Amos 3:7 - Prophets

[Prince_Hal]

What does Amos 3:7 mean ?

7 Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets. KJV

As a former LDS, I was always taught that this meant that there always had to be prophets otherwise the Lord would not communicate for the entire world - this could only be done through prophets.

If the above is not true, then what does it mean ?

Can anyone help.

God bless,

Hal.

 

[NHInsider]

Well, if you read the verse in context, the Lord is expressing His anger with His people because they have been ignoring His will as expressed through the prophets. The preceding verses are a series of rhetorical questions to which the answer is “no,” and this verse is the big “so there.” - and so, when the disaster He is telling them is about to befall occurs, they can’t claim they weren’t warned - because, as he has just pointed out (back in chapter 2) they have been warned, over and over, and have refused to listen.

As for God communicating with His people, in the New Covenant we have the Holy Spirit, promised by Jesus to the Apostles to “teach everything” they would need (tomorrow’s reading, John 14:23-29). Jesus fulfills the Old Covenant roles of Prophet, Priest and King, and so communicates with us today through His Church.

I haven’t spent a lot of time studying Mormon “theology” but the teaching you describe is a classic case of someone finding a verse and using it out of context to “prove” something that they’ve already decided upon is true.

 

[Pilgrimage]

God is angry with His people. He’s reminding them that he has chosen them, to walk by their side. He is reminding them that He speaks through the prophets and reveals His plans through them. But there isn’t any prophets because they are not walking with Him in His ways, they are busying themselves, but not in His glorious light.

Amos is just a faithful shepherd whom God is using to speak to the people… God is roaring aloud like the lion, ‘Wake up, wake up you lot, what do you think you are you playing at? What are you doing, have you forgotten our covanant? Have you forgotten who you are and who I am? Have you forgotten that ‘MY’ plans are revealed through you, but where are you all?’

Just as He is roaring now. He uses prophets today, outside the churches, and meanwhile the church so busy with themselves that they don’t hear God speak. So, they can’t speak to the world, they remain as a dumb instument; sound comes out but the world doesn’t listen.

Spiritual apathy and the lack of Christ centered focus is a deadly sin for the Christian community.

God bless

 

[Crumpy]

speaking for myself, I can take prophets for granted, because I just open my bible and there they are.

But, the “context” is not just the literary context in Amos, which is very appropriate of course to understand this verse. But, as the other posters have pointed out, this is a very harrowing time – if I understand the situation – that the Assyrian empire is massing itself nearby to overthrow Israel, in its quest to conquer everybody.

What I was reading today is that Assyria not merely conquered, but they broke up the conquered nations by herding people in and out, to mess with their minds – to move the conquered to new, foreign places, and, here, threatening to force migration into the Holy Land to take the place of the Israelites – for the devastating historical, political, and social consequences that this would have.

And, working through the prophets, God was working “outside the system” of Levites and temple priests and other institutional people like that.

I’m way out of my league on this, I guess, but these prophets may have been on the level of a Rush Limbaugh (in notoriety) but like Rush, outside the system. (I don’t listen to RL; I’m just using him as an example).

 

[Prince_Hal]

Thank you everyone. Context is so important. This helps a great deal.

Hal.