Amos, Pt. 2

Often times when we talk about family values and morality, we end up stopping the conversation at abortion and fornication in all of its various forms. But morality to the Lord runs much deeper. Jesus spent much more time talking about wealth and money then He did sexual issues. He was following in the footsteps of Amos.

“Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matt. 6:21) Jesus taught. Paul’s problems preaching all come from the synagogue leaders— until Acts 19 when Paul preaching starts affecting Demetrius’ pocket. Now the Gentiles have an issue with Paul. When Amos starts preaching against Israel, he doesn’t start with sexual ethics, or worship attendance and incorrect forms of sacrifice, but with greed and mistreatment of the poor.

Amos is calling out for justice, and that means that the poor are taken care of, not taken advantage of: “This is what the LORD says: ‘For three sins of Israel, even for four, I will not turn back my wrath. They sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals. They trample on the heads of the poor and upon the dust of the ground and deny justice to the oppressed. Father and son use the same girl and so profane My Holy Name. They lie down beside every altar on garments taken in pledge. In the house of their god they drink wine taken as fines.’” (Amos 2:6-8). The Lord lambastes them for the rich making their money on the backs of the poor. They are enjoying the fine things in life by taking advantage of debtors. They are breaking the law by not giving back garments taken in pledge, as the law in Exodus 22:26-27 “If you take your neighbor's cloak as a pledge, return it to him by sunset, because his cloak is the only covering he has for his body. What else will he sleep in? When he cries out to me, I will hear, for I am compassionate.” This is a society where those who had took more, and those who did not have had even what they had taken from them.

Money made honestly and used with a generous heart devoted to the Lord is a spiritual blessing (Romans 12:8). However, wealth made by exploiting poor workers and by putting borrowers in impossible situations is detestable in God’s sight.

Have you ever thought about how much more expensive it costs to be poor? If you can’t afford your electric bill and it gets turned off, there is a fee for turning it back on. Because your credit is bad, you get charged ridiculous interest. To try to make ends meet you get money from a payday loan place and are charged over 100% interest. (Dave Ramsey points out that you only see those businesses in the poor parts of town). Amos has much to say about our society.

I know this has a potential to anger some people, well that is no different than what Amos did, or what Jesus faced when talking about wealth. But this is what Amos preached. We often think about justice as punishing the guilty, but God’s justice is about protecting the innocent who cannot defend for themselves. We cannot ignore this message. It is something we all must wrestle with in faith as individual Christians and as churches.