Will Vaus

  Today in our journey through the 66 books of the Bible we come to the book of Amos.    Author   Amos was from Tekoa (1:1) a small town about 6 miles south of Bethlehem and 12 miles from Jerusalem. He was not a man of the court like Isaiah, nor was he a priest like Jeremiah. Amos cared for sheep and a sycamore-fig grove (1:1; 7:14-15). We do not know if he owned the flock or the grove or whether he simply worked as a hired hand. His skill with words and the range of his knowledge of history and the world suggest that he was a literate, educated man, despite being a person of the land. Though Amos made his home in the Southern Kingdom of Judah, he acted as a prophet to the Northern Kingdom of Israel.   The book of Amos consists of a collection of the words of and traditions concerning the prophet. The material is, at times, organized carefully, but at other points the logic is difficult to discern. Most of the book consists of speeches attributed to the prophet....

Today in our journey through the 66 books of the Bible we come to the book of Joel. This is the second part of what the Hebrew Bible calls “The Twelve”. Christians often refer to this section of the Old Testament as the minor prophets. We call this section of Scripture the minor prophets not because The Twelve are less important than Isaiah, Jeremiah, or Ezekiel, [1]   but simply because these books are shorter. In ancient times, perhaps as early as the 2 nd   century BCE, all twelve of the minor prophets were put together on one scroll.   Author   The prophet Joel cannot be identified with any of the 12 other figures in the Hebrew Scriptures who have the same name. Joel’s name is the reverse of “Elijah,” but the meaning is the same (“My God is the Lord”). Joel is not mentioned outside the books of Joel in the Old Testament and Acts in the New. (See Acts 2:16.) There are non-biblical legends about Joel, but these do not help us in understanding the historical situati...

Today in our journey through the 66 books of the Bible we come to the book of Hosea. This is the first part of what the Hebrew Bible calls “The Twelve”. Christians often refer to this section of the Old Testament as the minor prophets. We call this section of Scripture the minor prophets not because The Twelve are less important than Isaiah, Jeremiah, or Ezekiel, [1]   but simply because these books are shorter. In ancient times, perhaps as early as the 2 nd   century BCE, all twelve of the minor prophets were put together on one scroll.   Author   Hosea probably appears as the first book among the Twelve for two reasons: (1) Hosea was considered the first of four prophets who prophesied during the eighth century BCE, the others being Isaiah, Amos, and Micah. (2) Hosea is the longest book out of all the minor prophets. Hosea served as a prophet to the Northern Kingdom of Israel and was the only one of the literary prophets to come from that kingdom.   In Hosea 1...