The greatest danger

I'm reading Abraham Joshua Heschel's great work, The Prophets. Came across this yesterday and it seems appropriate for our time, when outrageous evils are happening every day:

There is an evil which most of us condone and are even guilty of: indifference to evil. We remain neutral, impartial, and not easily moved by the wrongs done unto other people. Indifference to evil is more insidious than evil itself; it is more universal, more contagious, more dangerous. A silent justification, it makes possible an evil erupting as an exception becoming the rule and being in turn accepted.—Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Prophets, 2:64

Thought for today

1 The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet saw.

2 Lord, how long will I call for help and you not listen?
   I cry out to you, “Violence!”
     but you don’t deliver us.
3 Why do you show me injustice and look at anguish
   so that devastation and violence are before me?
There is strife, and conflict abounds.
4 The Instruction is ineffective.
     Justice does not endure
     because the wicked surround the righteous.
   Justice becomes warped.

5 Look among the nations and watch!
   Be astonished and stare
     because something is happening in your days
       that you wouldn’t believe even if told.
6 I am about to rouse the Chaldeans,
   that bitter and impetuous nation,
     which travels throughout the earth to possess dwelling places it does not own.
7 The Chaldean is dreadful and fearful.
   He makes his own justice and dignity.
8 His horses are faster than leopards;
   they are quicker than wolves of the evening.
His horsemen charge forward;
   his horsemen come from far away.
     They fly in to devour, swiftly, like an eagle.
9 They come for violence,
   the horde with all their faces set toward the desert.
He takes captives like sand.
10 He makes fun of kings;
rulers are ridiculous to him.
   He laughs at every fortress,
     then he piles up dirt and takes it.
11 He passes through like the wind and invades;
   but he will be held guilty,
     the one whose strength is his god.

12 Lord, aren’t you ancient, my God, my holy one?
Don’t let us die.
Lord, you put the Chaldean here for judgment.
   Rock, you established him as a rebuke.
13 Your eyes are too pure to look on evil;
   you are unable to look at disaster.
Why would you look at the treacherous
   or keep silent when the wicked swallows one who is more righteous?
14 You made humans like the fish of the sea,
   like creeping things with no one to rule over them.
15 The Chaldean brings all of them up with a fishhook.
   He drags them away with a net;
   he collects them in his fishing net,
     then he rejoices and celebrates.
16 Therefore, he sacrifices to his net;
   he burns incense to his fishing nets,
   because due to them his portion grows fat
     and his food becomes luxurious.
17 Should he continue to empty his net
   and continue to slay nations without sparing them?

2:1 I will take my post;
   I will position myself on the fortress.
   I will keep watch to see what the Lord says to me
   and how he will respond to my complaint.
                         Habakkuk 1:1–2–2:1 CEB

<idle musing>
I've been hanging out in this for the last month or so now. I'll probably eventually get to chapter 3, but for now, this is it. Make the appropriate changes, e.g., those horses are Tesla trucks that raid the government buildings, the Chaldeans are Dear Leader's™ cronies looting and stealing…

YMMV, of course. But that's where I'm at.
</idle musing>

Is a half a loaf the same as no loaf? (and other fallacious arguments)

An illusion can become a half-truth, a mask can alter the expression of a face. The familiar arguments to the effect that democracy is “just the same as” or “just as bad as” totalitarianism never take account of this fact. All such arguments boil down to saying that half a loaf is the same as no bread. In England such concepts as justice, liberty, and objective truth are still believed in. They may be illusions, but they are very powerful illusions. The belief in them influences conduct, national life is different because of them. In proof of which,look about you. Where are the rubber truncheons, where is the castor oil? The sword is still in the scabbard, and while it stays there corruption cannot go beyond a certain point.—George Orwell, A Collection of Essays, 261

<idle musing>
Well, I would say that in the US, the "illusions" are losing their appeal to far too many and corruption will soon run (even more) rampant. I'm camping in Habakkuk these days—and not just in chapter 3!
</idle musing>

Go to Bethel…

Amos [4:4–5] exposes the hidden darkness of these seemingly good activities and good people. Because the sacrifices and offerings have been acquired through violence and injustice, they sin and blaspheme God by thanking him with that which comes at the expense of God’s justice. Thus, the more they offer these sacrifices and offerings, the more they sin, and the more they indict themselves. With poetic flourish, Amos exposes the false exterior of the people’s thankful state and judges them for their true nature of injustice, false pretense, and delusion.—Kevin Chau, in Devotions on the Hebrew Bible, 89-90

Amos on Worship

M. Daniel Carroll R. has an article on Amos and worship at Christianity Today. You definitely should read it! (HT: Jim Eisenbraun)

To whet your appetite, here's a couple of snippets (but, really, you should read the whole thing!):

Amos leaves no doubt that separating worship and social justice is distasteful to God. Other passages in this prophetic book confirm that truth and reveal the more central issue.

Ironically, in chapter 4, the people are told to go to those same sanctuaries, Bethel and Gilgal … but to sin (4:4)! The prophet mocks their piety, their rituals of thanksgiving and celebration.

Then comes the dagger: “for this is what you love to do” (4:5). Their worship activity ultimately was only about them. They felt good about what they were doing, praising the goodness of the Lord. They did not realize that, in God’s eyes, their worship was sin.

and

Theirs also was a faith compromised by national ideology. The people were convinced that God was on their side and would bring Israel victory against its enemies (5:18–20).

What a foolish miscalculation. The Day of the Lord, the prophet says, would not be the light of triumph; it would be the darkness of judgment from which they could not run or hide.

and

The Lord will not tolerate the worship of a false Yahweh, worship that ignores injustice and sociopolitical compromise and shouts praises in the midst of so much suffering. Worship, social concerns, and political realities are inescapably woven together.

More importantly, what is at stake in worship is the very person of God. The Lord is involved in every dimension of human existence, and the picture of God presented in worship must reflect this. It must present God as he truly is. Worship must bring prayer, confession, lament, and praise to this God and shape a people to reflect this God.

and

The God of Amos (our God) does not accept worship that fails to engage the challenging realities of life and the sins of society. We need to grasp that the demand for justice is central to the very person of God. The God of mercy and righteousness is the one we worship!

Really, you need to read the whole thing!

Maybe not! But you are still responsible!

The more deeply immersed I became in the thinking of the prophets, the more powerfully it became clear to me what the lives of the prophets sought to convey: that morally speaking there is no limit to the concern one must feel for the suffering of human beings. It also became clear to me that in regard to cruelties committed in the name of a free society, some are guilty, while all are responsible. I did not feel guilty as an individual American for the bloodshed in Vietnam [or Afghanistan, or Iraq, or …], but I felt deeply responsible. “Thou shalt not stand idly by the blood of thy neighbor” (Leviticus 19:15). This is not a recommendation but an imperative, a supreme commandment.https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374524951 —Abraham Joshua Heschel in Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays, 225

Pathos and prophecy

After a hiatus of several weeks, let's get back to Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays:

The knowledge about the inner state of the divine in its relationship to Israel determined the inner life of the prophets, engendering a passion for God, a sympathy for the divine pathos in their hearts. They loved Israel because God loved Israel, and they frowned upon Israel when they knew that such was the attitude of God. Thus the marriage of Hosea was an act of sympathy; the prophet had to go through the experience of being betrayed as Israel had betrayed God. He had to experience in his own life what it meant to be betrayed by a person whom he loved in order to gain an understanding of the inner life of God. In a similar way the sympathy for God was in the heart of Jeremiah like a “burning fire, shut up in my bones and I weary myself to hold it in, but cannot” (20:9).

The main doctrine of the prophets can be called pathetic theology. Their attitude toward what they knew about God can be described as religion of sympathy. The divine pathos, or as it was later called, the Middot, stood in the center of their consciousness. The life of the prophet revolved around the life of God. The prophets were not indifferent to whether God was in a state of anger or a state of mercy. They were most sensitive to what was going on in God.—Abraham Joshua Heschel in Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays, 183–84 (emphasis original)

The source

The prophets discovered the holy dimension of living by which our right to live and to survive is measured. However, the holy dimension was not a mechanical magnitude, measurable by the yardstick of deed and reward, of crime and punishment, by a cold law of justice. They did not proclaim a universal moral mechanism but a spiritual order in which justice was the course but not the source. To them justice was not a static principle but a surge sweeping from the inwardness of God, in which the deeds of man find, as it were, approval or disapproval, joy or sorrow. There was a surge of divine pathos, which came to the souls of the prophets like a fierce passion, startling, shaking, burning, and led them forth to the perilous defiance of people’s self—assurance and contentment. Beneath all songs and sermons they held conference with God’s concern for the people, with the well out of which the tides of anger raged.—Abraham Joshua Heschel in Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays, 182–83

Do they even exist?

Isaiah and the others were desperately trying to prevent the disaster that would eventually engulf Israel if wholesale violation of the national covenant persisted. To do so, they depicted the other deities—the “idols” whom their fellow Israelites could not bear to insult or to ignore—in the most unappealing terms they could muster: weak and unreliable, unable to protect the people from YHWH’s wrath once that wrath burst forth, and hardly worthy of being called gods at all, as though they do not even exist.—Robert Goldenberg in Divine Doppelgängers: YHWH’s Ancient Look-Alikes, p. 94

It's even more evil than you think!

If you aren't reading Letters from an American, you should be. Yesterday evening's post ended thus:

There was a remarkable moment tonight in the press conference tonight at the White House, flagged by Josh Marshall at TPM (Talking Points Memo). Countries have been sending supplies of masks, gowns, and so forth that our medical professionals so desperately need. But at the same time, ProPublica has reported that states are paying up to 15 times what medical supplies usually cost to get this equipment. So what’s going on?

At the press conference, Weijia Jiang of CBS News asked the official in charge of the shipments, Rear Admiral John P. Polowczyk, what was happening to them. He explained they are not going directly to the states or to FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency). Rather, they are going to the private sector, which has systems in place for distributing such materials. But the states are in a bidding war in the private sector to buy this equipment, which is driving prices up.

Shouldn’t the federal government step in to stop profiteering and make sure states get the supplies they need? “I’m not here to disrupt a [commercial] supply chain,” the admiral said.

What?! Translated into common English he just said that the Vulture Capitalists have every right to scalp the states for every penny they can—all the while people are dying in the streets.

The corona virus isn't changing people, it's just revealing who they really are.

Where is Amos? Where is Micah? Or Jeremiah?

Their modern successors are basking in the light of evil and not even knowing it. Speaking truth to power? Nah, too uncomfortable!

Enjoy it while you can, because the day will come when all the deeds of humanity will be revealed, and as scripture repeatedly says, that judge is no respecter of persons!

Round the 'net

We were traveling this last week, hence the lack of posts, but I still found time to read a bit. Here are some links I found of interest:

Roger Olson asks if it is ever wrong to forgive:

Now I know that someone will say “That’s easy for you to say because you’re white.” Well, I heard an African-American theologian and ethicist say it yesterday. And I have very close loved ones who are black. And I am personally outraged at the epidemic of unjustified shootings of black people in America. I am outraged at juries who have declined to convict some of the police officers who shot unarmed black men and women and at least one child that I know of (and saw it on television).

But as a theologian and as an ethicist, I have to affirm forgiveness even if I am not sure I could do it.

For the record, I'm with him.

Scot McKnight excerpted from Michael Gorman's new book, Participating in Christ (I'm going to have to pick that one up!):

Gorman’s thesis then is that the resurrection life of the Christian is cruciformity because cruciformity is suffused with resurrection. The cross is the pattern of life while the resurrection is the power of that life. The church, then, is faithful to the resurrection when it is cruciform.

Yep.

In an attempt to salvage what's left of any decent connotations to the word "evangelical," the National Association of Evangelicals appointed a new leader—and it isn't a white male. Granted, it is a male, but it's a start. You can read about it more on the Anxious Bench:

Last week Kim, 51, was named president of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), a venerable organization founded in 1942. Kim, a Korean American who grew up in Appalachia, is the first person of color to lead the NAE.

Personally, I think it's too little, too late, but you never know...

Wondering about 1 Cor 14:34? Take a look at this post. Here's the summary paragraph:

7. This explanation accounts for all the available evidential data, both external and internal. It does not conflict with any credible evidence. It resolves every historical and interpretive problem associated with these verses, including all the relevant features of the evidence from the manuscripts. No other explanation fulfils these criteria.

I know, if you aren't willing to be convinced, nothing will persuade you.

Speaking of that, Ken Schenck has some thoughts on the arch of history, ending with this zinger:

What is the right thing? I think it is clear that the last three years have been a major step back in the move toward justice. Has America become more loving toward its neighbors and the world in these last three years? The self-deception of the evangelical church has been astounding.

The attitude and comments of John MacArthur on Beth Moore this past week are representative of the heart of the evangelical church in general in America. It thinks it is standing up for God when in fact God's Spirit has left the room. I wish I could say, "Let them wither on the vine." God's truth is marching on. I hope that's true.

I can only hope along with him, but his comments on MacArthur are on the money. I used to be on his mailing list, why and how I have no idea, and he was always railing against something and saying he needed more cash in order to keep up the fight for the kingdom. I feel sorry for Peter, John, Paul, etc., because they didn't have a huge mailing list to solicit for cash. Wonder how they managed?

Claude Mariottini also weighed in on women in ministry from an Old Testament point of view, concluding with this:

Thus, the calling of women in the Old Testament to be prophets was not a fluke. It was part of God’s plan to save humanity. With the outpouring of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, the idea of gender, age, and social status is eliminated; now both men and women can prophesy.

This is what Paul meant when he wrote: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). Joel’s prophecy and the outpouring of the Spirit reveal that God is no respecter of persons. God calls men and women to the prophetic ministry.

Beth Moore, don’t go home. God needs you in the public square proclaiming the message of hope and salvation in the name of Christ.

Amen and amen! Still on that subject, the Anxious Bench has an open letter to MacArthur, looking at the history of translation, specifically citing an early 20th century scholar named Kate Bushnell:

What was foundational to Bushnell’s entire project was her understanding of power. After a careful study of the Scriptures, she concluded that the bulk of evidence establishing men as authorities in the household, and in the church, could be traced not to the Greek Testament, but rather to English translations. Moreover, it became clear to her that no Christian man would ever seek such exaltation. Jesus himself emptied himself, became human, suffered, and died. Why, then, would men who claimed to follow Jesus seek to assert power over others? Such men who sought power over others did so in exact proportion to the sinfulness of their own hearts, she surmised.

Chew on that for a while, considering the cruciform shape of the Christian life.

Not to beat a dead horse, but Missio Alliance takes a look at the phrase "Go home":

They used to be innocent words, previously spoken billions of times by tired men and women at the end of a workday, or cheered at a baseball game as a baserunner rounded third, or offered as a salutation by college students as a holiday approached. But in an instant, these two words were magnified by the context in which they were uttered and injected with the snide meaning behind them.

Perhaps the best response was by Beth Moore herself, from the Twitter:

Here’s the beautiful thing about it & I mean this with absolute respect. You don’t have to let me serve you. That gets to be your choice. Whether or not I serve Jesus is not up to you. Whether I serve you certainly is. One way or the other, I esteem you as my sibling in Christ.

OK, enough of that. Let's talk about something edifying, such as what does "freedom" mean? The word gets thrown around, but nobody bothers to define it. More importantly, what is "freedom in Christ"? Andrew Gabriel, a Canadian theologian, attempts to define it:

as a result of this freedom, the Bible emphasizes that Christians:

* are children of God
* have no condemnation
* become slaves of Christ
* become slaves to righteousness, leading to holiness as enabled by the Spirit
* receive other benefits from living according to the Spirit, such as life and peace
* will be resurrected to eternal life.

Now you know.

And here's a long read, with a hat tip to Jim Eisenbraun for the link, on an Evryman retreat (yes, the spelling is correct):

And yet in the waning afternoon light of the retreat center, arm in arm with my Evryman brothers, I am skeptical of dwelling exclusively in the bog of my own sadness. After all, when we shed tears for the veteran Matt, we’re ignoring the extent to which his grief has been caused by his armed service, that his inability to connect with his wife stems from the foreign-policy decisions that we civilians have tacitly endorsed. Or when I lock arms with a smart-home entrepreneur, I’m invited to ignore the fact that the automation of Silicon Valley might eventually put some two million truck drivers out of work, an impending structural shift that no doubt runs the risk of increasing toxic masculinity. It is an insidious habit of our time to assume that personal deprivations don’t have social or political dimensions, that the cure-all can be found in the detour of a retreat or the ablutions of self-care. But what I feel most acutely in this moment, and during the long drive home across the byways of the Midwest, is loneliness. We had talked of an enduring brotherhood, and yet as soon as I leave the retreat center, I realize these men are strangers to me. I try to imagine them making similar journeys home, drawing divergent routes across the country, waiting out layovers in airport lounges, standing under the sickly lights of convenience stores—each man returning to his private grief.

Sad. The only hope is in Jesus and his transforming power. Now, when I say that, I'm thinking of more than just saying a prayer. I'm talking about a life transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit and moving in you to make changes in the same manner as in the Wesleyan revival in the 1700s.

OK. Enough for now. That should give you a good bit to read : )

In related news, my garden is pretty much done for the year. Just brussells sprouts, kohlrabi, chard, beets, kale, and carrots left. Today I'll dig the beets and carrots, and pull the kohlrabi. Giant kohlrabi, by the way. They are probably 8–10 inches in diameter, and really sweet.

It's effective, but limited…

I would like to draw attention to another important dimension of the prophetic intercessory ministry that comes to expression through the metaphor of the “breached wall,” namely, the notion that the intercessor can only protect temporarily the breached covenant relationship. Just as the breach in the wall needs to be repaired to make the city a safe place in the long term, so intercessory prayer can only pacify divine anger temporarily. Persistent offense will eventually result in a divine prohibition to intercede and lead to severe punishment (e.g. Isa 58:10–12; Jer 15:1; Amos 7). In other words, in the long term the rebellious people need to return to Yhwh and recommit to the covenant stipulations to make the divine-human relationship whole again (cf. Deut 9:18–19, 25–29, 10:12–22). Understanding this dynamic confirms that the ministry of the prophet is essentially twofold: (1) “standing in the breach” in “defensive prayer” and (2) “repairing the breached wall” through calling a wayward people back to Yhwh and teaching the way of God (e.g., 1 Sam 12:23).—Standing in the Breach, pages 518–19

Grace over justice

The phenomenon of “holy mutability” is often found in the context of a prophetic intercessory prayer that seeks the reversal of God’s will to punish. In other words, the concept of נחם [nḥm] does not connote unreliability but communicates Yhwh’s willingness to show grace over justice. God allows Himself at times to be persuaded to show clemency, defer punishment, or renew the covenant relationship. Miller observes that the will of God “is always open to a transcending appeal to the divine will to mercy and compassion.” [fn. Patrick D. Miller, “Prayer and Divine Action,” in God in the Fray: A Tribute to Walter Brueggemann, ed. T. Linafelt and T. K. Beal (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998), 221].—Standing in the Breach, page 514

What's the response?

[E]ven in the New Testament, there appears to be a sin that is beyond prayer for forgiveness. The challenge for the intercessor is to exercise spiritual discernment like Amos, to know when and how long one is to persist in intercession for a particular person or situation. Seeing a brother or sister committing sin, should not lead automatically to a judgmental attitude but, like Amos, to prayer.—Standing in the Breach, pages 503–4

<idle musing>
Not sure how much I agree with the first part, although 1 John does seem to imply what he's saying. But, I can definitely get behind the second half: prayer should always be our first response, although I sadly confess it isn't always. When we hear of, see, or experience firsthand a person sinning, or first response should be an involuntary one similar to Amos's: "Lord, forbear, Israel is so small!"
</idle musing>

Sleeping with the enemy

Like Amos, Jesus also showed a tremendous solidarity with the poor and exploited, and showed an acute awareness of social injustice and religious hypocrisy (cf. Matthew 23; Luke 4:18–21, 10:25–37). Moreover, Jesus’ conflict with the temple authorities reflects in many ways Amos’s conflict with the priesthood at Bethel (cf. Luke 19:45–47). Throughout history, the “established church” has been in danger of protecting its own worldly interests at the exclusion of the prophetic voice. In every age, the priesthood and (false) prophets are susceptible to teaching a “gospel” that the king and the people want to hear (cf. 1 Kgs 22:6–29, Jer 7:4–7, Matthew 23).—Standing in the Breach, page 502

<idle musing>
Now more than ever, as the "Court Evangelicals" drag the name of Christ into the mud : (
</idle musing>

When is too much too much?

In solitude, perhaps like in Abraham’s case, Yhwh not only reveals His intentions but also invites prophetic participation in leading Amos into the realization that Israel has sinned themselves beyond the reach of prophetic intercession. From Amos’s two intercessions, we know that the prophet was fully committed to Israel, even if they could not bear him (cf. Amos 7:10). The overruling theological message of these visions is that when God’s word is consistently rejected, there comes eventually a time when the divine punishment can no longer be postponed. Like Abraham, Amos too is being taught by God about the meaning of divine mercy and justice (Gen 18:16–33). In contrast to Abraham, Amos is called to become a messenger of judgment and doom. This process, as we have seen, is also central to the intercessory ministry of Jeremiah. There too, the sinfulness of the people reached a level at which Yhwh had to prohibit his prophet from praying for his people (cf. Jer 7:16, 11:14, 14:11, 15:1).—Standing in the Breach, page 498

The waiting game

The God of the Bible is slow to anger and allows His prophet to affect a postponement of the intended punishment. It is important to note though that Yhwh does not explicitly forgive Israel’s guilt for which Amos has seemingly prayed. In other words, Israel is granted a period of grace. Yhwh cannot bring Himself to execute the well-deserved punishment yet.—Standing in the Breach, page 493

Amos or Joel? Which do you choose? And why it matters

In both the book of Joel and Amos, prophet and priest meet each other in the face of Yhwh’s imminent judgment. Interestingly, when we juxtapose the two accounts, the encounters between prophet and priest look very different. In the book of Joel, we get a sense of collaboration. Joel not only summons the priests to lead the national repentance ritual at the temple but also calls the priests to intercede for the people. It looks as though the priests followed the prophetic instructions and placed themselves between the altar of burnt offering and the porch to bring their prayers before God on behalf of the people (cf. Joel 1:13–14, 2:15–17). In the book of Amos, the prophet also meets a priest at the national sanctuary. In stark contrast to the book of Joel, there is a conflict between the prophet and the priest. Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, seeks to ban Amos from preaching a day of divine reckoning (cf. Amos 7:12–17). Interestingly, in the book of Joel the repentance ceremony and the priestly intercession mark the shift from judgment to divine mercy and restoration (Joel 2:17–18), whereas in the book of Amos the shift from divine mercy to divine judgment is marked by the priest’s prohibition on prophesy. We shall see that, by silencing the prophet, the priest also brought an end to Amos’s intercessory prayer and Yhwh’s patience. Thus, one could say that God’s patience ends where the state, represented by the priest, tries to decide when and where God may speak through the prophet.—Standing in the Breach, page 487

Hard-hitting Amos

Amos’s messages are possibly among the darkest of all the prophets. Message after message underlines Israel’s sinfulness and Yhwh’s judgment. But what exactly is the matter? After all, the Israelites of Amos’s time are showing a great religious zeal. They go on pilgrimages to their sanctuaries in Bethel, Gilgal and Beersheba. There, they bring freewill and thanksgiving offerings and tithes, and they participate in vibrant festivals (Amos 4:4–5, 5:21–24). The prosperity and peace that Israel enjoyed at that time was probably taken as evidence of divine favor and validated, in a sense, their life styles as the chosen people of God. Amos, however, exposes their hollow behavior by pointing to their self-serving ignorance and attacks primarily three major areas of sin: social injustice, corruption (Amos 2:6–8), and idolatry (Amos 5:26).—Standing in the Breach, page 480

<idle musing>
Sound familiar? What would Amos think of our culture? I suspect what he said to Israel would sound tame in comparison...
</idle musing>

The divine council and intercession

[O]ur earlier finding [was] that intercessory prayer goes not only hand in hand with the prophetic office, but also happens often in the Bible when the prophet is invited into the divine presence. Amos articulates it in the well-known verse:

Surely the Lord God does nothing, without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets. (Amos 3:7)

We shall see that it is often precisely when Yhwh reveals His will and purposes (in the divine council) that He engages His prophets in a dialogue (“Amos, what do you see?” Amos 7:8) and invites them to participate in the making of the divine plans. It is in the context of five visions that we find Amos interceding for Israel (Amos 7:2, 5). Although initially the prophet succeeds in averting disaster, it becomes increasingly clear to him that Israel has sinned to a point beyond the reach of prophetic intercession. Nothing seems left to do, but to describe the consequences of what he has seen and to proclaim a message of judgment.—Standing in the Breach, page 480