Bible Study: Amos

"Seek good, not evil, that you may live. Then the LORD God Almighty will be with you, just as you say he is. Hate evil, love good, maintain justice in the courts. Perhaps the LORD God Almighty will have mercy on the remnant of Joseph." (Amos 5:14)

So anyway I will start my first ever bible study in two weeks but until then it's just been me reading and studying by myself. Well more reading...and often focusing on the blurbs of each book thanks to my Spiritual Renewal Bible that so excellently gives overviews to decipher and make sense of all that difficult language and complex ideas to get a "big picture understanding"...  I find you can easily get overwhelmed and bogged down by the difficult archaic language or metaphorical concepts  if you are trying to understand solely by your human efforts and not enlightened by the Holy Spirit as to correct interpretation understanding.

So anyway, although I DID try to start reading the bible from page 1 and I did manage Genesis, Exodus etc...then maybe I got lazy to read in order. Lately I admit I have found it more effective to haphazardly read by books or especially where God leads me, I find this method a more fruitful experience...because it tends to highlight themes that are directly applicable to my life at the time...and people say the bible is irrelevant and out of date just because it is 2000 years old??! Not so! (In my experience)...if anything I find it such a magical book that holds the answers to every kind of situation or predicament that life throws at us and is the ultimate wise counsel :)

So anyway God led me to the above quoted passage. To be honest I never even knew a book called Amos existed!!! So it was pretty interesting to find out there was this tiny book under the name of Amos hidden in the bible... So anyway when I read the blurb that deciphers what the book is about, it's full of great themes and I am not sure why I have never ever heard it mentioned or referenced to know that it even existed...

So just to recap because I bet many others were also not aware of this book of Amos....a brief synopsis...

"God called Amos, a shepherd from Tekoa, to awaken his people from their spiritual sleep. Sadly, their sinful behaviour was worse than some of their pagan neighbours! Amos warned them of the painful consequences that would follow their sinful behviour..."(from Spiritual Renewal Bible, NIV, 1998).


The Key themes listed are:

Complacency Leads To A Downfall
We Are Created for Relationship
God Honors Upright Hearts
Spiritual Renewal Begins with Surrender

So anyway, very interesting to me, anyway :) Now that I have whet your appetite if you are interested you can go and read it for yourself, perhaps with the help of some study bible...Anyway I am always very pleased when I discover something completely new...Amos! Have you read it?

Blessings in Christ,

Zoe