This is what the LORD says to Israel: “Seek me and live.” – Amos 5:4

Today’s Scripture Reading (November 28, 2016): Amos 5

The Farnese Atlas is a 2.1-meter high marble statue that features the Titan Atlas holding a sphere. It is a representation of Atlas fulfilling the sentence given to him by Zeus to hold up the sky. The sphere is not a globe, and it features the constellations that could be seen in the heavens from Greece, probably sometime in the 2^nd Century B.C.E. It is likely that the sphere on Atlas’ shoulders was based on a detailed star chart that was available to the unknown sculptor somewhere around that time. While it is not a picture of the earth as a sphere, it is also not a picture of a typical three-tiered universe featuring a flat earth, with a flat heaven above and a flat hell below. It is a round sky that encircles what is likely to be an equally round earth.  

There is a common misconception that somehow Christopher Columbus wanted to prove that the world was round – that maybe his friends chided him that he would fall off the edge of the earth if he persisted in his foolish idea of sailing west. But the truth is that Columbus knew for sure that the world was a globe, along with most of the educated people of the day. What Columbus was searching for was a shorter passage to India, hoping to cut trade times with the eastern portions of the known world. The spherical earth was something that the Greeks had guessed to be true by around the 6^th century B.C.E., 2000 years before Columbus made his historic voyage. The Greeks had proven the earth was round by the 3^rd century B.C.E. There persists today a small group of enthusiasts who prescribe to the flat earth theory, although how they believe this makes no sense to me since people have circumnavigated the earth and we have now even seen pictures of this spherical planet, and other spherical planets, taken from space. But this is true – believing in one precludes believing in any other. You cannot simultaneously believe that the earth is both round and flat.

Amos is making the same point about God. Life is found only in God. You cannot believe that life is available from multiple points of view. We serve a jealous God who is God alone. If you seek after God, you will find life. Not just life in a pie in the sky, someday sort of way, but life here and now. But to seek God also means that you have to stop seeking life in other areas or with other gods. The God of Israel is the only source of life. And life will not be found anywhere else – it only comes from Amos’ God.  

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Amos 6