The prophets proclaim the mighty principles that, divinely
revealed, divinely direct the lives of men toward divine
goals. We lesser souls, who cannot reach so high, nor see
so far, can deal with ways and means by which the great
TRUE WORSHIP 59
principles become personal possessions. And this we will
do if only the spirit of the prophets kindles ours!
QuEsTions To Discuss
What would Amos have thought of the Christmas and
Easter programs in our churches and Sunday schools?
What religious acts referred to by Amos appear in
present-day religion ? .
Does he speak of them with approval or disapproval ?
Why?
Would he be regarded as a heretic to-day? By whom?
Is his idea of true worship easier or harder to carry out
than the customary “church activities”? Why?
How and in what degree can our churches be inspired
by the spirit of the prophets? Whose spirit was that?
CHAPTER VIII
ARE NATIONAL DISASTERS DIVINE
PUNISHMENTS?
Amos 38. 3-6; 4. 6-13; 5. 1, 12, 18-20
Amos’ New Doctrine
One of the differences between Amos and the prophets
who went before him is found in the way he speaks of the
political welfare of the nation. The earlier prophets were
devoted to the political defense and advancement of the
national prosperity. They usually appeared when the na-
tion was threatened by a foreign foe and, in the name of
Jehovah, roused the people to patriotic enthusiasm. They
were intense nationalists and felt that Jehovah, the God
of Israel, was bound to protect his people and to preserve
the nation.
In Amos an entirely new type of prophet arose. These
prophets of the later type “look not on the outward ap-
pearance, but on the heart” (1 Sam. 16. 7). They see
clearly the foreign foes that approach from without, but
they are more concerned with the moral and religious ene-
mies within. They realize that a nation’s most serious
foes are the social sins which weaken the body politic. On
this account they do not regard foreign foes solely as politi-
cal dangers; they see in them agents by whom God will
punish a weakened and wicked nation. This means that,
quite contrary to the national feeling aroused by the earlier
prophets, these later prophets can view the downfall of the
nation not as an ordinary political calamity but as a pun-
ishment sent by Jehovah. According to this later view the
national disaster does not mean Jehovah’s defeat, as the
earlier prophets would have felt, but shows him in his true
character as a God of righteousness, who punishes a wicked
nation even though it be his own.
60
NATIONAL DISASTERS 61
Tt is not difficult to see that this apparent indifference of
the later prophets to the nation’s political security would
seem to the people to be irreligious and unpatriotic—irre-
ligious because it contradicted the orthodox idea of Jeho-
vah as the defender of his people; unpatriotic because it
persistently proclaimed the downfall of the nation.
The passages which make up the present lesson set
forth this new and highly unwelcome idea—namely, that
the nation’s position was in no wise secure, that it was
threatened with disastrous invasion, and that Jehovah
himself was bringing this disaster upon it. Before taking
up the message as a whole, let us notice the separate pas-
sages.
Wuo Bout JEHovAH DirEcTs ~HESE EVENTS?
A group of comparisons, such as the Oriental loves, lead-
ing up to the point and climax of the whole, is given in
3. 3-6. Its true character is so obscured by the way it is
ordinarily printed that it is worth reproducing in a more
appropriate form:
~ “Do two walk together, except they be agreed?
Doth a lion roar in the forest when he hath no prey?
Doth a young lion give forth his voice, if he have taken
nothing?
Doth a bird fall in a snare upon the earth where no snare is
set for him?
Doth a snare spring up from the ground, unless something is
to be caught?
Doth a trumpet sound in the city, without alarming the
people?
Doth disaster come upon a city, unless Jehovah brings it?”
This series of seven questions (a significant number) is
intended, of course, in the sense of direct statements. Amos
has some definite disaster in mind, and apparently others,
too, realize that some danger threatened. But it would not
have occurred to them that Jehovah should bring it. So,
much as one to-day would build up an argument, Amos, in
true Oriental fashion, heaps up illustrative questions, all
of which demand the answer he desires for the last and
chief question of all; the conclusion being: “No; if disas-
ter comes upon a city, Jehovah brings it.”
62 AMOS, PROPHET OF A NEW ORDER
“PprparE TO Meer Tuy Gop”
The next passage, 4. 6-13, portrays a variety of disasters
that have befallen the nation from time to time. However
the Hebrews had previously accounted for them, Amos
feels that their true source had been unrecognized, and
that in reality they had been sent by Jehovah. And, in
part because their source and purpose had not been under-
stood, these calamities had failed to lead the people to re-
pentance.
The refrain “Ye have not returned unto me” (verses 6,
8, 9, 10, 11) shows the passage to be composed of stanzas,
somewhat similar to those in 1. 3—2. 16. As in that earlier
passage, so here the concluding stanza differs strikingly
from those which precede. In the present instance it is
hardly more than hinted at. Its beginning plainly appears
in the words “Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel”
(verse 12), but with that it abruptly breaks off. What
follows gives no hint of what the “thus” means; while
verse 13, echoed in 5. 8 and 9. 6, deals with an entirely
different idea.
Did the original conclusion correspond to 2. 14-16 and
3.11? It surely seems, after the list of catastrophes given
in 4, 6-11, that nothing remains but destruction. Was
the end so horrible that some devout scribe, copying for
his own~use the words of the great prophet, felt that these
words had better be omitted? Or did some accident of
quite an ordinary kind happen to the early manuscript,
blotting or tearing it so that the lines which seem needed
here were lost? No one can say. Perhaps the passage is
more terrifying with its conclusion left to the imagination.
In any case it reénforces the principle set forth in 3. 3-6—
that Jehovah is the one from whom these chastenings come.
The idea back of the words “Prepare to meet thy God”
is not wholly clear. In their present position the words
evidently mean that the time for repentance has passed,
and that nothing but the final doom remains. But they
are ambiguous. One can easily imagine circumstances
under which “to meet thy God” would mean joy and not
sorrow, delight rather than despair. God is not always
NATIONAL DISASTERS 63
vindictive, and even sinners may be forgiven. In any case
one is not justified in taking these words for any dogmatic
purposes. Doctrines are not to be built upon texts of
doubtful meaning.
On Aa Feast Day
The brief words of 5. 1, 2 are highly characteristic. The
word here translated “lamentation” means especially a
lament for the dead, not simply a lament in general. Amos
personifies the nation under the figure of the “virgin of
Israel” and describes her as lying dead, forsaken, unburied.
He is referring to the fate he sees awaiting the nation in
the future, but he sees it so clearly that it seems to have
happened already—the unburied corpse lies right there be-
fore him.
It would be interesting to know the circumstances under
which Amos made such a pronouncement. His book is
almost wholly silent on such matters. To the collectors
of these words the circumstances and backgrounds were too
familiar and, from their point of view, too unimportant
for special record. They were far more interested in what
the prophet said than in the circumstances under which
he said it. These words, however, seem to imply a certain
audience, as if Amos had uttered them on some public
occasion when he could count on having a crowd to hear
him. It might have been, as some have supposed, on the
occasion of the harvest festival, when many would have
come to “rejoice before Jehovah.” Such times were times
of relaxation and recreation, times of feasting and singing.
One can imagine how someone would stir a group of feast-
ers by reciting such words as:
“God give thee of the dew of heaven,
And the fatness of the earth,
And plenty of corn and wine:
Let peoples serve thee,
And nations bow down to thee” (Gen. 27. 28, 29).
To this all would respond with “Amen” and “The Lord
hath fulfilled his word, Hallelujah!” Suddenly a sound
is heard which all know only too well. It is the wailing
Xe
64 AMOS, PROPHET OF A NEW ORDER
}
for the dead. It comes nearer. And then, to the amaze-
ment of all, it proves to be no funeral procession—only this
grim prophet. His piercing eyes take them all in. What
is he saying?
“The virgin of Israel is fallen—
She shall no more rise:
She is forsaken upon her land—
There is none to raise her” (Amos 5. 2).
What in the world does he mean? ‘Then, as he sees the
eyes of all fixed upon him, he continues with terrible earn-
estness :
“Hear this word which I take up against you, even a death-
. chant, O house of Israel:
Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord!
What is the day of the Lord to you?
It is darkness and not light....
Even very dark, and no brightness in it” (5. 1, 18, 20).
But he cannot hold them long. There is too much
festivity in the air. Such an idea is ridiculous! Who can
imagine disaster in the face of all this prosperity? And
then someone says, just loud enough for a few to hear,
. “He’s crazy,” and the spell is broken! They begin to
laugh, they call him names, they tell him to go back where
he came from,—and then turn again to their feasting.
If this did not all happen in just this way, it is never-
theless well within the bounds of possibility; and in prin-
ciple this is what has happened over and over again when
a careless, self-satisfied people has been confronted by an
Amos, a Paul, a Savonarola, a John Wesley.
A DiFFicuLT QUESTION
The particular message which appears in the passages
grouped together for the lesson is one that reaches down
deep into the very heart of faith. It seems almost a matter
of instinct to regard a general catastrophe as an act of God.
If we are caught in it, we call on God to save us. If it hap-
pens to others, we ask why God did it. It makes little
difference what kind of disaster occurs; the first feeling
NATIONAL DISASTERS 65
is the same. This is the feeling that underlies these words
of Amos and that is, in a way, developed in the lesson.
He first states the general fact that when evil befalls a
city, it is Jehovah’s doing. Then he takes up in more detail
certain evils that have actually happened—famine, drought,
blasting and mildew, pestilence, defeat in war. Although
we should regard some of these as natural events, Amos
groups them all together as the voice of God calling the
nation to repentance. Finally, in what he regards as the
approaching death of the nation, brought to pass by enemy
invasion, he sees only the act of God.
As we read these statements, they are so earnest and so
clear that we cannot help saying to ourselves, “Of course ;
that is just the way it all happened, and exactly what it all
meant.” One can be deeply religious, however, and still
have the question arise in his mind whether it was all as
simple as these brief statements make it seem. We do not
doubt that God was back of these events, as he 1s back of
all events; but the meaning of these events, the purposes
they were meant to serve, the divine motive that led to
them, the idea that they were punishments—these are
questions not to be answered so easily.
It must be borne in mind that Amos was not the only
one of the sacred writers who dealt with this subject, and
that Amos’ view—namely, that disasters such as he de-
scribed were national punishments—is not the only view
represented in the Bible. In the Old Testament the whole
great book of Job shows that calamities befall the right-
cous; in which case, naturally, they cannot be regarded as
punishments. In the New Testament Jesus tells in words
of undying beauty of the heavenly Father who “maketh
his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth
rain on the just and the unjust” (Matt. 5. 45). He
also, in one place, tells that such tragedies as being slain by
Pilate or losing one’s life because caught under a falling
tower are not signs of any special sinfulness on the part of
the victims (Luke 13. 1-5). While this does not neces-
sarily mean that events of this kind are never punishments,
it clearly shows that one cannot always be sure whether a
certain disaster should be regarded as a punishment or not.
66 AMOS, PROPHET OF A NEW ORDER
Ss The fact of God’s blessings is only another side of the
same question. Few would be so bold as to say that they
have personally deserved all the joys and comforts of life
that have come to them. And if one’s welfare cannot
always be regarded as a reward of merit, neither can one’s
ill-fare always be regarded as a punishment of demerit.
It would seem, then, that one should not be too hasty in
his conclusions regarding subjects upon which the Bible
writers themselves hold different ideas. When taken in
their proper order and considered in their proper relation
to each other, it is seen that these different writers form
a company of men through whom the divine revelation
came as they were able to receive it. Hach in turn had a
vision of some aspect of the truth, true as far as it went,
but not complete; and each in turn built upon the founda-
tion laid by those who went before. Indeed, he not only
built upon that foundation, but sometimes modified or re-
modeled the foundation itself. He advanced man’s knowl-
edge in some one direction, adding his own contribution
to the sum of the whole. Aspects of the subject which he
did not develop were taken up later by those who followed
him, or they still await development.
TrurH STILL To BE REVEALED
To say that some of these subjects await development is
saying that revelation concerning them is still to come;
and this is in harmony with John 16. 12, 13, where it is
plainly indicated that the followers of Jesus, then and
thereafter, were the ones through whom later truth was to
be received. This gives us our own true place in the great
stream of religious life, of which the prophets, the apos-
tles, and the church of later ages all form a vital part. It
is not to be expected that every individual member of the
church should become the channel of the fullest possible
revelation. That is no more true to-day than it was in the
days of Amos, of Paul, of Augustine, or of Luther. But
it means that the God of truth still lives, that his children
still need him, and that he is still leading them into ever-
richer apprehensions of his love.
It is in this light that these words of Amos and, indeed,
NATIONAL DISASTERS 67
Amos himself, are to be understood. He was one of that
splendid company of prophets through whom “God, ...
at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past
unto the fathers” (Heb. 1. 1). He appeared at a time
when it was necessary to shake the national spirit out of
its religious complacency and to rouse the people to new
thoughts of God and new standards of life. He realized
that the supreme need of the hour was to make the people
see that their reliance on God would be in vain unless they
met the obligations he laid on them. These divine obli-
gations dealt with life in a much deeper way than the
people had hitherto understood. Failure to meet them
meant disaster. With a foreign foe on the horizon Amos
felt that the disaster was at hand, and so his message was
definite and imperative.
Looking back over the story, two impressive results ap-
pear. One is that thirty-five or forty years after Amos
the whole northern kingdom actually fell a prey to the
great empire of Assyria (B. co. 722). The other is that the
lesson taught in these words of Amos—namely, that no
nation can survive or expect God to preserve it which does
not practice, throughout the whole body politic, the prin-
ciples of justice and humanity—is a lesson not yet learned
by the nations of the earth, It has been learned by small
groups of people from time to time and by individuals
here and there; but never yet by nations in a national
way. It will only be learned as men who have found it
out for themselves make it their business to teach others.
QuEsTIONS To Discuss
How can the hand of God in history be recognized ?
How can one be ready to meet God?
What would Amos have said about this?
Does God have equal control of “natural” events and of
“national” events ?
How can the divine purposes be discovered ?
What can we do toward averting the disaster which
properly befalls national iniquity?
te
CHAPTER IX
PROPHETIC VISIONS
Amos 7. 1-9; 8. 1-3
Wuat Dip Amos SEE?
At first reading the present lesson seems to take us as
far as possible from any sort of familiar experience. It
brings us face to face with some of the experiences that
seem to put a prophet away off in a place by himself. Now,
while it is true that these prophets were men whose great-
ness towered far above the level of their time, and while
it is true that the Scriptural language often tends to con-
ceal rather than to reveal the true nature of the experience
in question, many of those experiences are quite clear and
convincing. They only need to be restated in a simple and
more modern form.
Read carefully the brief but striking passages that make
up the lesson. Note the four well-defined “visions” that
“the Lord showed” Amos—the grasshoppers, the fiery
drought, the plumb-line, and the basket of summer fruit.
Note that these are things that Amos had doubtless seen
more than once; the third and fourth, at least, he must
have seen many times. This helps us to understand the
general sense of the visions that Amos saw. So far as the
objects themselves were concerned, everybody had probably
seen them at one time or another. What they had not seen
was the meaning which Amos gives them; so that what
Amos really “saw” was some meaning or message that these
natural objects might serve to illustrate. These natural
objects and events might have suggested other meanings
to other observers, but these are the meanings Amos saw.
Note that the first and second visions are alike in repre-
senting that the disaster which they threatened was not
carried out. The third and fourth represent the disaster
as carried to completion. So we have two pairs of visions,
68
PROPHETIC VISIONS 69
each pair setting forth its own part of the message. Note
that in the first pair the disaster is represented as sent
from God, with no special reason stated as to why it was
sent. In the second pair the disaster comes as a result of
some inner weakness or defect of the people and is a logical
result of the conditions that they have permitted to exist.
Note also that in the first pair Amos protests against the
severity of the approaching disaster. In the second pair
he has nothing to say beyond answering the question
“What seest thou ?” .
Note that nothing is said as to how “the Lord showed”
Amos these things—whether in a dream of the night,
whether in & trance, or whether in a time of meditation
such as a prophet or any serious-minded person might de-
vote to serious things. As soon as it is realized that the
message is the thing, rather than any special way in which
it is made known, it is clear that such “visions” as are here
cescribed could grow out of ideas that arose wholly within
the mind of Amos, and which he puts in this Oriental,
pictorial form. One need not suppose that Amos saw a
kind of moving picture, with appropriate words inter-
spersed. Amos is concerned with the will of God, and as a
poet to-day might set forth a noble thought in the form
of some visible event (compare Lowell’s “The Vision of
Sir Launfal”), so Amos, himself a poet in spirit, sets forth
in the form of “visions” the thoughts and revelations that
have come to him concerning himself and his people. The
Hebrews used the word “show” as freely as we do, as, for
instance, in the famous and searching words “He hath
showed thee, O man, what is good” (Mic. 6. 8), where
nothing definite in the way of time, place, or manner is
involved.
It is important, further, to notice that the whole of each
vision belongs to what “the Lord showed” Amos; including
what Amos hears himself saying and what he hears the
Lord reply. It has already been pointed out that the
physical objects would be more or less familiar, apart from
any special message they might suggest; so that what is
really meant is that Amos found these natural objects sug-
gesting or illustrating certain truths God had made known
70 AMOS, PROPHET OF A NEW ORDER
Sato him. With those truths in mind he saw everything in a
new light. Everything spoke to him of the message he
felt called upon to proclaim. His heart was full of it, and
it mattered not what he saw—a pest of grasshoppers, a
drought, a plumb-line, or a basket of summer fruit—, each
one offered some reminder or illustration. The vision, re-
garded as something which might be seen by human eyes,
is less important than the message. The message is the
picture; the vision is only the frame.
In brief, these clear-cut word pictures are vivid portray-
als of Amos’ own view of his message and of his relation
to it. Their highly pictorial character must not divert
the attention from the truth each was intended to convey.
The Oriental used then, as the Oriental uses to this day, a
manner of speech much more pictorial and fanciful than
we of the West would dream of using. We leave that kind
of thing to the poets, but the Orientals use it in ordinary
conversation. Amos and his people were Orientals and
had their own manner of speech. It is important for us
to understand their manner as far as we are able in order
to find beneath the surface of the Oriental language the
essential massage, the note of reality, the heart and life,
which convince us of our kinship with this great soul of
a distant past.
Tue Mrssacge—Part I
On a first reading it might seem that these visions, like
all the words of Amos so far considered, deal directly with
the people and the future just ahead of them. This is
true only in part. More careful study shows that what we
have here is an even more important revelation of Amos’
own thought, a leaf out of his own spiritual experience.
It is all the more valuable because the book has so little
on this profoundly interesting subject. In the books of
Isaiah and Jeremiah accounts are given of the so-called
“call” of each, in which the prophet definitely surrenders
himself to the proclamation of whatever message God shall
send him. The book of Amos has exactly one verse on this
subject—namely, 7. 15—; and this verse has generally been
regarded as the only reference to Amos’ personal, inner
PROPHETIC VISIONS | 71
experience. In the verses that form our lesson, however,
while we do not have an account of Amos’ call we do have
an insight into some of his spiritual experiences in relation
to his prophetic work. It is in this light we shall study
them. Their value in this connection has been too often
overlooked.
Let us consider first the first pair of visions. It was
shown above that the words of Amos and of the Lord, as
given in the visions, were part of the visions. They repre-
sent what Amos heard himself saying and what he heard
the Lord reply. Note that in each case (verses 2 and 5)
the words of Amos represent his approach to God, and that
the words of the Lord (verses 3 and 6) represent the Lord’s
response to this approach. It is because they faithfully
represent the feeling toward God which Amos really had
and the attitude he was sure God had toward him that he
uses them in the visions he thus relates. They must have
represented the feelings of Amos’ own heart; otherwise,
they would never have been repeated and preserved. In-
teresting as they are for the particular petitions they utter,
they are more interesting and more valuable as evidences
of Amos’ feeling of a perfectly free access to God and of his
conviction that God would immediately respond to his
appeals.
Where are we to suppose this all took place? The an-
swer is right at hand. It took place where all such trans-
actions take place—in the heart of the seeker after God.
Words are not necessary in order to have the experwence,
although there can be no doubt that Amos prayed often
and earnestly for his people. Words are necessary only
when we come to describe the experience to others. Not
any particular words that God may use, but the conviction
in my heart that he has received me and answered me is
the essential factor in my experience. And as it is with
the believer to-day, so it was then, and so it was with Amos.
It had been so with Elijah, who found God, not in the
wind or the earthquake or the fire but in the still small
voice. So Amos, in these simple words, has opened the
door of his heart, and for a moment we may see him face
to face with his God.
Ys
72 AMOS, PROPHET OF A NEW ORDER
No idle curiosity can excuse our presence here. The
place is holy, and we must come with deepest reverence.
At the moment when, as it seems to Amos, God is about
to pour out his punishment upon a rebellious people, Amos
dares to reason with him and dares to bid him stay his
hand. It makes us think of the parable Jesus told about
the gardener who pleaded for the barren fig tree (Luke 13.
6-9). For a moment Amos seems kinder and more for-
bearing than God himself, and God becomes willing to con-
sent to Amos’ appeal—at least, so it seems to Amos at the
moment.
The boldness of Amos in this appeal was due to his
understanding of his people, his sympathy with them, and
his love for them. He has often been regarded as harsh
and stern. And this is true of much that finds a place in
his book. But these two visions alone are enough to show
that, however stern he might be, he was never unsym-
pathetic; however harsh, he was never bitter. It is his
love for his people that sends him to God in this daring
fashion. He never would have gone on his own account,
but for his people he does not hesitate. He knows them as
weak, erring, and insignificant (“small,” verses 2,5). He
knows that they can never survive such punishments as’
God might visit upon them.
And the punishments are withheld! Knowing the
people as he does, Amos realizes that they have no idea
that punishment is at hand, and naturally there would be
no one to call upon God to delay his visitations. So Amos
somehow feels the burden of his people’s danger upon his
own shoulders. He will plead their cause even if he be the
only one to do it. Abraham asked God to spare Sodom in
case there should be found ten righteous persons there
(Gen. 18. 22-33). Amos, who feels himself, like Elijah
(1 Kings 19. 14), the only surviving faithful one, dares to
ask that the nation be spared even if they are all sinners.
It was a daring proposal, and we can almost imagine the
awe with which Amos made it and the deeper awe that
came to him as the conviction deepened in his soul that
these disasters really had been delayed. God had heard
him! But further experiences awaited him,
PROPHETIC VISIONS a ae
Tor Merssace—Part II
The third and fourth visions quickly show themselves
as a kind of second chapter to the first pair; and as they
proceed to correct the conclusions Amos might have
reached on the basis of the first two visions, they also cor-
rect the ideas which many people to-day hold regarding
the power of a prophet’s prayer.
Note that in these visions the Lord is the first speaker,
instead of Amos, as in the first pair. Note that in each
ease the object Amos sees is of a kind that carries certain
qualities and conclusions with it. Note that the plumb-
line gives a standard of what might be called “vertical
truth.” It cannot be diverted nor deceived; it is simply
“there.” If held alongside a wall, no word is necessary.
The wall is plumb or it is not. In the presence of the
plumb-line it shows its own approval or condemnation.
Nothing further need be said. If the Lord sets a certain
standard before the people, the people meet that standard
or they do not. When the time has come for the test, all.
the prayers in the world cannot change the fact.
The basket of summer fruit which Amos sees in the
fourth vision is equally plain and convincing. The sum-
mer fruit has reached its highest point of growth and glory,
and from the moment it is gathered it starts toward decay.
This is in the nature of the case. Fruit is the sort of
thing that has this quality. After it is ripened and gath-
’ ered, all the prayers in the world cannot delay the ap-
proaching dissolution. It has lived out its day, its time is
up; and no matter how keen one’s affection for it, it cannot
be kept in its present state, its end is at hand. Amos knew
all this as well as anybody.
Taking these two visions together, they present another
side of the situation of which the first visions showed but
one. Viewed as reflections of Amos’ spiritual experience,
that experience is seen to be somewhat as follows: Amos
was a lover and champion of his people. In his devotion
to them he did not hesitate to appeal to God himself in
their defense. As a prophet he felt no restraint in the
divine presence ; indeed, he was confident, at first, that
Xs
V4: AMOS, PROPHET OF A NEW ORDER
not only could he appeal to God, but that his appeal must
be—was—granted. This is not all, however: the Spirit of
God was leading him to see another factor in the case. He
is shown that there were qualities and conditions in the
people themselves which no prayer but their own could
change. No other person praying for them, no prophet,
not even Amos, with all his first assurance, could avert
by prayer a consequence which the nature of the case com-
pelled.
This is why, in the second pair of visions, Amos has no
answer. He sees that God is not the only factor. The
people themselves make God’s patience unavailing. The
Lord shows him the plumb-line and the summer fruit, and
Amos knows that no appeal of his and no willingness on
the Lord’s part to hear and to grant that appeal can give
straightness to the leaning wall or life to the dying fruit.
Amos was not so much stern as sad. It would sober any
man to face such facts as these.
It is one of the tragedies of life that there are limita-
tions to the power of love. ‘There are standards inde-
pendent of men and (we say it reverently) of God. There
are conditions that carry inevitable results in their train.
No matter how tenderly and devotedly a mother may love
her child, if that child does certain things, the mother is
simply helpless. All the love in the world cannot avert the
consequences. If, however, the child himself attempts
his own amendment, the first step toward salvation has
been taken. The other step is that taken by the heavenly
Father, who always comes more than half way to meet a
returning child.
This is the great truth that Amos learned in these
“visions.” He left no stone unturned to arouse the people
to take that first step, for he realized now that without
that step on their own behalf no prayers of his could save
them. He was convinced that the divine standards of life
and action must be met. That is what God stood for, and
that is what Amos himself stood for. If the people per-
sisted in their failure to meet these standards, the people
themselves had put their case beyond remedy.
We who live in the later day of the revelation of God’s
PROPHETIC VISIONS 75
love in Christ know that Christ. himself acknowledged the
same conditions; but we know also, in the words of the
great apostle, that while “the wages of sin is death,” “the
gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord”
(Rom. 6. 23). But even that gift is helpless until it be
sought by the one who needs it.
QUESTIONS TO Discuss
If these visions of Amos are more concerned with ideas
than with physical objects, might not similar visions be
received to-day ?
_ Has the second vision any bearing on the question of
praying for rain?
Can prayer prevail with God unless the Spirit of God
prevail in the life of the one who prays?
Was Amos any less answered in the third and fourth
visions than in the first and second?
Can you think of any means Amos failed to use by which
the people could have been stirred to undertake their own
amendment ?
Ye
CHAPTER X
THE JUDGMENT—ACOCORDING TO AMOS |
Amos 8. 4-14; 9, 1-10
Toe Day oF THE LoRD
WHEN it was said in a previous lesson that Amos was
the first to proclaim certain teachings, it was not meant
that every word of his book dealt with ideas never heard
before. ‘There were some beliefs held by the Hebrews long
before Amos appeared which in all probability Amos him-
self shared at first but which, in the light of later revela-
tions, Amos was compelled to correct or to deny. One of
these concerned “the day of Jehovah” (King James Ver-
sion: day of the Lorp, or more briefly, “that day”). Like
some of the other ideas already discussed, this seems at
first to be far removed from modern ways of thinking. ~
But the principle underlying this term is one of the most
persistent in the whole field of religion, and in some form
or other it finds expression in every age. ;
The several references to this “day” in Amos indicate
that it was a commonplace of current religious thought.
It went back to a time earlier than any, written prophecy.
Indeed, there seem to be grounds for supposing that in
Egypt, a thousand or more years before Amos, there were
religious teachers who dealt with similar ideas.1 Coming
down to the present time, we find many forms of belief
which, in principle, are only this ancient “day of the
Lorp” brought down to date.
Briefly stated, the idea of “the day” was that Jehovah
should deliver his people from ‘their enemies and thus ©
usher in a time of happiness, of prosperity, and of peace.
At different periods of the nation’s history the deliverance
of the people and the overthrow of the enemy were differ-
ently understood. At first it probably meant a victory in
1Compare Archeology and the Bible, Barton, Chapter XXIV.
46
JUDGMENT—ACCORDING TO AMOS — %%
some particular battle. No question was raised about the
righteousness of the nation’s cause; it was taken for
granted that Jehovah and Israel were on the same side,
and that they belonged together. When Israel was threat-
ened by an enemy, no one supposed that Jehovah would
ask, “Is my nation righteous and does she deserve victory ?”
For this reason “the day” had long been regarded as a
day of triumph. Indeed, there had been many such “days”
when Israel had been victorious and Jehovah had been ex-
alted. There could be no better illustration of this whole
circle of thought than Exod. 15. 1-18. This stirring poem
expresses admirably the point of view of the Hebrews in
Amos’ day who “desired the day of the Lord.” The same
idea, in almost the same words, appears to-day in our feel-
ing that God is on the side of our nation when any war is
on; and that our victory is a victory for righteousness—
that is, for God.
Amos regards the whole matter in a different light. He
holds that God is more concerned to have the nation right-
eous than to have it victorious. If it is unrighteous, it
shall be defeated, and it deserves to be. Perhaps a few
might escape (3. 12), but the majority—practically the
whole nation—would go down to doom, This violently
reversed the whole popular idea of the day. It became now
a day of judgment rather than a day of victory.
It is not surprising that Amos took such an extreme
view. His conception of the righteous character of God
- would lead him to a very dark view of the unrighteousness
of the nation, and his zeal for Jehovah would not make
him lenient toward sinners. It often happens that re-
vealers of new ideas run to extremes. It needs an extrem-
ist to compel the attention of an indifferent public. At
this distance it is possible to look back and see how power-
fully Amos set forth his unwelcome message and to see
also how later prophets modified some of his extreme
positions.
One idea at least he established in a way never to be for-
- gotten—namely, that a day would come when God would
reckon with his people on the basis of sin and righteous-
ness. This idea has gone through many forms .and has
78 AMOS, PROPHET OF A NEW ORDER
\« had an interesting history. We have already seen that
Amos presented it in an extreme form. Isaiah, who fol-
lowed Amos, reasserted the principle of judgment but held
that a larger portion of the nation would survive this judg-
ment. It would still be a small portion (remnant), but
not as small as Amos had supposed. :
As the centuries passed, and changing conditions led to
new and different thoughts on religious subjects, the Jews
found themselves a very small nation, exploited and op-
pressed by great world empires—Persia, Greece, Rome.
Under these influences, aggravated by their sufferings,
they came more and more to regard themselves as a right-
eous nation oppressed by a sinful world. The distinctions
Amos had set up were in large measure ignored, and the
nation thought of itself as a whole once more and as the
special object of Jehovah’s uncritical care.
The judgment-day idea consequently took on a new form
—namely, the overthrow and punishment of the great non-
Jewish empires, which constituted practically the whole
political world so far as the Jews were concerned, and the
triumph and exaltation of the Jewish nation, which,
through God’s miraculous act, would now be raised to
glory. Note that the sin that Amos had found in, the na-
tion itself is now transferred to “the world” as contrasted
with the Jews.
This later form of the idea, involving a relatively small
group of righteous persons, raised by divine intervention
to victory over a sinful world, had its influence on the form
taken by the later Christian idea of a Judgment Day. It
must be remembered that the early Christians were Jews
before they were Christians, and that they naturally car-
ried over much of their native Judaism into their newly
acquired Christianity. Before the close of the first century
they had undergone more than one persecution that would
tend to revive their earlier Jewish ideas of a day when God
would vindicate his little group of faithful ones and punish
their oppressors. :
While we to-day can see how these Jewish ideas were car-
ried over into Christianity, the early Christians them-
selves would not be conscious of what they were doing.
JUDGMENT—ACCORDING TO AMOS "9
Being Jews, they naturally held fast the hopes which col-
ored so much of the Jewish thought of that time. When
they became Christians, it would not occur to them that
they should leave behind them some of the most cheering
and encouraging elements of their Jewish faith. So they
bring these ideas with them and, so far as this subject 1s
concerned, ‘Christianity becomes a kind of revised version
of Judaism. It is highly probable that some of the ideas
about the Judgment held by many Christians to-day are
really more Jewish than Christian.
A detail that is not without interest in this connection
is the way a significant word has been used in two mean-
ings. In Amos—and the Old Testament generally—the
word “Lorp” is used for Jehovah, the God of Israel, and
“the day of the Lorp” meant the day of God, of J ehovah.
In the New Testament the word “Lord” is used of Christ.
So the early Christians could read from the Old Testa-
ment references to the day of the Lorp (Jehovah) and ap-
ply them to a day of the Lorp (Christ), with which origi-
nally they had nothing to do. This coincidence of the
word a1 ie transfer of the Jewish ideas into the Chris-
tian religi 7
THE HartH TREMBLED
In 8. 8, 9sand 9. 5 the prophet represents the earth itself
as in some way and in some measure sharing in the judg-
ment that is to be visited on the nation. If such references
occurred het only they might be dismissed without se-
rious consideration; but such expressions appear so fre-
quently that they raise the question, How did the prophets
think of the world in its relation to the great messages
they had to proclaim? What is the significance of such
statements as “thé‘land shall-tremble for this” (8. 8) and
“T will cause the sun to go down at noon” (8. 9) and “the
land shall melt” (9. 5)? In the first place it is quite
clear that Amos is not thinking of what people to-day
mean by the end of the world. He is referring to the pun-
ishments that shall come upon the people and he evidently
regards these punishments as near at hand.
The prophets, as a rule, do not seem to anticipate a de-
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80 AMOS, PROPHET OF A NEW ORDER
struction of the world. They expect punishments that
they describe in terms of natural events, but the blessed
time that was expected to follow these punishments was
always regarded as taking place upon the earth. In order
to be a suitable place for the purified nation which sur-
vived the punishments, the earth itself was renovated and
renewed. It is in this sense that we read of “new
heavens and a new earth” (Isa. 65. 17), in which the same
natural conditions appear which belong to the present
earth. )
Similar expressions are used for less extensive events,
asin Amos 1.2. Often heaven and earth are called upon
as though they might act as witnesses of the charges
brought against a rebellious people, as in Isa. 1. 2. Winds
and lightnings act as messengers for divine errands (Psa. |
104. 3, 4). It is thus evident that references to nature
such as are found in the present lesson are not to be
separated from these other ones, which are of a milder
character. They all belong together and are parts of that
view of nature characteristic of the Hebrews generally
and of the prophets in particular.
The Hebrews generally shared with the rest of the world
at that time an idea of nature very different from that held
to-day. When it is considered how recently/men have
learned about gravitation, the shape of the earth, eclipses,
earthquakes, light, and electricity, it is no wonder that in
ancient times,;men ignorant of these things regarded the
earth as almost a living thing, whose actions were directed
not by certain “natural laws” but by feclingl« of the earth
itself, as it responded to acts of God, of man, or of spirits
(compare Isa. 1. 2; Jer. 2. 13; Isa. 49. 16 Psa. 65. 11-18;
77. 16; 96. 11; 98. 8). To understand such expressions
as these and to sympathize with them it is quite necessary
to think of the world as these old Hebrews thought of it.
For them such words involved no conflict with their ideas
of nature and of the world. They must not be tested by
modern scientific discoveries, but must be taken in the
spirit in which they were meant. |
The prophets were not only Hebrews, sharing these views ©
of life and of the world; they were also poets. To the
JUDGMENT—ACCORDING TO AMOS 81
natural imagery of the Oriental mind they added the free-
dom and originality of thought which led them to use
familiar facts and theories as poets in all ages have done.
In their prophetic discourses they go further than the
average man in representing nature as influenced by the
acts of God and man. When they say that “the top of
Carmel shall wither,” that “the sun will go down at noon,”
that “the land shall melt,” and many other such things,
they cannot be regarded as making scientific statements.
They are speaking as Hebrews and as poets, and their
references to nature have the same exalted fervor as their
impassioned words on other subjects—for example, Amos
2.10; 3. 9, 10, 12; 5. 1, 2, 6; 6. 12,13. They are neither
geologists nor astronomers but religious teachers, who
utter their messages in terms that their hearers would
recognize at once as appropriate to the profoundly serious
character of the message itself.
Tuer WorpD OF THE LORD
Among the punishments that Amos announces is “a
famine of the words of the Lorp,’ when men shall “run
to and fro to seek the word of the Lorp and shall not find
it” (8. 11, 12). Amos is right in indicating this as a
serious fate. We are so accustomed to the idea that the
Bible is the Word of God, and that in it we can find the
word of the Lord whenever we desire it, that at first we
do not realize that Amos was not speaking of any col-
lection of the words of God which had been uttered to
other people on other occasions in an earlier time; he
meant what the Hebrews called “the living word”—a
spoken word from some teacher or prophet, through whom
God sent the needed word at a needy time. He saw no
comfort in the idea that the people might have consulted
the words that God had anciently uttered through Moses
or Samuel or David or Elijah. He realized their imme-
diate and constant need of living leaders who could direct
the people according to the divine will.
The idea that the words of the Lord, or the Word of
God, could all be contained in a single writing or a col-
lection of writings such as our Bible would have caused
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82 AMOS, PROPHET OF A NEW ORDER
the prophets great surprise. Nobody would have dreamed
of such a thing at that time. “The word of God” was
their term for God’s will in action. It was this word that
inspired the prophets, it was this that created the world
(Gen. 1), it was this that accomplished the divine pur-
poses among men (Isa. 55. 11), that melted the hard
heart and broke the stubborn will (Jer. 23. 29), that
sought out men’s inner motives (Heb. 4. 12), that brought
to spiritual birth the first Christian fellowship (1 Pet. 1.
23). It is unfortunate that this large, rich, true, and
Scriptural conception of God’s immediate and unfailing
resources of leadership should ever have given way to re-
liance upon a collection of past words that, precious as
they are beyond all measure, cannot be and were never in-
tended to be a substitute for “the living word.” As the
divine leadership of the Hebrews in the wilderness could
not serve for the guidance of David in his kingdom; as
the divine direction of David and his kingdom could not
serve to guide the returned exiles when they undertook
to reéstablish their homes and their worship; as the divine
counsel that aided the returned exiles could not ade-
quately direct the life of the growing Christian church:
so it is now and ever shall be that the supreme need of all
who would worthily live for God is to find him and hear
him at first hand. The prophet Jeremiah voiced this in
ee words, but they are not yet understood (Jer.
31. 34). )
It is as necessary to-day that men find the word of the
Lord as in the days of Amos. We have advantages that Amos
and his people ‘did not have. We have the examples and
the testimonies of “the goodly fellowship of the prophets,
the glorious company of the apostles, and the noble army
of martyrs.” Above all we have the life and teachings of
Jesus. These are our guides, tried and trustworthy, lead-
ing us toward the goal discerned so long ago by Amos and
Jeremiah, where God
“, . . stooped to heal
My soul, as if in a thunder peal
Where one heard noise and one saw flame,
T only knew he named my name.”
JUDGMENT—ACCORDING TO AMOS 83
QUESTIONS To Discuss
Is a Day of Judgment to be feared or welcomed? (Com-
pare Psa. 96. 11-13.)
Is it necessary that all be judged on the same “day”?
In view of the changes through which the idea has
passed, can we be sure that the last word has been spoken
on the subject? re
To what extent is the future of our earth revealed in the
poetic language of the prophets?
Does spiritual and ethical righteousness depend on the
destruction of the earth?
If such an event should occur, would the survivors be
any more righteous afterward than before?
Is righteousness a condition of body or of spirit?
Does the “word of God” or the “word of the Lord” in the
Bible refer chiefly to spoken or written words?
Where is the word of God to be looked for?
Is any light thrown on this subject by the fact that
those through whom the word of God came, always pre-
sented it as something new in their own day, and made so
little reference to any words spoken previously ?
‘
'
Xe
CHAPTER XI
THE BLESSED FUTURE
Amos 9. 11-15
Tur Happy ENDING
Arter the storm a calm! The stormy little book of
Amos, with its wars and famines, its pestilences and earth-
quakes, comes to a most surprising close in a picture of
peace and quiet, of homes and happiness. The stormy
spirit comes to anchor in a haven of rest.
As one reads the books of the prophets one cannot escape
the feeling that they were more or less pessimistic in their
outlook. So much of what they said consists of criticism
and condemnation that the first impression is one of dark-
ness and gloom. Further reading, however, shows that
after a certain amount of warning and rebuke, a contrast
is introduced by a passage that gives a brighter message,—
a ray of light is permitted to relieve the darkness. The
present lesson is a passage of this character. —_.
Before taking it up in detail let us ask why there should
be any happy ending at all. Why should not the nation
go down to a gloomy destruction if it is really as sinful
as the prophets say? Does it not fully deserve such a fate?
If there were nothing to be considered but sin and punish-
ment, one should have to answer that punishment was un-
avoidable, no matter how severe, whether it would destroy
the nation or not. —
Yet the problem never seems to work out just that way.
Sin itself cannot be dealt with as an abstract proposition.
It cannot be separated from the sinner himself. The sin-
ner is a human being whom God loves. God loved—loves—
the world, and he is more concerned for humanity than
for theology. And while earnest souls have been labor-
1Compare “The sabbath was’ made for’man, and not man for the sabbath”
(Mark 2, 27).
84
THE BLESSED FUTURE 85
iously working out elaborate theories of sin and punish-
ment, the human sinner, whom they had quite forgotten,
has come to himself and said, “I will arise and go to my
Father”; and, like the mists before the morning sun, the
elaborate schemes have evaporated before the love “that
casts out fear. So, somehow or other, these universal
dooms never quite happen.
It is a curious and interesting fact that this very race
of Hebrews, and especially its prophets, who have given us
the most gloomy forebodings of terrible futures, are also
the ones who seem to have felt most deeply and to have
set forth most glowingly the hopes and Ste a that most
effectively discount the terrors the prophets predict. The
chorus of despair grows faint, and a new ‘ae is heard:
“O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy vic-
tory ?”
This no denial of the principle that te ee a man
soweth that shall he also reap.” But no one is ever lim-
ited to a single sowing, and earlier crops can often be
crowded out by later plantings. Where life is concerned,
no one can tell at any particular time what; possibilities lie
just ahead.
Some instinct of this kind seems to ee been rooted
deep in the prophetic consciousness. Despite their words
of warning and of punishment they were never quite con-
vinced that Jehovah’s work for righteousness would end
in dismal failure. Out of this profound assurance arises
the oft-noted. fact that while many ancient peoples looked
back to a distant past as the time when they had their
golden age, the. Hebrews looked forward to a time in the
future when
“All we have willed or hoped’ or dreamed of good shall exist.”
Their golden age was yet to come. In spite of failures
and in spite of fears, though sdéme, or even many, indi-
viduals might seem to go the way of destruction, they were
sure
“... that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill.”
Xs
‘
86 AMOS, PROPHET OF A NEW ORDER
In the long last there would be a happy ending. And
we feel that they were right. Their faith is also ours.
“Unto the upright there ariseth
Light in the darkness.”
Wuo Drew THis PICTURE?
Men’s ideas about the blessed future have differed as
widely as their ideas about the judgment. They agree in
the fact that there shall be such a time; but just when or
where it shall be, or just what form it will take when it
arrives are questions to which very different answers have
been given. The passage before us shows a twofold in-
terest—agricultural and national.
According to the first idea the blessed future will be a
kind of husbandman’s paradise, characterized by a fertil-
ity rich beyond compare. Such a picture is quite as inter-
esting for what it reveals about the one who drew it as for
what it actually portrays. Such a future would make but
little appeal to a merchant or a soldier or a mechanic or a
statesman. It is evidently designed for a particular class
of persons. ‘
It confirms what was said in a previous lesson pout the
prophets expecting the blessed future to tak ‘place on
earth. Even if these words were regarded as poetical in
their fervor, their reference is nevertheless to the earth
on which we now live. The words are not figurative nor
symbolical so far as this point is concerned. They are,
indeed, highly colored, but they are direct and straight-
forward and speak quite frankly of a kind of paradise that
would be heaven to a man whose life and whose delight
were to plow, to plant, and to reap. .
Such a future, however, could hardly have satisfied
Amos. If the rest of the book truly represents his feeling
—and there is no reason for doubt about it—, this kind of
future was far removed from his ideals. True, he was an
out-of-doors man and to that extent would feel a certain
sympathy with the picture. But it lacks elements the rest
of his book regards as essential. Nothing is said of justice
to the poor, square dealing by merchants, nor true worship.
THE BLESSED FUTURE 87
It is barely possible that, after all, Amos might have
felt that a return to a primitive, agricultural simplicity of
life would be the best way to overcome the evils he so
vigorously denounced. Instead of thinking that city life,
with its commerce, its luxury, and its refinements of
civilization, could be purified, perhaps he regarded it as
hopeless and felt that the only cure for its evils would be
to abolish it altogether and let everybody get back to the
land. In view, also, of the high ethical spirit represented
in the rest of the book, it is difficult to suppose that Amos
looked forward to a future as materialistic and as self-
centered as this—a life whose chief attraction seems to be
the prospect of laborless crops.
According to the second idea the nation is to be restored
from captivity and.is to be reéstablished in perpetual se-
curity. ‘The tabernacle of David, which has been over-
thrown, is to be restored. This tabernacle (literally, booth,
or hut) seems to mean the Davidic dynasty, which, as we
know, ceased with the Exile. This situation would in-
volve a\most un-Amos-like exaltation of the nation.
A further characteristic of the rest of the book is the
way Amos ignores the idea of patriotism. He seems to be
quite unimpressed by it, even to the extent of regarding
with a certain complacency his nation’s ,downfall. He
shows as much concern, in some respects, for nations that
were enemies of Israel as for Israel itself. The passage
before us looks toward a national reéstablishment with con-
siderable enthusiasm. Strange to say, it is not the resto-
ration of the nation to which Amos preached, but of a
nation under the dynasty of David. The northern king-
dom, where Amos seems to have done all his preaching,
had revolted from-the-sway of»the Davidic line two cen-
turies before Amos comes on the scene; and there would
be nothing attractive to the people of the northern king-
dom in any promise involving the surrender of their own
independence and a future submission to some descendant
of David. \ :
It is somewhat surprising to note in this passage—if,
indeed, it be from Amos at all—the absence of any reason
given for the nation’s return. Amos does not condemn
88 AMOS, PROPHET OF A NEW ORDER
\* the people without giving reasons in great variety for his
condemnations; and it is hard to understand how he could
promise a blessed future without indicating some repent-
ance on their part or some change in their attitude which
would justify this very different outlook.
The more carefully the passage is considered, the more
ground there seems to be for the idea, held by many Bible
students, that this passage has been added to the book by.
some writer who lived when the line of David had been
definitely cut off, when the people were in captivity, and
when the hope of a return to Palestine was springing up
in the hearts of faithful exiles. There would be nothing
strange about this. We know that just as the book of the
Psalms grew gradually by the addition of new Psalms to
earlier small collections; and just as the Old Testament
itself grew from time to time as successive books were
written, in a similar way many of the books of the prophets,
while bearing the names of those whose words make up
the greater part of the books, were expanded by later
prophets who continued and applied the teachings of the
first. [
So when the question is asked, “Who drew this picture °”?
the answer would be, “Someone far more deeply concerned
with the future than Amos ever shows himself to have
been.” And if it was someone other than Amos, it was
probably a writer who lived during the captiyity -the pas-
sage refers to. .
OrHeR Virws—anp Ours
The present lesson should be compared with other pas-_
sages bearing on this subject. Read Isa. 30. 26, where
it is said that the moon shall be as bright as the sun, and
the sun seven times as bright as it is now. Read Isa. 65.
17-25, where the “new heavens and the new earth” are
simply a kind of edition de luze of the present earth, with
Jerusalem, Mount Zion, as the place chiefly concerned.
In this new earth we see home-building, vineyard-plant-
ing, children and aged people, with happiness and peace
everywhere, even among the animals.
While not all the pictures of the blessed future are as
ee
THE BLESSED FUTURE 89
materialistic as these, if several of them are read one right
after the other, one cannot fail to be impressed with the
preponderance of earthly traits in all. As it becomes
clear, however, that these highly colored descriptions
spring from the poetic freedom of prophetic speech, one
recognizes these passages as expressing the hopes and
aspirations of those who were sure of the ultimate security
and happiness of the faithful. They are not charts of the
future nor revelations of the celestial calendars; they are’
something far more significant: they are joyful utterances
of a trust in God that no disaster could disappoint.
' Many of the ideas thus set forth were taken over into
Christianity, just as the ideas of the Judgment were taken ;
and many Christians do not yet distinguish between those
elements that are Jewish and those that are Christian. In
view of the numerous, varied, and sometimes conflicting
descriptions of the future which appear in the Bible it is
no wonder that even to-day there is no general agreement
as to the character of the future life. Many are trying to
discoverits nature through supposed communications with
those on the other side. Yet these not only differ widely
from each other, but their “revelations” exhibit the same
earthly and physical traits as those of the ancient Hebrew
seers. |
We, as Christians, are on safest and surest ground when
we rest back on the indications that come to us from Jesus
Christ. While he used the pictorial, prophetic method
in some of his teachings on this subject, he stands apart
from all others in the way he regards the future as de-
termined by spiritual and ethical principles, even where
he is most poetic and concrete. He lays no special empha-
sis upon what might.be-called.the external conditions of
the future life, but he lays unflinching and overpowering,
emphasis on those qualities of heart and mind, of thought
and will, which make a man what he really is. He shows
clearly that the conditions which make for future happiness
are spiritual conditions, and that these are operative here
and now. The qualities that make for true happiness
there make for true happiness here, and vice versa.
This is the deeper meaning of the Beatitudes. They
é
\
90 AMOS, PROPHET OF A NEW ORDER
have that timeless quality which appears in so much—in-
deed, in practically all—of Jesus’ teachings. In these fa-
miliar and matchless words Jesus is giving utterance to
his thought of life’s true character, there as well as here.
For Jesus there was no hard-and-fast boundary between
present and future; he lived in a pure present. And when
he spoke of those qualities of spirit which “bless” a man
he was speaking and thinking of qualities that belong to
eternity. He who possesses them here possesses them for-
ever. They can neither be corrupted nor stolen; they are
eternal possessions. And just because they endure from
present to future, he who has found them now has in him-
self the strongest assurance that the blessed future will be
his.
“Strive, man, to win that glory;
Toil, man, to gain that light;
Send hope before to grasp it, \
Till hope be lost in sight.”
QUESTIONS To Discuss
To what extent is dne’s idea of future happingss influ-
enced by his idea of present happiness?
Would the prophets be subject to this kind of influence ?
Would they be any the less spokesmen for F if they
were?
Turning the question around, is it n
one’s idea of a blessed future is an accurate |
what he most enjoys and most desires?
Would a farmer’s paradise necessarily he a merchant’s
paradise? or a scholar’s?
Are the Jewish beliefs that were taken over into Chris-
tianity by the first Christians a-necessary part of Chris-
tianity ?
Did Jesus and Paul accept Judaism as a whole? Did
they cover the whole subject in the matter of acceptance
or rejection ?
Should not Christians to-day be permitted to exercise
discrimination in such a matter?
true that
ndication of
CHAPTER XII
PROPHETS AND THE CHURCH
SS
Amos 7. 10-17
As OtHErs Saw Him
THIs passage is different from all the rest of the book
(except 1. 1) in being a story about Amos rather than a
report of his words. It probably serves, by this very dif-
ference, to indicate the true character of the book. The
words in verses 14-17 needed some kind of explanation if
they were to be understood, and so the description in verses
10-13 is supplied by whomever made this collection of
Amos’. words. The whole book may indeed have been
brought together by the writer of this brief bit of descrip-
tion. He evidently felt the dramatic intensity of the situa-
tion he here describes. We should have been grateful if he
had given us much more description of this kind. Many of
these words of Amos are so striking just as they stand
that they would be even more vivid if we knew the cir-
cumstances under which they were spoken.
This is the only place in the book which gives us the
slightest hint of the impression Amos made upon those
who heard him. No one can read his glowing words with-
out wondering \how they were received. Did they make
the people angry? Or did the people listen in a patron-
izing way and say, “Poor man, he means well; but that
sort of talk will never get him anywhere’? Probably most
of the people were on the side of Amaziah and the king.
The absence of any report of the way the people felt
toward Amos makes it extremely difficult to estimate the
‘importance he had in his own day. The fact that his little
book is now in the Bible gives us the idea that he was a
‘great man, and he was. But there is no evidence that
he was regarded as a great man from the first. There is
91
92 AMOS, PROPHET OF A NEW ORDER
\. no evidence that any of the prophets whom we know as
“creat”? were ever received with approval by the people at
large. They were always in a small and unpopular mi-
nority.
It should not be overlooked, however, that opposition is
no proof that a man is a prophet. A man may be highly
unpopular and a general nuisance, and not be a prophet
on that account. One does not become a prophet simply
by arousing the antagonism of his neighbors. 'The martyr
pose is not always evidence of the martyr spirit. To be a
prophet he must make a positive contribution to the spirit-
ual life of the people, must lack any impulse to self-seeking,
and must be far removed from petty politics. There is a
largeness of word and purpose about all the true prophets
which lifts them above the levels of life and thought upon
which most of us live, move, and have our being.
' AMOS OF THE FREE SPIRIT
As Elijah had confronted Ahab in Samaria a hundred
years before this time, as Paul was to confront Peter at
Antioch eight hundred years later, so Amos the prophet
confronts Amaziah the priest at Bethel. Two types of
religion, represented in two typical personalities, here
stand face to face.
Amos stands for God’s immediate access to the human
soul. He represents no institution, whether religious or
national. He regards neither king nor priest, palace nor >
temple. He barely alludes to the past, and then only to a
past so far distant that it serves to contradict all that an
Amaziah would regard as firmly established. He cares
nothing for orderly methods nor for courtly ceremonies.
He stands for one thing, and one thing only: that is the
living voice of the living God in the living present. He
embodies that picture of the prophet sketched later in such
bold strokes by Jeremiah:
“He that hath my word,
Let him speak my word faithfully.
Is not my word like a fire,
And like a hammer that shatters the rock?”
(Jer. 28, 28, 29).
PROPHETS AND THE CHURCH 93
The word “prophet” is subject to some misunderstand-
ing in this passage. We have formed our idea of prophets
on monumental characters such as Amos, Isaiah, and Jere-
miah without realizing that these men were quite excep-
tional. Aside from the fact that they sought the will of
God without reference to priest or sacrifice they had little
in common with the better-known and more numerous
“sons of the prophets,” who represented the more profes-
sional side of prophecy. These latter seem to have been
quite as conventional and quite as professional in their own
way as the priests were in theirs. The great prophets were
of a different order.
Amos uses the word in this double sense in verses 14, 15.
He first denies being a (professional) prophet or a member
of the prophetic guild (sons of the prophets) and then
proceeds immediately to say that the Lord had told him to
prophesy. Amos’ own idea of prophets and prophecy ap-
pears in words which may have been uttered on an oc-
casion similar to this one:
“Surely the Lord Jehovah will do nothing,
But he revealeth his secret
Unto his servants the prophets.
The lion hath roared: who will not fear?
The Lord Jehovah hath spoken: who can but prophesy?”
(Amos 3. 7, 8).
One cannot help feeling that these words are a quick and
stinging rebuke to some who had been telling Amos that
he was not areal prophet, and that he did not have “the
word of the Lord.” They supply another indication that
prophets of the ‘Amos type were neither familiar nor popu-
lar. It is as much of a mistake to suppose that all the
men called prophets. by the Hebrews were like Amos or
Isaiah as to suppose that all preachers in our own day are
like Henry Ward Beecher or Phillips Brooks.
/ AMAZIAH THE PRUDENT AND PROSPEROUS
Amaziah forms a contrast to Amos in almost every
respect. He stands for the religion handed down from
the fathers, for the institutions that had grown out of and
Xs
94 AMOS, PROPHET OF A NEW ORDER
around that religion, for precedent and propriety. He
also stands for patriotism and is a champion of the king
as well as of the temple. He thinks it outrageous that
Amos should threaten the nation with captivity and dis-
aster. Such language, according to Amaziah, is treason-
able and seditious. He thinks Amos should be deported.
Amos belonged in the south: why didn’t he stay there?
Bethel had no room for troublesome intruders. If Amos
didn’t like the way things were going in Israel, let him go
back where he came from. Furthermore, Amos is not only
an outsider but a clumsy farmer as well. He doesn’t know
how to behave himself in a royal sanctuary!
We can almost hear Amaziah’s ringing tones, vibrant
with righteous indignation in a holy cause, when he says
to Amos: “O thou seer, go, flee away into the land of
Judah, and there eat bread, and prophesy there; but
prophesy not again any more at Bethel, for it is the
king’s shrine and a royal temple.” J
It is quite in keeping with his character, as indicated in
this brief dialogue, that he should have this “businesslike”
view of priesthood and prophecy. He is a man who knows
no inner imperative apart from the profitable and respect-
able demands of his profession. He is not necessarily bad
nor narrow nor reactionary. Indeed, he may have been a
very good man up to his lights. He simply had no under-
standing of the prophetic spirit which spoke in Amos, so
he took it for granted that Amos, like himself} regarded his
work as a means of comfortable support. /
Such people—and they are many—cannot understand
how other people can follow a calling or pursue a line of
action that brings no financial return. The idea is simply
unintelligible that some souls can be lit/ with an inner
flame, led by a wondrous star, and live obedient to a
heavenly vision, taking no account of loaves and fishes—
souls that cannot live by bread alone, to whom hardship
and poverty are the least of their troubles, who, in the
words of the apostle, “approve themselves as ministers of
God in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in dis-
tresses, . . . as dying and, behold they live, as chas-
tened and not killed, as sorrowful yet always rejoicing, as
PROPHETS AND THE CHURCH 95
poor yet making many rich, as having nothing and yet
possessing all things” (2 Cor. 6. 4-10).
Experiences of this kind lie beyond the reach not only of
wicked people but of many good people too. They were
beyond the reach of Amaziah. At first one feels a little
sorry for him, that with his high position and its corres-
ponding opportunities he should seem so mean and in-
effective alongside this vigorous and unconventional shep-
herd-preacher. It is only because of our detachment from
the whole situation, however, that we can regard Amaziah
in this light. Centuries of history have reversed the
original relations of Amaziah and Amos. In the days when
both were living Amaziah was the lofty one and Amos the
lowly. Amaziah had every advantage—an assured position,
the reverence of the people, the favor of the king. He
stood on the side of respectability and orthodoxy. He
represented the elements that controlled the national life,
from the king down.
If we had been there probably we should have supported
Amaziah rather than Amos. This assertion is made on
the assumption that in matters of this kind people are
much the'same in all ages. They would far rather be led
than be forced to seek out new paths for themselves. When
it comes to.religion, independence seems as dangerous as
it is difficult. And who should be more acceptable as lead-
ers than those who are already prominent, who already
enjoy the general confidence, who have the support of the
ruling classes; and who represent the old-time religion?
Amaziah is not to be lightly pitied nor dismissed. He per-
sonifies the “general opinion” of his day and of all days.
“HitHer—Or” Versus “BotH—AND”
When two such highly characteristic and divergent ideals
as those embodied in Amos and Amaziah confront each
other, our first impression is that one of them is wholly
good and the other wholly bad. We feel that we must
approve one and condemn the other. This feeling is in-
tensified in this particular instance because of the place the
book of Amos holds in the Bible. The mere fact of its
presence there is enough to assure us that Amos must have
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96 AMOS, PROPHET OF A NEW ORDER
been right, and that all who opposed him or whom he
condemned must have been wrong.
The contents of the book further confirm this idea.
Not only is Amos presented as warning, rebuking, and de-
nouncing the whole community, but the book leaves the im-
pression that the people well deserve all that Amos says to
them or about them. This little story about Amaziah is
the only place in the book where anyone “answers back,”
and even here it is Amos who dominates the situation;
so that, at first, there seems to be no question but that
either Amos is all right, and Amaziah is all wrong, or
Amaziah is all right, and Amos is all wrong.
It may be granted at once that to Amos and Amaziah
themselves such a choice was necessary. Each one felt
himself to be in the right and the other in the wrong. But
we stand far enough away from them to see that life as a
whole is larger than their views of it, and that we need
both types of leaders. In order that the principles pro-
claimed by Amos should become the practical basis of
daily life, it would be quite as natural as it was necessary
that they should produce some kind of an organization de-
voted to their application. Men have to work in groups
this way. As soon as that is recognized, it is clear that
there must be such men as Amaziah who will represent the
organization and its purposes. There must be, ES to speak,
a chairman of the meeting.
In other words, Amos and Amaziah stand for two as-
pects of life which are equally essential yet which seem at
times to be in violent contradiction with each other—
namely, inspiration and organization,, one speaking
through the individual, and the other through the group,
one supplying principle and motive, andthe other supply-
ing form and method. In the larger field of human life
as a whole we cannot say either Amos or Amaziah; we
must include both Amos and Amaziah. There must be
such men as Amos—men who are inspired and who inspire.
These men must awaken our consciences by giving us new
standards of life and action. They must humiliate us by
pointing out how far short we come of the glory of God. 4
They must blaze the trail for further progress along the
ee
PROPHETS AND THE CHURCH 9%
ascending and unending path of righteousness, the upward
calling of God in Christ Jesus.
There must also be such men as Amaziah—men who
can teach and administer. These men must show us how
to organize for practical use the spiritual gains brought
us by the others. These men must preserve spiritual val-
ues through the long centuries that lack outstanding
prophets. They must teach succeeding generations the
way of life as far as that way has been made known.
These facts have an important bearing on our thought
of the church. The church is obviously a great organiza-
tion, preserving the religious inheritance of the past, teach-
ing successive generations, consoling, correcting, leading
men from age to age. Yet to do its highest work it must
be saved from the drying-up process that seems to be the
fate of all organizations. It must be prevented from turn-
ing its attention inward upon its own affairs as if it were
an end in itself. It must not only keep old ideals fresh
and vital, but must be expectant and receptive of new ones.
This spirit of life, this eager vitality, is awakened and re-
vived by seers and prophets. ‘They are the ones to shake
us out of indolence, to open blind eyes and to unstop deaf
ears. Until they appear, we do not realize how mechani-
cal and formal we have become, nor how much farther we
have to go.
The prophet is necessary if there is to be any religious
progress, while the church is necessary if the prophetic
ideals are to be preserved, administered, and made prac-
tical for the rank and file. Prophets themselves make
poor church members, while churches seem too slow and
ponderous to satisfy the prophets. Yet the church gives
the prophet his background and his inspiration, while the
prophet gives the church its visions and its vitality. Not
either—or but both—and should represent our attitude
toward Amos and Amaziah, toward prophet and church.
Without the prophetic spirit the church is lifeless, and
without the churchly means and methods the prophet is
helpless. The ideal is that the organization should be di-
rected and administered in a way to make practical and
effective the high aims and far visions of the prophets.
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98 AMOS, PROPHET OF A NEW ORDER
QuzEsTIoNns To Discuss
Ts there anything in the book of Amos that prevents us
from regarding it as having been written by someone who
collected his sayings rather than by Amos himself?
Ts there any good reason why a few words of other teach-
ers than Amos should not have been included ?
To what degree has a man a right to criticize and to de-
nounce institutions that represent a nation’s religions and
political life? }
Is the fact that a man’s words tend to disturb the peace
a sign that he speaks for God? Is it a sign that he doesn’t?
Is there any way by which, if such a man should speak
to-day, we could be sure that he was or was not speaking
for God?
eo we have been sure about Amos if we had lived
then f .
Can service. be unselfish if it be paid for in money?
Where can we draw the line? How about ministers? or
Sunday-school teachers ? ~ |
CHAPTER XIII
NOTES THAT INTERPRET AMOS
Tue Note or REALITY
OnE of the reasons why many earnest Christians do not
get more out of their reading and study of the Bible is
because it seems so unreal and far away. Its formal lan-
guage, its unfamiliar names, its strange customs, its for-
eign and ancient background, and, above all, its hallowed
associations all tend to remove it from any contact with
life as we know it and live it. The people referred to in
the Bible are regarded as being “in the Bible” rather than
in the earth. They are “Bible characters” rather than
“human characters.” The Hebrew nation, so far as its
story appears in the Bible, is thought of as having lived,
moved, and had its being in an atmosphere of “religion,”
occupying a world all its own—a world that had little or
nothing in common with the ancient world we study about
in school.
While it is true that these ideas are not always stated in
just these words, years of observation confirm the opinion
that for most readers the Bible has all the unreality here
indicated. ‘This does not mean that the readers are not
religious or sincere. Most of them are undoubtedly earnest
and devout, and many of them are living lives that are
beautiful examples of the Christian spirit. Neither does
it mean that this feeling of distance and unreality prevents
a man from “getting good out of the Bible.” Innumerable
passages spring immediately to mind as words that, beyond
all others and beyond all question, are “profitable for teach-
ing, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in. right-
eousness.”
The sayings of the Bible, enriched by centuries of sacred
associations, justify all that has been affirmed of their
power and beauty, but they do not stand alone. Back of
99
100 AMOS, PROPHET OF A NEW ORDER
\*them are the men who first spoke them and who lived
them before they were spoken. David lived and loved before
the Psalms were written; Isaiah prayed and taught before
there could be a book of Isaiah; Peter and Paul and the
test were telling the gospel story and living Christian
lives before there was any New Testament. The Spirit
of God in the heart of man produced the Scriptures. That
is, God came into the Scriptures by way of man; he did
not come to man by way of the Scriptures.
This means that the task of the Bible student is not to
make the Scriptures real but to discover the reality already
there. Amos, Amaziah, and Jeroboam were real people,
leading busy lives according to their place and calling.
The lesson they have for us cannot be found from their
words alone. ‘The character and principles that lie back
of the words must show us what the words mean; for the
same words spoken by different persons may have quite
different meanings. ‘There could be no more striking
illustration of this than the way the words of Jesus are
felt to derive their chief value from his character and
spirit. It was because he lived his gospel that the gospel
words speak with divine power. When this reality has once
been discerned, the Bible becomes a new book. Its pages
glow with a new light and its words speak with a new
spirit. Its figures come to life and call to us across the
centuries : P
“Seek ye the Lorp while he may be found;
Call ye upon him while he is near” (Isa. 55. 6).
For out of lives as earnest and as perplexing as our own
they sought the Lord. Out of tribulation and distress, out
of doubts and fears, they called upon him. Their search
is ours. And despite the immeasurable advantage and
illumination that have come to us since their day the end
is not yet.
THE Nore oF Progress
As soon as the note of reality has been struck, its sound
carries far beyond a single event or individual. As Amos
is recognized in terms of real life he loses his isolation and
is seen as one of many men who in their own way wrought
NOTES THAT INTERPRET AMOS 101
and taught the will of God so far as it had been revealed
to their time.
In the study of a prophet like Amos at least two steps
are involved. The first step is to examine his book and
anything else about him that can be found in order to dis-
cover the man himself and just what he stood for. No
matter how severe his words nor how extreme some of his
ideas, the task is not to criticize but to construct. He
must be permitted to stand on his own feet, to see things
with his own eyes, and to speak his message in his own
words.
This kind of study neither denies nor obscures the work
of the Spirit of God. It is not until such study is per-
formed that the divine process can be recognized and ap-
preciated. The prophets were men quite out of the or-
dinary in their sensitiveness to the divine Spirit and in
the intensity with which they gave themselves to the procla-
mation of the divine will. But this very sensitiveness and
intensity mark them out as men whose messages must be
carefully distinguished from their personalities. Only as
their personal traits and points of view become clear
can we escape the danger of accepting as the word of God
some word of the prophet which springs from individual-
ity rather than from inspiration.
The second ’step is to give the prophet his place in the
great stream of progressive revelation which flows through
the Bible. Moses, Samuel, Nathan, Elijah, and many
other prophets had arisen before the time of Amos, each
one in his own day speaking the word of the Lord as the
Lord made it known. After Amos were to come Isaiah,
Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and many others, differing among
themselves as “one star differeth from another star in
glory.” When given his proper place among these other
prophets the teachings of Amos fall into a true perspective.
It can then be seen where he advanced beyond his prede-
cessors, where he fell below those who followed, and where
his words had purely local and ternporary significance.
Unless this second step is taken, it is easy to be misled as
to the ultimate value or importance of any word of any
prophet, including Amos,
Ae
102 AMOS, PROPHET OF A NEW ORDER
The revelation that comes in the life and words of any
one of the Old Testament characters is not a complete or
final revelation. It was not complete for any one type of
teacher, because priest and prophet, sage and psalmist,
differed from each other quite as widely then as such men
would differ to-day, representing as they do such different
aims and points of view. Even less was it complete for
any one .ime, because successive priests, prophets, and
sages were continually striking out new paths, enlarging
upon the work of their predecessors, at times correcting it,
and even on occasion superseding it entirely. In a word,
revelation was progressive, “shining more and more unto
the perfect day.”
Tuer Note or CHRIST
If it had not been for Jesus, probably few outside the
Jewish race would ever have heard of the Jewish Scrip-
tures. The collection of writings which we call the Old
Testament, and which the Jews call the Scriptures, was
prought over into Christianity by the first followers of
Jesus; and until the new faith produced writings of its
own, these were the only Scriptures the Christians had.
Even after numerous Christian writings had appeared, it
was some time before they were held in as high esteem as
the writings received from the Jews. As a matter of fact,
these were never displaced. And when, as the years passed,
the Christian writings were finally accepted as the equal
of the Jewish Scriptures in sanctity and authority, the
two collections were joined together, the former being
called the Old Testament, and the latter the New.
Once the Christians had produced a literature of their
own, they would not have needed the Jewish writings any
further, unless these had some vital relation to the new
faith. It was realized not only that Christ was to be
found in the Old Testament, but that the Old Testament
was preparatory for the New; so that from the days of the
first followers of Jesus the Jewish Scriptures have formed
part of the Christian Bible.
At first the references to Christ were found almost ex-
clusively in symbols and types or in prophetic predictions
NOTES THAT INTERPRET AMOS 103
that were regarded as anticipating his historic appearance ;
and in some parts of the Old Testament these were not
difficult to find. But these are not the only anticipations
of Christ which the Old Testament affords, and more re-
cent study has recognized that the whole Old Testament,
in all its narratives, sermons, psalms, and proverbs, is the
record of an agelong approach to God as revealed in Jesus
Christ. Throughout the long devious history of Hebrew
religious thought the valleys were being exalted, the moun-
tains and hills made low, the crooked made straight, and
the rough places plain, that the glory of the Lord might
be revealed.
Under the guidance and inspiration of their religious
teachers the Hebrew people were slowly being led to deeper
ideas of sin and righteousness, more spiritual ideas of God,
more ethical ideas of man’s relation to his fellows, and
purer ideas of love and hope. Without this kind of prepara-
tion in the life and thought of the people special predic-
tions and symbolic interpretations would have accom-
plished little in the way of real preparation.
True, the people as a whole did not keep pace with their
prophets; but those who did, few though they were, formed
a leaven whose influence was not confined to their own
immediate circle, and it was they who made possible the
little group that welcomed Jesus when he came. It may
well be doubted whether any of the apostles would have
been ready to receive and to preserve the Golden Rule if
Amos and those who followed him had not taught justice
to the poor and kindness toward the weak. As a matter
of fact it was when the prophets were most active among
their own people that they were doing their most fruitful
work as heralds of the One who was to come. They ad-
dressed themselves to whatever situation the people were in
at the time. They set forth new standards of human ac-
tion, they rebuked the people for not meeting these
standards, they warned them of the punishments that
would follow disobedience. In this way they were break-
ing up fallow ground and sowing the seed of a purer and
truer religion. In a spiritual sense the Christian religion
is the harvest of that sowing.
Vs
104 AMOS, PROPHET OF A NEW ORDER
Jesus is thus both the fulfillment and the interpretation
of these preparations. Until he came, the searching words
of the prophets, their appeals, their warnings, their hopes,
were scattered here and there along the path of Hebrew
history. They had little inner connection and they gave
no indication of forming parts of any large clear design.
The messengers reflect the isolation of the messages.
The prophets were well aware of the inner urging of the
divine Spirit. Their feet were set on the heavenward
road. They had unfaltering trust in God, and nothing
could shake their confidence in the righteousness of his
cause and its ultimate victory. But it was a direction they
were sure of, not a goal. .
Then, in the fullness of time, Jesus came, and all the
scattered lights that had shone here and there through the
years were drawn together to a focus. All the graces and
virtues, the hopes and high aims, that had inspired and
ennobled the Hebrew race previous to that time now fell
into place, as men caught a glimpse of “the measure of
the stature of the fullness of Christ.” Immediately those
prophetic messages took on new meaning. They were re-
cognized as partial expressions of the spirit that was in
Jesus, and as such it was realized that they were true fore-
gleams of the true Light. é
This kind of a fulfillment of the prophecies includes
them all. It does not seek here and there a word or a
figure that may be applied to Christ. It goes at once to
the heart of the matter: man’s faith and man’s duty. It
concerns the very spirit of the great work to which Christ
gave himself—that of leading men to love God with all
their hearts and their neighbors as themselves.
The more clearly this purpose of Christ is understood,
the easier it is to see the true nature of the prophetic work
and the vital importance of the prophets themselves. It is
possible to recognize an underlying harmony of purpose
which relates the prophets closely to one another despite
the numerous differences and occasional contradictions.
They differed greatly among themselves in personal char-
acteristics and they were called to meet very different
situations; so that they necessarily differed in manner and |
NOTES THAT INTERPRET AMOS 105
message, “but all these worketh that one and the self-same
Spirit, dividing to each one severally as he will.”
It is in this “goodly fellowship of the prophets” that
Amos belongs. The fervor of his utterance and the fre-
quent harshness of his words have made him seem, at
times, almost forbidding. Yet these cannot obscure his
heartfelt burden for his people and the spiritual perplexi-
ties that this occasioned in his own soul. If he stood
alone, as the only prophet, we might have a most unfavor-
able impression of prophecy. But when he is recognized
as one who had to break new ground in the field of re-
ligion and as only one of the earliest in a long line of
inspired teachers, his uncompromising rigor can be under-
stood and forgiven, and his enduring contribution to reli-
gious thought properly appreciated.
And even though he has no word which taken by itself
points directly and individually to Jesus, there moves
through all his message that new sense of justice, of the
value of man as man, and of the deceitfulness of riches,
which links him immediately with the Great Teacher.
Christ thus interprets and fulfills the message of Amos;
and in the light of this interpretation and fulfillment
Amos stands forth, clearly outlined against the dim back-
ground of a distant past, as one whose glory it was, accord-
ing to his light and his opportunity, truly to prepare the
way for the Christ, the Saviour of the world. And man
can have no higher glory.
REVIEW
Gather up what has been learned on the following sub-
jects and any others that may suggest themselves:
What constitutes true worship?
How can men best serve God?
The dangers of wealth and luxury.
The rights of the poor.
The importance of civil and social justice.
The power and limitations of prayer.
The relation of the prophets to the coming of Christ.
THEOLOGY LIBRARY
SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY
AT CLAREMONT
CALIFORNIA
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ongacre, Lindsay Bartholomew, 1870
mos : prophet of a neworder /
Longacre, Lindsay Bartholomew, 1870-
... Amos, prophet of a new order, by Lindsay B. }
acre... New York, Cincinnati, The Methodist bool
cern (°1921,
105 p. 19. (Life and service series)
Bibliography: p. 10)
le Bible. O. Te Amon--Criticism, imterpretation, et
Mtle.
Library of Congress @
BSI585.L6 CcsC/ef
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