Blog, Blog PI 6, Blog Prophetically Incorrect
After six weeks of a cantankerous prophet blasting us for all the wrong we do individually and systemically it sure was good this week to sit down at the bar with Amos and Jesus and see some glimmer of hope shining in the window. It was beginning to feel like we...
Blog, Blog PI 6, Blog Prophetically Incorrect
“I (the LORD GOD) will restore the fortunes of my people Israel, and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine; and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit.” Amos. 9.14 As we conclude our...
Blog, Blog PI 6, Blog Prophetically Incorrect
So the prophet Amos and Jesus walk into a bar operated by a church. When Amos orders a beer, the bartender says, “We don’t serve your kind in here. This is a non-prophet bar.” Feeling this must be some kind of mistake, Amos and Jesus leave the bar and speak to the...
Blog, Blog PI 5, Blog Prophetically Incorrect
At the end of this week’s episode, with little time for anything other than a “hmm,” Frank Shaeffer shared a little gem about the connection between being social and being spiritual. He argued that the two are actually inseparable. Being a church person, he...
Blog, Blog PI 5, Blog Prophetically Incorrect
The more we learn about Amos (let’s be real, it’s new to me), the more I’m reminded of a 2006 movie called Idiocracy. By most standards, it’s at best, a B movie and I’m pretty sure it went straight to video, seeing the insides of minimal big screens at best. How I...
Blog, Blog PI 5, Blog Prophetically Incorrect
“Seek me and live; but do not seek Bethel, and do not enter into Gilgal or cross over into Beersheba…” Amos 5.5 If we knew that Bethel and Gilgal were important sanctuaries to seek God, the verse this week from Amos is a head-scratcher. God wants us...
Blog, Blog PI 5, Blog Prophetically Incorrect
Amos 5:4-5 For thus says the Lord to the house of Israel: Seek me and live; but do not seek Bethel, And do not enter into Gilgal Or cross over into Beersheba; For Bilbal shall surely go into exile, And Bethel shall come to nothing. Just another list of odd names,...
Blog, Blog PI 5, Blog Prophetically Incorrect
I. Back to the Future Thus far in our series, we have noticed a number of parallels between Amos’ day and our own. The similarities are rather remarkable, really, considering that we are separated from Amos by over 2,700 years, 6,500 miles, with a radically...
Blog, Blog PI 4, Blog Prophetically Incorrect
It is all too often the practice among religious folk to try to throw a lasso around God in an effort to make the wildness and wideness of the divine contained just enough to make God somehow comprehensible by our finite minds. The idea of a lasso around God makes...
Blog, Blog PI 4, Blog Prophetically Incorrect
Amos 7:7-8 “This is what he showed me: behold, the Lord was standing beside a wall built with a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand. 8And the Lord said to me, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A plumb line.”” We kick off the weekend every Friday night with...
