No one can imagine going back. Each generation imagines only going forward. The older adults commonly shake their heads at the younger adults because of all the experiences the younger adults have not had. The older adults like to speculate on what if ... The younger adults commonly regard the older adults as irrelevant because they are so easily confused by todays newer ways. They regard the what ifs ... of the older adults as concerns that have no meaning in todays world. The older question the values of the younger, and the younger question the lack of flexibility in the older. Nothing is new in any of thisit has happened generation after generation.
Real crisis comes for everyone (old and young) when a new, unanticipated danger redirects existence into ways and experiences no one has had. In dramatic fashion, life cannot continue as it has been, and no experience in the past equates to the new now. No one knows what to do. These disastrous conditions have never existed. Nothing works. Everything gets worse as the living nightmare continues and unfolds into more dreadful events and conditions. No oneold or younghas answers.
Amos chapter 4 is not the only discussion of the reasons for Gods intense anger with the Kingdom of Israel. Many situations that contributed to Gods anger occur throughout the book of Amos. Reasons for the divine anger begin in the last of chapter 3 with Gods reaction to their false gods and their luxurious lifestyle. However, chapter 4 deals with reasons for Gods anger in unexpected waysin passive contributors and in commonly recognized solutions.
Begin with a simple understanding. That world in the Kingdom of Israel and our American world have little in common. In our American world, women earn incomes by being a part of the work force. It seems in most instances to be necessary for a wife to work in order to provide the level of necessary income to make possible the things that the family unit wants. (Single adult women are expected to work to provide their own needs.) There are very few things that men can do work-wise that women cannot do, and some things women do better than men. Even women in higher social levels have jobs with an income when they are in families that make such jobs unnecessary financially. (This is not at all the suggestion that women who are not in the work force and do not earn an income do not work and work hard.)
What Americans consider job opportunities for women hardly existed in the Kingdom of Israel in Amos time. To enable themselves and the family to exist, women did hard, difficult, demanding labor.
If you would like to read in scripture some of the things wives could do, read Proverbs 31:10-31. A womans dream in the Kingdom of Israel was to have a husband who was so financially successful that she would not have to engage in demanding, difficult work.
Success was viewed in terms of a lifestyle, not in terms of productive work. For a woman, having it made was having a husband who made a luxurious lifestyle possible. The cows of Bashan are the wives of financially successful men who lived in the royal city of Samaria.
Important question: How did these women oppress the poor and crush the needy? Shocking answer: They did so by urging their husbands to make more (regardless of who was hurt in the husbands commitment to success), so the wives could continue and increase their indulgent lifestyle.
Shockingly, God was angered by a passive oppressing of the poor and crushing of the needy. These women were not indicted for any direct actions against the poor and needy. They angered God because their passion for a self-indulgent lifestyle pressured their husbands to use the poor and needy rather than to help the poor and needy. The poor and needy were opportunity, not people. These women were indicted because they were only concerned about their self-indulgence, not struggling people.
We are accustomed to thinking that only a direct action of behaving evilly results in any sense of accountability. Here accountability is incurred by pressures that encourage and become the motivations for evil acts. It was accountability through indirect pressure.
Often people regard the solution to evils consequences to be religious acts. As an example, think of common reactions in America after the twin towers were destroyed in the September attack of 2001. In the aftermath of the attack, God was invoked and acts of worship were profuse. The religious outpouring was astounding!
God declared He would regard their religious acts as transgressionssacrifices, tithes, thank offerings, and freewill offerings are declared to be transgressions. God would be offended by their religious acts!
God previously tried to gain their attention through starvation (cleanness of teeth), a withholding of rain, major inconvenience, a destruction of gardens and orchards, plagues, and military disasters. They refused to listen, connect events with conduct, or understand. God tried to gain their attention before this ultimate disaster, but they would not listen. Their wickedness left God no choice!
For Thought and Discussion
1. What can no one imagine?
2. When does real crisis come for everyone?
3. Amos chapter 4 discusses what? Name two things that make chapter 4 unique.
4. What simple understanding should begin your thinking? Contrast views of women.
5. What does Proverbs 31:10-31 provide?
6. Women in the Kingdom of Israel then viewed success in life how?
7. Give the important question asked, and give the shocking answer.
8. Shockingly, why was God angered?
9. How are we accustomed to thinking?
10. What is the second way we are accustomed to thinking? How was God influenced by their religious acts?
11. How had God tried to gain their attention?
Link to Teacher's Guide
Lesson 6