EMMAUS SCHOOL OF BIBLICAL STUDIES

This week we started our study of the prophets with the book of Amos.  The prophets were used to proclaim message from God to the people and it was often a message of judgment that would come on the people. What is really special is that God would use any average Joe to bring his message to the people and it didn’t have to be a priest or a designated religious person.  Amos for example was a herdsman like Amos who one day received a message from God to speak to the people.  Amos’ message was to the Northern Kingdom even though he was from the South Kingdom. He was warning the people of Israel that their opulence & pride that had lead them to commit social injustice was going to come to an end & they would be judged for it. Israel was under King Jeroboam II who had brought them to a point of prosperity and military success that had yet to be achieved since the time of Solomon and the people had let this go to their heads.  What this makes me think about is how Israel’s economic situation & treatment of the less fortunate parallels to the culture in the US today.  People have much wealth and yet so little of that wealth goes to support the poor.  There are exceptions but the point is that the U.S. as a whole on the outside looks very similar to Israel in the 780s BC. This really makes me want to open my eyes to that which is going on around me so I can do my best to honor God by honoring all his people, especially those who live in destitution.

Amos really made me consider some things that I never thought about before. In this book, God speaks of impending judgment for Israel that is pretty severe – an exile for 70 years. Therefore, in considering the reasons why Israel was exiled, I was pretty surprised to find that I may unknowingly be doing some of the same things.

            One of the major reasons that God was sending the people of the Northern Kingdom of Israel into exile was b/c they were oppressing the poor. Of course, they realized they were doing it, so it wasn’t like they were unintentionally oppressing them. However, the surrounding nations were also held accountable for the same thing, even if they didn’t realize they were doing it. Therefore, God judged every single person of every nation, for the sins that they were committing whether they realized it or not. This showed me the severity of sins, and how we should examine our own lives to see if there are any areas of sin we may not realize we are committing as well.

            Do we oppress the poor? Oppressing the poor was one of the most commonly listed sins, yet the people never repented of it. This makes me consider my own life, to see if there are any ways I am unintentionally oppressing the poor.

            I hadn’t realized it, but there are still numerous slaves, poor people, child laborers, etc. in existence today, that sell the products of their slavery to wealthy countries, for a price much higher than they were bought for originally. Thus, both slaves and poor working folk attempting to eke out an existence, are essentially providing wealthy countries like America with numerous consumer items such as clothes, diamonds, coffee, etc. that they are not even paid for properly, if at all! This is exploiting the poor. This is supporting slavery. And whether we realize we are doing this or not, God still holds us accountable, just as he did the nations in Israel’s day. 

            Therefore, consider researching fair trade products, and investigating ways to both avoid and completely stop the support of slavery and exploitation of the poor. In doing so, you may just help others, like me, to avoid committing sins that they may be doing completely unawares! 

Amos is a prophet to the Northern Kingdom of Israel around 760 BC. He is crying out to the Israelites to repent and turn back to God because judgment is coming. They have disobeyed God and the consequences he laid out for them are judgment. Amos foretells their exile by the Assyrians in 722 BC – which to their dismay, does come to pass.

Israel at this time is at its golden age. Under King Jeroboam II, the kingdom is the most prosperous and powerful it has ever been. It has a strong economy and military. However, there is also a strong division between the classes. The wealthy are very wealthy, and the poor are very poor. The people are religious – or at least so they project to others. They are seemingly doing the right thing by sacrificing to God in the temple as he asked.

However, Amos explains why their judgment is inevitable. The people are being judged largely for their oppression to the poor and their fake religion. The rich are ripping off the poor and using them to make themselves richer. The people are giving off the image that they are religious, but their hearts could care less about God and obeying him. God hates both of these things. He hates their oppression to the poor and he hates their heartless religion. Because they do not repent, they are exiled about 40 years later, never to return to their land again.

These reasons for judgment hit a little too close to home to me and for our society today. Personally, I am challenged to examine how I am in any way directly, or indirectly oppressing the poor. Are the people who make my clothes working in sweatshops? Are the people who make my coffee making fair wages, or are they overworked and underpaid while I enjoy my $4 cup of coffee while they cannot afford to drink the good coffee their country exports? Where do the diamonds I love come from? Do I shop at stores who create and keep prices low at the expense of unjust practices and labor? I don’t know exactly how my lifestyle should change as a result of these truths, but I do see that God hates injustice – and ignorance is not an excuse to continue in it.

Also, looking at our society, specifically the “Bible Belt”, heartless religion abounds. People go through the motions of religion to check the box off but have little regard or love for God. God wants people’s hearts, not some fake religiosity. In this short book of Amos, I am encouraged to see God’s heart for justice and sincerity. I am also deeply challenged to examine how I am blindly oppressing others and look at where my heart is with God. Do I go through the motions, or am I seeking God with my heart? I am thankful he is a God of love that wants our love and for us to love others well. 

I have just completed a very lengthy, arduous study on the books of 1&2 Kings& Chronicles this week and instead of being completely exhausted and burnt out, I feel quite refreshed and enlightened.  As with some of the other books of the Bible like Leviticus, that appears to be a waste of my time to delve into, the books of Kings and Chronicles appeared to be the same and turned out to be some of the most insightful.  This week our assignment was to go through these books and do individual studies on the kings of Israel and Judah and examine the differences in how they chose to lead and see how those differences were either effective or ineffective for them and their people in the long run.  Out of all of the kings of Israel there was maybe one king who was faithful to the Lord, and his life is a stark contrast to the others.  With the kings of Judah there were several more who were faithful to the Lord but they still stood out much more than those who weren’t faithful.  What was the most interesting observation I made was how God choose to show mercy on those who were the most sinful and tried to give them a chance to do what was right and he did this over and over.  Another really neat observation was that no matter how great the sins and how prolonged the sinning, those who humbled themselves before the Lord were rewarded. What does this tell me? God doesn’t care about who you were or what you have done, but he cares about your heart and where you want to be and I think that is what the authors of both these books wanted to express.  Humility is a key element to successful leadership in God’s eyes and if we just look at the life and leadership of Christ we can see how that is true!

            The book of Kings was written to a people who found themselves exiled out of their country into a foreign land. The author compiles stories of their history to explain to them how they got there. God told them very clearly how they were to live. If they did not obey him, judgment would come. They had the choice. King after King in Israel’s history blatantly disregarded the law of the Lord. They would sacrifice their children to Canaanite gods. They would make and worship idols, and even set them in God’s temple – spitting in his face. They should have been judged after the first sinful king. However, God’s mercy extended further than mine would have. He waited hundreds of years before had to do the inevitable because of their sin. Even then, their only punishment was exile into a foreign land for 70 years. They deserved 700 years for how they responded to the God that saved them!

            Interestingly, the book starts out describing the temple of God. God showed great concern for the details of the temple and used only the most pure and best resources they had – pure gold. His heart was for his temple to be pure and holy. However, the book ends with the destruction of the temple. As the Babylonians are coming to capture Jerusalem, the people are taken away, and the temple is destroyed. This seems to not only represent the history of the Israelites – in that they started off serving the Lord and ended up in exile – but also on a broader scale – humanity.

            The history of God’s temple seems to personify the history of humanity. We started off in the Garden of Eden pure and holy. God showed great concern for our detail and we were completely whole and without blemish. As Adam and Eve disregarded God’s command not to eat of the fruit of the certain tree, sin entered in and it has been a downward spiral since. Because of our sin, we have become less than whole. Disease and pain have entered our bodies. Our hearts wrestle with sin every day.

            However, after the Israelites came back from exile, God invited them to rebuild the temple. For us, I think the invitation for restoration is still open. God has made a way to restore our hearts back to purity and holiness through his son Jesus Christ. The Bible calls the people of God “the temple”. God created us whole and pure; yet, because of our sin, like the sins of the Israelite kings, we are left in a place of ruin, in need of restoration. Praise God for his invitation into such healing!

The mercy of God is truly seen in Kings and Chronicles. Reading these books I became mad at the people of Israel and Judah, for their continual disobedience to God, and sins against Him. I thought how I would have punished them far quicker than God did, and I would not have shown mercy towards them at all.

However, that is not at all what God’s character is like. What I saw in the books of Kings and Chronicles was that every time someone repented, he saved them, no matter who they were, or how bad they were. They were always allowed to receive forgiveness. His compassion was not limited to a certain number of sins, or a time element. Instead, God continually gave his love to the repentant heart, and extended mercy towards those who turned to him in trouble. This showed me several things.

First, it proved to me, that God’s mercy has always existed, both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. As believers today, we know we have received mercy through Jesus’ blood shed for us. But what does this truly mean?

I saw through these books, that without God’s mercy, mankind would be separated, or exiled from God. So essentially, Jesus took the exile for us. He was separated from God, by being exiled to hell. Therefore, when we believe in Jesus, what we are doing, is believing that we deserved the exile, but we recognize that Jesus has taken it for us, so that we can receive the mercy. Thus, our repentance, allows God’s mercy for us. But without our repentance, we would not receive the mercy. Therefore, God’s mercy is the same in the New Testament, as it is in the Old Testament – it is dependant upon repentance. God longs to give mercy to mankind, but he cannot do so unless they chose to repent of their sins first. This proves his will be justice and truthfulness, and that he is not a liar, for he has already promised that disobedient people will receive exile, but repentant people will receive mercy. So his justice and truthfulness is proved by his actions of punishment or mercy.

God will never go back on his word, so he will always wait for our choice – we can choose the exile or the mercy. God’s character is so just and true, that he will stay true to his law and either punish or forgive people, according to their own actions. But isn’t it so amazing that he has provided us a choice in the first place! What if it was only punishment and exile that we looked forward to?! Thank the Lord that we DO have a choice, and can be sure of our salvation FROM exile, because of the merciful justice of God to stay true to his word, and pour out punishment on Jesus, instead of us. Therefore, we can live with God forever, right now, instead of being separated from God forever! 

General leadership principles learned from King David:

1.     Ask God for direction every step of the way.

2.     Rejoice at other people’s success, not their failures.

3.     Build others up publicly, even if they don’t deserve it.

4.     Be forgiving and lead others to forgiveness.

5.     Walk the walk.

6.     Have integrity and lead others to make right decisions.

7.     Be willing to be examined and corrected.

8.     Admit sin and accept responsibility and the consequences.

9.     Uphold and honor contracts, even if they are only spoken; keep your word.

10.   Be willing to confront others.

            The books of 1 & 2 Samuel are very unique in that they mark the huge transition in Israel’s leadership from judges to kings.  While this may appear to be a good thing, it is actually a negative transition in that the people asked for a king because they no longer believed that the Lord was enough of a leader for them. It is almost comical to me that their first king Saul ends up being a poor leader and gets kicked out of this position not too long after he begins in-the Israelites were eating their words then!  But because the Lord is so compassionate, he gives Israel a great king to follow Saul, King David and David leads them to victory over all their enemies.  David was more than a good warrior though, he represented the most important aspects of a kingship in God’s eyes, and those were humility and a true heart for the Lord.  It was only through those things that David had the great success he did.  God glorified David in the eyes of his beloved people because he wanted them to see the only king prototype that would be worthy enough to save his people which inevitably set them up for His Son coming as the only true king.

These books are rich with stories of God’s love and of the reward of having a close relationship with Him.  That spoke so much to my heart because sometimes it is so easy to get carried away by the ways of the world and to neglect building a relationship with God.  It is not until I hit a low point that I look back at my Father who is standing there with his arms wide open  as he was the moment I stepped away, that I realize how much easier it would have been had I stayed with him all along.  What’s my application point?  Building a relationship with God will be more fruitful than anything else that the world offers, go stick with Him!

In the book of Samuel, the thing that kept standing out to me was the character of God. There were so many times when it was mentioned, that I decided to examine as many of them as I could, and really discover who God was to the people in this book. The result of this study was that I found God was treated in a number of different ways by different people, such as Eli, Hannah, Samuel, Saul, and David. These people all had relationships with God, but the relationships all differed greatly from each other.

One thing I noticed was that the people whom God delighted in, were those who had the closest relationship with Him: Hannah gave her whole life’s desire to God, and he blessed her with that desire in return. Samuel sought the Lord’s will in everything, so God spoke to him personally and guided his steps. Saul thought the Lord was just a nation-wide God, and did not have a personal relationship with him. Therefore, Saul’s actions were disobedient to God, and resulted in God’s discipline of him, all b/c he didn’t really know who God was and what He expected of him. David had a personal relationship with God, and sought after him continually throughout his entire life. This led to numerous military and political victories, as well as God revealing his character to David in personal ways.

Thus, the thing that really stood out to me in the book of Samuel, was that God desires a personal and intimate relationship with his people. He doesn’t want to be accessed as some sort of nation-wide American God, or someone who will just give people things if he feels like it. Instead, God desires to be known by people – to really have his character and heart revealed to them, as they study his word and begin to develop a relationship with Him. In this way, God will make his people to be like Him, and to bless them in many ways by revealing his heart and character to them.

This is something that stood out to me, because I too, desire to know God better; that is, after all, one of the reasons I have been doing SBS this year. But I see that, more importantly, that is what God himself desires! The longing for a relationship is mutual! God loves knowing us and is happy to reveal his character and heart to us, but we just have to want it back!

Therefore, I am so encouraged now to continue pursuing God through his word, because I am confident that He will delight to reveal his character to me, just as I delight in seeking it.