Book of Amos Discussion Questions

1-5 Amos answers 1) A prophet is someone who see's visions from God. One becomes a prophet when they are chosen by God as a child. The difference between a priest and a prophet is that a Priest worships God while a Prophet tells of God's power and warns of his consequences. I think it would be harder to be a prophet because you have greater responsibility and knowledge involved with knowing the powers of God and being in charge of warning the people. 2) We can't really know if a person is prophet by physical appearance, but if we witness their prophecies becoming true then we could be convinced. Yes, prophets seem to have doubts because they constantly are asked to tell of things that seem bizarre and unrealistic. It would have been difficult for someone to believe in the things that were saying, and even more difficult to be the prophet saying it himself/herself! 3) Like I said above, one would never know for sure. There isn't any significant sign or clarification that a person is a prophet. The only way they could truly believe in a prophet is if they witnessed one of their prophecies become true. 4) It would make his job harder because not only is he going to be making bold and unrealistic claims and speech's about the power of God, but he'll be doing it in a different society where people already look down on him as an outcast. 5) Amos begins his message by warning the people around Israel so they will know that God is going to punish them for their sins. In Chapter 3, verse 7 it says "Indeed, the Lord God does nothing without revealing his plan to his servants the prophets." He wants the people around Israel to fear God and the powers he has and how he can punish them so easily for not following his laws. The answers for 6-9 are as follows: 6. The formula shows that the Lord is fed up with people disobeying him and the commandments that they swore to follow. Even though it does not list four crimes for each one as you would think. 7. The sins that Amos warns of are: the attack of Gilead by Damascus; Gaza exiled an entire population of people and handed them over to Edom; Tyre also handed over an entire population to Edom and forgot their covenant of brotherhood; Edom for raging constant war; Ammon for ripping open pregnant women to extend their territory; Moab for burning to ashes the bones of Edom's king; Judah for not obeying the instruction of the Lord and keeping its statutes; and Israel for being greedy and treating the less fortunate wrongly, they sleep around, take the Lord's name in vain, they worship other gods, for drinking in the temples, they forgot all the Lord has done for them, they made the Nazarites drink wine and told them not to prophecy. 8. Israel makes the Nazarites drink wine and stop prophecing because they did not want to hear the prophecies of the Lord to remind them that they are doing wrong. 9. The images Amos uses are locust swarms, rain of fire, the plummet, and summer fruit. The plummet and summer fruit were the most effective. Here are the answers for section 3: 10) To Amos, Bethal seems to be the most corrupt area of Israel. Bethel was originally the place where the ten commandments were stored. Amos so strongly condemned Bethal because of the high amount of corruption there. "Seek me, that you may live, but do not seek Bethel; Do not come to Gilgal, and do not cross over to Beer-sheba; For Gilgal shall be led into exile and Bethel shall be no more." God says not to go to Bethel and that is a good reason for Amos to condemn Bethel. 11) No, but God has given it to him as his duty. Amos 3:7,8 He finds the message troublesome and pleads with God not to be so harsh (have mercy) 7:5 12) Yes because the priest thinks he is being blasphemous (to his own beliefs) and so he asks him to leave. 13) Not really, apart from Epilogue v.14 where he says he will restore Israel.