Amos
8:4-7— The Right Use of Money, Get your money honestly.
This lesson deals more with how we get our money rather
that how we use it.
God promises never to forget the rich persons’
oppression of the poor. Does it matter how we get our money? Should a Christian
be glad for his money and not ask questions how it was made/ Can a Christian in
good conscience accept money derived from pornography, prostitution, or
trafficked drugs? Should the church have investments in countries where civil
rights are denied? In Amos’ day the people are rich but for all the wrong
reasons. We still live in a world where the rich get richer and the poor get
poorer. What is the answer to all this? The word of the Lord through Amos is
the answer. The kind of wealth God condemns consists of the following:
1. Greed – vs. 5a -
They cannot wait for the holy days to be over that they can make more money.
Compare today’s commercialization of holy days: Sunday, Christmas, Easter.
2. Dishonesty –
vs.6a – Short weights: today’s false advertising; and improper scales at the
local grain elevator.
3. Enslaving people
– vs.6a – Today we are making people slaves to debt by over-purchasing.
4. Inferior products – vs. 6b – “Refuse of the wheat;”
compare today’s scandal of overseas’ shipment of dirty wheat etc.
Collect for Proper Twenty: O Lord, keep Your church in Your perpetual
mercy; and because without You we cannot but fail, preserve us from all things
hurtful, and lead us to all things profitable to our salvation; through Jesus
Christ, Your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit,
One God, now and forever. [2]
[1] Luther’s Seal, copyright © Ed Riojas, Higher Things
[2] Collect for Proper 20, Lutheran Service Book © 2006 Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis
[3] Collect for Wednesday of the week of Pentecost 14, For All the Saints, A Prayer Book For and By the Church, Vol. II © 1995 The American Lutheran Publicity Bureau, Delhi, NY
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