September 17th, 2015
Today’s reading from Encounter with God

Not by Bread Alone

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Opening Prayer

Lord God, You are worthy of my praise. Your grace is bestowed upon me, and Your love upholds me each day.

Read Amos 8:1-14

[1] This is what the Sovereign LORD showed me: a basket of ripe fruit. [2] “What do you see, Amos?” he asked. “A basket of ripe fruit,” I answered. Then the LORD said to me, “The time is ripe for my people Israel; I will spare them no longer. [3] “In that day,” declares the Sovereign LORD, “the songs in the temple will turn to wailing. Many, many bodies-flung everywhere! Silence!” [4] Hear this, you who trample the needy and do away with the poor of the land, [5] saying, “When will the New Moon be over that we may sell grain, and the Sabbath be ended that we may market wheat?”- skimping on the measure, boosting the price and cheating with dishonest scales, [6] buying the poor with silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, selling even the sweepings with the wheat. [7] The LORD has sworn by himself, the Pride of Jacob: “I will never forget anything they have done. [8] “Will not the land tremble for this, and all who live in it mourn? The whole land will rise like the Nile; it will be stirred up and then sink like the river of Egypt. [9] “In that day,” declares the Sovereign LORD, “I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight. [10] I will turn your religious festivals into mourning and all your singing into weeping. I will make all of you wear sackcloth and shave your heads. I will make that time like mourning for an only son and the end of it like a bitter day. [11] “The days are coming,” declares the Sovereign LORD, “when I will send a famine through the land- not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the LORD. [12] People will stagger from sea to sea and wander from north to east, searching for the word of the LORD, but they will not find it. [13] “In that day “the lovely young women and strong young men will faint because of thirst. [14] Those who swear by the sin of Samaria- who say, ‘As surely as your god lives, Dan,’ or, ‘As surely as the god of Beersheba lives’- they will fall, never to rise again.”

Scripture taken from the THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION, NIV Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Meditate

“‘My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work” (John 4:34). Is that true of you?

Think Further

Amos’s fourth vision centers on a play between two similar-sounding Hebrew words. Amos sees some “summer fruit” (qayits); God declares that “the end” (qēts) has come for Israel. The NIV conveys this wordplay by using the word “ripe”: “ripe fruits” and “the time is ripe.” The vision underlines the certainty of judgment declared in the third vision. The noisy worship songs will turn into loud lamentations when disaster falls (3,10). The following oracle has echoes of the initial condemnation of Israel, but focuses on a new group, businessmen, with their greedy materialism. Instead of addressing the evil of poverty they seek to rid themselves of the poor, even by people-trafficking. “The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil” (1 Tim. 6:10), and that love kept a wealthy young man from following Jesus (Matt. 19:16-22). You do not have to be wealthy to be greedy and materialistic. All of us face such temptations, sometimes aroused by advertising.

The businessmen observe the religious festivals outwardly while inwardly fretting to get back to moneymaking with their false weights and measures and rigged balances. Once again, Amos condemns the separation of sanctuary worship from obedience to God’s standards in everyday life. That kind of insincerity can be true of our Christian observances. The terror of God’s judgment on Israel is depicted in terms of earthquake and solar eclipse (8-9). God declares that persistent rejection or silencing of those through whom he tries to speak (Amos 2:12; 7:12-13) will result in spiritual famine and drought. There would be no words from prophets or spiritual benefit from the worship at the sanctuaries. Jesus, echoing Isaiah, warned of this kind of danger (Mark 4:12; Isa. 6:9). That is why it is important to take God’s Word seriously, understand it and put it into practice (Matt. 7:24-27; Jas. 1:22-25).

Apply

How would you describe your relationship to God’s Word (11-13)? In making decisions, is it first choice or last chance? Do you mistake reading it for responding to it? Do you focus on promises rather than challenges?

Closing prayer

Lord, help me not value gaining material “bread” more than discovering and doing Your will through studying Your Word.

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