“I want to start out with a bit of news that will, I have little doubt, not shock you. And here it is: People in power like to control speech. That is, they don’t like free speech and they want to shut it down. And in many places, the person whose speech the authorities most want to shut down, is God. The authorities don’t like the Word of God. And they don’t like those who speak God’s Word,” begins Rolf Jacobson, Dean of the Faculty, Professor of Old Testament, and the Alvin N. Rogness Chair of Scripture, Theology and Ministry at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota. Jacobson continues, “All of this is nothing new. In the ancient, in the Bible, you find that God’s word was also often not welcomed. And a case in point is the prophet Amos…people didn’t like him, or his speech, or the God who spoke through him.” In today’s passage from Amos 7:7-17, Amos “ran afoul” of two authorities because of his message. God measured the people to whom Amos prophesied with a “plumb line” and it did not turn out well for them. How might it turn out for us?
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