When Your Religion Fails You
Group Discussion Guide
6.13.21
ONE Message Series: Justice and Mercy: A Study of Amos and Hosea
When Your Religion Fails You
“Let justice roll on like a river / righteousness like a never-failing stream!” Amos 5:24
OPEN
Begin your time of reflection over Amos 5:18-27 by reading these words from a slightly younger contemporary of Amos – Isaiah 1:10-17. Amos prophesied to the ten tribes of the Northern Kingdom (Israel); Isaiah prophesied to the two tribes of the Southern Kingdom (Judah).
How similar are their words? What is the obvious conclusion about the religion of the descendants of Abraham at that period in history in both Israel and Judah?
NEXT
From reading today’s primary text, which of the following would you say was true of Israel when Amos delivered his prophecy? (a) All religious practices had been abandoned in Israel; (b) Israel needed to build a replica of the Jerusalem Temple at Bethel to make the nation’s worship more authentic; (c) What Israel did on the other six days of the week undermined and negated what was happening in their worship events. Explain the answer you chose.
Israel was longing for “The Day of the Lord” to come. What was their understanding of what that day would mean? What was Amos’ counter-message to their expectation?
Amos lists such worship practices as “festivals” (v.21), “burnt offerings” (v.22), and “songs” (v.23). Aren’t these acts of devotion that are commanded in the Torah? What was his prophetic word about them? What verbs are used to describe Yahweh’s reaction to them?
The corrective to Israel’s empty, non-transformative, and God-disapproved worship is named at 5:24 – “Let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream.” The parallelism here makes justice and righteousness into overlapping concepts (i.e., each requires the other to be authentic). Righteousness is a person’s right behavior before God, and justice is the defense of others from harm. Explain why these two holy traits cannot be separated in view of such texts as Matthew 22:34-40, James 1:27, and 1 John 4:19-21.
How might the central message of today’s text be summed up in Jesus’ words at Matt 7:21-23?
CLOSING
Amos rebuked the shallow (and pagan) notion that mere participation in worship is adequate to provide spiritual security, offset moral failures, and spare a person from judgment. Rituals performed with great beauty and passion fail us when separated from daily devotion to God. What are you doing to avoid falling into this trap?