Amos was the farmer who turned prophet at the insistence of God. He did not know when he did so that he would become the chief oracle of the traditional party of the "unity by conformity" advocates in the Christian Dispensation, almost three millennia after his death. It really was not his fault. The whole thing came about because of the semantic quirk of a group of translators appointed by a king who wanted a Bible he could authorize to be read in the pulpits of the Episcopal Church.
When the eminent linguists came upon a list of questions proposed by the prophet to account for his intrusion upon a rather hostile area, they unfortunately made him say, "Can two walk together except they be agreed?" The roving eyes of the text-seekers and sermonizers glimpsed this inadvertent question and it was thereupon made the basis for numerous dissertations intended to prove that no two people can walk together unless they are agreed.
Obviously, no two of the proponents of this peculiar and unworkable philosophy agree upon everything, so with the true, casuistic rationalization which is part and parcel of the party spirit, agreement was limited only to the opinions upon which the party was arbitrarily founded and which gave it grounds for perpetuity. We propose to examine this statement of Amos in full context and show how it has become one of the twisted scriptures.
Solomon was the last monarch of the twelve tribe kingdom in its undivided state. In the days of his son and successor, a revolt occurred because of the oppressive taxation required to maintain the opulent splendor of the regal family. Ten of the tribes seceded and set up the Kingdom of Israel under Jeroboam. He immediately introduced calf-worship at Dan and Bethel and plunged his domain into idolatry from which it never recovered. In 220 years nine different dynasties succeeded each other to the throne as a result of suicide, conspiracy and assassination.
If the reign of Jeroboam II in the fifth dynasty seemed an exception because of outward prosperity, it was deceptive. The undercurrent of degeneracy continued unchecked beneath the surface. Because of it God called a prophet to denounce the open and flagrant sins of the people. The man whom he selected was not a recognized prophet. He had not attended one of the schools of the prophets which had flourished since the days of Samuel to train young men in the prophetic role. He was a simple farmer living in the wilderness serenity surrounding the little village of Tekoah, six miles south of Bethlehem and twelve miles south of Jerusalem. His livelihood was derived from the rustic pursuits of herding cattle and caring for his orchard of sycamine figs.
Since he lived in Judah, the commission to go to the king's court in Bethel, was a call to invade a hostile region. The message he was to deliver was calculated to make him even more unpopular. He was to denounce the corruption which was so prevalent, but he was also to foretell the captivity and exile of the people at the hands of a rapidly growing alien power. Amos went as God had instructed him and he lifted up his voice against the immorality, injustice and intemperance which characterized the lives of the people, with such effectiveness that something had to be attempted to thwart his effort.
The local priest was Amaziah. He was a fawning sycophant on the payroll of the King. He began his attack by telling Jeroboam that Amos was a conspirator. He implied that he was an infiltrator who was collaborating with the Davidic regime in Judah, commissioned to come up north to create unrest and dissension. He then confronted Amos and ordered him off the royal property and out of the country, closing with the words, "Don't you ever again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king's sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom." He did not mention that the temple was dedicated to calf-worship!
The country preacher was not easily frightened. He pointed out that he was not a professional making his living out of the trade of prophesying and was not even a seminary graduate. He was actually following the flock at the very time the Lord said, "Go, prophesy to my people Israel." He then informed Amaziah that his sons and daughters would be slain, his wife would have to become a prostitute in the city to support herself, his real estate holdings would be parceled out to strangers, and he would become a captive and die in a foreign land.
Because of the fearlessness of Amos we think the first part of his prophecy deserves some attention, especially since the "scriptural scrap-doctors" as Alexander Campbell always referred to them, have abused one of his statements to make the prophet mean something that he never implied. The passage to which we allude is found in Amos 3:3 but we will start at the beginning of his book. Chapter 1 begins with a specification of the time when the prophecy was uttered. It was "two years before the earthquake," a tremor of such magnitude that the people in Jerusalem fled from it as they would the day of the Lord (Zechariah 14:5).
To begin with, it is important to note that the Lord is referred to as a lion whose den, or place of abode, is Jerusalem in Zion. This metaphor is not farfetched when you recall that to the ancients the lion was the very symbol of strength and power. And it is affirmed that the voice of God is so powerful, and his predictions are so certain of fulfillment, that the very pastures dry up and the dew-covered summit of Mount Hermon withers. The roar of God is expressed through his prophets.
It is apparent that when God roars as a lion it betokens his judgment upon the nations. The time has come that he will rend them as prey. So there follows in swift and regular succession pronouncements against Damascus, in Syria; Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon and Ekron, in Philistia; Tyre, in Phoenicia; Edom, Ammon and Moab. After this list is completed, the prophet comes to the two kingdoms which have sprung from the seed of Abraham, Judah and Israel.
The utterances against these last two bring the prophet to the place where he addresses all of the tribes as a whole. They are more responsible than any other nation for two reasons. First, God personally formed them as a nation by delivering them from the womb of Egypt; secondly, he claimed them for his own out of all the nations of the whole earth. Now he speaks against them because the day has come when their iniquities and judgments have met. Throughout all denunciatory prophecy runs the thread of certainty that God will bring to judgment every evil work. The divine appointment is that inevitably the sin and its punishment must meet.
Since this is the very nature of divine justice the prophet appeals to natural reactions to illustrate it. He exemplifies it by two people walking together because they had made a previous appointment to meet, a lion roaring because he has captured prey, young lions snarling in a den as they tear their food, a trap or snare springing shut because a victim has hit the trigger, or people in a city running for shelter when the official trumpet signals an alarm. His argument is simply one of cause and effect. He reasons that for every effect there is a cause and you may determine the cause by observation of the effect.
He concludes by pointing out that God does not visit his wrath upon a city without revealing his secret to the prophets. When the prophets speak it is the voice of God and the populace should react accordingly. The prophet cannot resist speaking the word of God; the hearers should not resist obeying it. "The lion has roared; who will not fear" The Lord God has spoken; who can but prophesy? With this introduction we are prepared to look at the prophetic message itself. Here it is as found in the King James Version.
Can two walk together, except they be agreed?
Will a lion roar in the forest, when he hath no prey? will a young lion cry out of his den, if he have taken nothing?
Can a bird fall in a snare upon the earth, where no gin is set for him? shall one take up a snare from the earth, and have taken nothing at all?
Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it?
Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.
The lion hath roared, who will not fear? the Lord God hath spoken, who can but prophesy?
The art of sermon-making, a skill wholly unknown to the new covenant scriptures, has led its practitioners far afield in their ardent quest for texts. When one is found which seems no suit the propaganda purpose of the hour, they operate and remove it from the contextual body, and by copious injections of their own intellectual distillate seek to make it develop into a new body of its own. No creation of homiletic fantasy better illustrates this than the use of Amos 3:3 by modern advocates of unity based upon conformity. The proponents of the cult of the rubber stamp have seized upon this passage as the one stone which will grind their grist, and wherever they speak the sound of the millstone is heard in the land.
As any person of even the slightest scholarly bent can ascertain for himself, this is an absurd abuse of the prophetic intent. Not only was Amos not providing a text for a sermon on unity but the passage is not even remotely connected with the use made of it by solemn clerics who weave from this one little filmy thread a gossamer web to cover all of the saints in all of their association with each other.
Can two walk together unless they be agreed? Do two people have to agree upon everything in the world before they can walk together? If so, no two people on earth will walk together, or ever have done so. Shall we interpret God's word to forbid and make absolutely impossible the very unity which it repeatedly commands? But I am told that this does not mean they must agree upon everything. This surrenders the whole argument. Either two people must agree upon everything in order to walk together or else two people can walk together who are not agreed, and you will need to find a new text for the ridiculous doctrine based upon conformity.
The utter absurdity into which people are driven by forced exegesis to sustain a presupposition and partisan position was observed not long ago in the home of a certain preacher. He contended that two could not walk together unless they were agreed. His wife challenged his statement. She mentioned that she had never agreed with her parents on their attitude toward her brother but they still all continued to walk together as one family. She and her husband then got into an argument and could not even agree upon what it meant to be agreed, but the last I heard they were still walking together--and arguing as they walked.
But what did Amos mean? We will be helped in our understanding by consulting other versions. First, I shall refer to the translation by Robert Young, who was the author of various works in Hebrew, Chaldee, Samaritan, Syriac, Greek and Latin, and who is best known to most of us as author of an Analytical Concordance. Dr. Young was quite critical of the King James translators for laxity in translating and compiled a lengthy list which he designated "Lax Renderings," and which I have found most interesting. He translates Amos 3:3, "Do two walk together, if they have not met?"
Many of our readers will possess, or have access to a Revised Standard Version, and can easily ascertain that it renders the passage, "Do two walk together unless they have made an appointment?" It will readily be seen that if these are correct, the use of the passage as descriptive of the nature of unity is forever barred to honest men who walk in integrity and do not "handle the word of God deceitfully."
The original word for "agreed" is yaad. This is a primitive Hebrew root which is defined by Strong's Exhaustive Concordance thus, "To fix upon (by agreement or appointment) by implication to meet (at a stated time), to summon (to trial), to direct (in a certain quarter or position), to engage (for marriage).
The word translated "agreed" has not one thing to do with the attitude, purpose or nature of two people while walking together. The agreement is to meet and walk together, and is not related to walking together in agreement. The agreement or appointment precedes the walking together as the cause precedes the effect. The word yaad is not marriage, but engagement to marry. It is not occupying a position, but directing one to it. It is not a trial, but the summons issued to appear for trial. It is not the state of walking together, but a prior appointment to meet and walk. Men might make an agreement to meet and walk together to debate their differences.
The word occurs in the same form and tense 19 times in the Hebrew scriptures. It is translated "meet" nine times of which six (Exodus 25:22; 29:42,43; 30:6,36; Numbers 17:4) refer to God's appointment to meet his people in the tabernacle. In Joshua 11:5 it relates to meeting together by appointment of a number of kings at the waters of Merom to fight against Israel. In Nehemiah 6:2,10, it refers to the attempt of Sanballat, Geshem and others, to meet with Nehemiah, to work mischief. The meeting never occurred.
Even more revealing is the usage of the word in Job 2:11, concerning Job's three friends who came every one from his own place, "for they had made an appointment together to come to mourn with him and to comfort him." The boldface words are the translation of yaad. Any student of the book of Job knows that these three men did not agree. They argued with each other, accused Job, and attempted to speak for God. When they had finished, a youthful companion who was standing by listening, became so angry at their replies he pitched into the debate and told them all off. The three friends of Job did not meet to agree, they simply agreed to meet.
The fact is that the only unity possible on this earth for thinking people is unity in diversity. Unity by conformity is a unity of puppets or automatons. It is the unity of those who surrender their right to think and reason. And it is not really unity at all, but a mere sublimation of one's faculties and rational powers and a bowing to tyranny or dictatorship.
In a very perceptive statement, Ralph Waldo Emerson labeled groups requiring conformity, as "communities of opinion":
Most men have bound their eyes with one or another handkerchief, and attached themselves to some one of these communities of opinion. This conformity makes them not false in a few particulars, authors of a few lies, but false in all particulars. A man must consider what a rich realm he abdicates when he becomes a conformist.
When Thomas Jefferson was defending the "Virginia Act for Religious Freedom," he said:
Subject opinion to coercion: whom will you make your inquisitors? Fallible men; men governed by bad passions, by private as well as public reasons. And why subject it to coercion? To produce uniformity. But is uniformity of opinion desirable? No more than of face and stature.
But it was Alexander Campbell in his chapter on "The Foundation of Christian Union" appearing in his volume called Christianity Restored who pointed out that conformity in opinion has been the real basis of all sectarianism. His statement deserves earnest study.
But men cannot give up their opinions, and, therefore, they can never unite, says one. We do not ask them to give up their opinions--we ask them only not to impose them upon others. Let them hold their opinions; but let them hold them as private property. The faith is public property; opinions are, and always have been, private property. Men have foolishly attempted to make the deductions of some great minds the common measure of all Christians. Hence the deductions of a Luther, and a Calvin, and a Wesley, have been the rule and measure of all who coalesce under the names of these leaders. It is cruel to excommunicate a man because of the imbecility of his intellect. We never did, at any time, exclude a man from the kingdom of God for a mere imbecility of intellect; or, in other words, because he could not assent to our opinions. All sects are doing, or have done this.
Unity in the domestic realm is unity in diversity. A man and his wife become one flesh, not because they are alike, but because they are not. It is their unlikeness, their diversity, which makes physical unity possible. They are not uniform in their mental and intellectual attainments. Differences arise and arguments ensue in the very best of families. We do not assume that because a husband and wife differ as to which is the best brand of coffee that they no longer have a united home. We do not think the family ties are severed because a teenager prefers a stick-shift sports car while his mother insists on buying a large job with automatic transmission.
There never was a family in which every member thought alike and there never will be. Families stay together because their love for one another as persons transcends every other consideration. Their need for each other is greater than their need to be right on every matter of opinion. When a man and woman promise to love, honor and cherish each other as long as the two of them live, they enter into a covenant to receive one another as persons in love. They certainly do not pledge that they will always see everything alike.
Unity in the governmental realm is unity in diversity. I am thrilled indeed to be a citizen of the United States of America, but I am not so foolish as to think that all fifty states are alike, or that every citizen is agreed with every other citizen. I know there is a great difference between the elected representatives of Alaska and those of Alabama. Missouri is not like Montana, and Vermont differs from Virginia. It is our very diversity which makes it possible for us to exist in unity. Our national unity was born in the heat of debate and the constitutional convention which acted as a ramp for launching the Ship of State almost came apart before the vessel hit the water and unfurled her sails.
Those who postulate there can be no unity except upon the basis of absolute conformity ought to cross their fingers and "take King's X" every time they salute the flag and murmur, "One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." We are not agreed upon tariffs or taxes, legislative programs, executive powers, or supreme court prerogatives. We never have been. We have survived two hundred years, not because of our agreements, but in spite of our disagreements. We are held together by an ideal we have never reached, and by a conviction that every man is endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable rights and that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Unity in the spiritual realm is unity in diversity. Unity upon any other basis would make it impossible for us to share in fellowship with God. There is a great difference between the creator and the created, the potter and the clay, the shepherd and the sheep. If God had waited until I understood everything as He did before He accepted me, I would never have been able to share in His blessed fellowship. He did not receive me because I was like Him. If I was like Him I would not need acceptance. I would have been God.
The fact is that God took me as I was, in my ignorance and arrogance. He accepted me not because I was worthy but because I was not. And He did it because, in His infinite grace, He was able to love me in spite of myself. The divine-human fellowship is one which spans vast areas of human ignorance. It makes it possible for the Maker to receive into His bosom those who cannot read or write, those who are not only ignorant of fine-spun, and even rough-hewn doctrinal distinctions, but who may not even be able to spell doctrine. The unity proposed by the Father is predicated upon faith, and that faith is simply trust in a person, a trust so great and powerful as to motivate the believer to commit his whole life and being to that person as Lord and ruler.
The word of God is quite plain as to the basis upon which we must receive one another. "Wherefore receive ye one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God" (Romans 15:7). It would seem fairly obvious, I think, even if the apostle had not stated it so bluntly, that we should receive each other on the same basis as God received us all. The divine grounds of acceptance ought not to be improved upon by mere mortals. This means we will need to receive those who do not see a lot of things as we do, and never will. We shall have to receive them upon the basis of their faith in Jesus and in spite of some of their immature ideas and peculiar notions. The community of saints will never be a "united notions" complex.
When men respond to the good news about Jesus by their acknowledgment of the proposition that He is the Anointed One, the Son of God, and by being baptized as an acknowledgment of His Lordship over their lives, we receive them, for it is upon this basis God receives them. We no more assent to all of their opinions, ideas or concepts than God does. We do not receive them because of the number of things upon which they are right, but because they have been set right with God, being justified by faith!
It is tragic that men, searching for a text and a prooftext as a peg upon which to hang a sermon outline, would fasten upon Amos 3:3, and abuse and misuse it in such a way as to destroy the very fellowship which they profess to proclaim. One need not be a scholar of Hebrew to avoid the mistake of thinking that Amos made a journey to Israel to lay a foundation for unity in Christ upon the basis of doctrinal agreement. An examination of other translations would save him from such an error.
Robert Young renders it, "Do two walk together if they have not met?" The Revised Standard Version reads, "Do two walk together unless they have made an appointment?" This is a good place to point out that any proposition which depends for its proof upon one version, and which can be sustained only by appeal to such a unique rendering should be regarded as suspect. It must be recognized that all subsequent translators could be mistaken and those selected and appointed by the King of England could have been right, but there is at least room for doubt when the later translators, looking at the original and having the King James Version before them, revised the rendering.
In our day of mobility and rapid transportation facilities it is easy for people to meet by chance and converse together. Every person who reads this will recall "running into a friend" unexpectedly at a shopping mall and engaging in an exchange of ideas. It was not that way in the time of Amos. When you saw two men walking across the open plain or desert you could be reasonably certain they had made an appointment, and it was no chance occurrence. So the version referred to above recognizes the circumstances of carrying on a conference as the result of a previous engagement to meet. "Do two walk together unless they have made an appointment?"
In Christ Jesus I walk together with men with whom I seriously disagree about a number of things. The truth is that I have never met a person with whom I fully agree upon all matters of understanding. If I must walk only with those who see everything as I do I will never walk with anyone. But I respect the right of others to read the Word of God for themselves, to make their own deductions and form their own conclusions. I do not want anyone else to impose his opinions upon me so I refuse to impose mine upon him. The same scripture which allows me liberty of judgment will allow it to all others who eagerly search for truth.
This is not, as some foolishly assert, merely "an agreement to disagree." Rather, it is a calm recognition of reality while we are imperfect beings in the flesh. As I investigate more fully I may be led to concur with the divergent views of my brother, or, upon the same basis, he may come to agree with mine. At least twice in my life I have differed with brethren in the Lord and both of us have changed. As a result we still differed but had merely shifted sides in our discussions. This did not affect our personal relationship in Christ, because it was not based upon conformity of opinion or understanding. We differed in Jesus, and not about Jesus. And there is a lot of room in Jesus for honest differences. The divine umbrella of love is not as narrow as are the hearts of a lot of those under its protection. It shades a lot of people who do not think alike or see alike. That is why it is important that we are to be judged by the Lord and not by men.
It is an interesting observation that those who head for Amos 3:3 for a text of unity, actually are not trying to promote unity at all. They are searching for grounds on which to justify their separation from others. Everyone of them postulates unity upon agreement with himself or the party or faction for which he is the front man. Each should make Amos say. "Can two walk together toward glory unless they agree with us?" Even if two were perfectly agreed after long and arduous study they would not be considered as faithful or loyal unless they agreed with the speaker. There have been occasions when as many as three different men used Amos 3:3 as a text on the same day in the same town, and no two of them could even agree on what they had to agree upon to walk together.
It is time for men to grow up and free themselves from traditional explanations and expositions which have long since been proven to be invalid. Men can walk together in Christ and not agree upon a host of things if they put Jesus above all else in their lives. What we need to do is to agree to walk together regardless of the attempt of Satan to fragment us into warring tribes and belligerent factions.