Messages

Amos calls God’s people out of comfortable religion and into covenant justice. He exposes a society that sings and sacrifices while trampling the vulnerable, insists that true worship must produce righteousness and calls us to have God’s heart in how we treat widows, orphans, immigrants and the poor? The book moves from indictments against the nations to a shocking charge against Israel itself reminding us to, in the words of Jesus, first take the speck out of our own eyes. Amos also offers vivid visions that dramatize God’s judgment of injustice and finally offers the promise of restoration if the people return to God. In short, Amos’s message invites us to honest self-examination, corporate repentance, and concrete action so that our worship is more than ritual and our lives begin to let “justice roll on like a river.”