If you could choose one person in the Bible to emulate, who would it be? And if you could choose one situation in the Bible to experience personally, what would it be? There are so many people in Scripture whom I would love to be like and circumstances that I would like to experience, for the Bible is full of stories of amazing people and miraculous things.

But there are also plenty of things in the Bible that I would not want to have experienced, and some people whose shoes I'd rather not be in. One of them is Amos.

Unsurprisingly, Amos' message about God's discipline has met a fair amount of resistance. Amaziah, the priest of the shrine at Bethel (a false place of worship, if you remember) confronts Amos (Amos 7:10-13). He accuses the prophet of prophesying for financial gain and tells him to go peddle his wares elsewhere (vv. 12-13).

As he did earlier (3:8), Amos' responds by stating that God has called him to prophesy, and he cannot do anything other than relate the message from God to his audience (7:14-15). In other words, Amos is saying that this is not his idea, and these are not his words. He is God's spokesman, and what he says comes directly from God. Then he tells Amaziah that God has a word just for him (v. 17).

This is why I would want to avoid being in Amos' shoes. Imagine having to look into someone's eyes and tell him that his wife is going to become a prostitute, his children are going to be murdered, his land and possessions will be taken away from him, and he will die in a foreign land (v. 17). That is a hard message to deliver. Yet Amos obediently delivers such a personal prophecy to Amaziah.

God has spoken, what else can Amos do? A prophet is only a prophet when he delivers the message God has given him.