Amos 1:11-12
If we want to live in righteousness, we should primarily be concerned with the condition of our heart. In Matthew 12:33-37, Jesus teaches that every tree is judged by its fruit. He also teaches that it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks. Our actions are the evidence of what God knows dwells within.
In the last section, Philistia and Phoenicia were condemned because they sold people to the Edomites as slaves. Today, Edom is judged because of its eternal anger towards the Hebrew people. The Edomites were unable to let go of their anger. Because of that, they had a consistent unresolved conflict between them and God.
The Edomites are the descendants of Esau. The Hebrew people are the descendants of Jacob. The conflict between Edom and Israel is rooted in brotherly competition. Jacob claimed Esau’s birthright. Jacob claimed Esau’s blessing. Esau eventually forgave Jacob, but as a collective the Edomites never forgave their cousins. In fact, when the Hebrew people march out of Egypt to return to the Promised Land, the Edomites do not let the Hebrew people go through their territory.
Because of this unresolved conflict, the Edomites willingly bought their cousins as slaves from the Philistines and Phoenicians – and certainly other groups of slavers as they worked the territory. The Edomites saw this as retribution for Jacob’s act against their ancestor. While true, Amos doesn’t mention their involvement in slavery against Edom in the section about Edom. Amos talks about it in the sections about Philistia and Phoenicia, but he does not mention their use of Hebrew slaves in the section devoted to Edom.
Ultimately, the reason Amos doesn’t mention the practice is because their use of slaves is a symptom of a greater sin. They aren’t solely guilty of buying slaves, they allow themselves to purchase slaves because they harbor hatred in their heart. God is concerned with the slavery dynamic for sure; what they did was sin. The slavery, however, was not the root of their sin.
When God deals with us, He doesn’t only examine our actions. God is interested in the motivations behind our actions. He knows why we make our decisions. He knows the status of our heart, and He understands how the status of our heart impacts our choices. God knows if the heart is right, then our behavior and our choices will follow and be just. If our heart is poisoned with sin, it follows that our choices and actions don’t stand a chance of being righteous.
We are all corrupted by sin. None of us has a pure heart apart from God’s Spirit within us. When we examine ourselves, we should always go deeper than what we did wrong. We should examine our heart to determine why we chose to pursue unrighteousness. If we want to live in righteousness, we should primarily be concerned with the condition of our heart.
