John Calvin Commentary Amos 7:14-15

"Then answered Amos, and said to Amaziah, I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet`s son; but I was a herdsman, and a dresser of sycomore-trees: and Jehovah took me from following the flock, and Jehovah said unto me, Go, prophesy unto my people Israel." — Amos 7:14-15 (ASV)

The Prophet Amos first pleads for himself that he was not at liberty to obey the counsel of Amaziah, because he could not renounce a calling to which he was appointed. Since then he had been sent by God, he proves that he was bound by necessity to prophesy in the land of Israel.

In the first place, he indeed modestly says that he was not a prophet, nor the son of a prophet. Why did he say this? To make himself contemptible? By no means, though the words apparently have this tendency; but it was to gain more authority for himself, for his extraordinary call gave him greater weight than if he had been brought up from his childhood in the schools of the prophets.

He then shows that he became a prophet by a miraculous interposition, and that the office was not committed to him by human authority, and in the usual way; but that he had been led to it as if by force, so that he could not set aside the office of teaching without openly shaking off the yoke laid upon him by God.

This account then which Amos gives of himself should be noticed, I was not a Prophet, nor the son of a Prophet. Had he said simply that he was not a Prophet, he might have been accused of presumption. How so? No one takes this honor to himself in the Church of God; a call is necessary.

If an angel were to descend from heaven, he should not subvert public order (Galatians 1:8); for all things, as Paul reminds us, should be done decently and in lawful order in the Church, because the God of peace presides over us.

Had Amos then positively denied that he was a Prophet, he might on this account have been removed from his office of teaching, for he lacked a call. But he means that he was not a Prophet who had been from his childhood instructed in God’s law to be an interpreter of Scripture; and for the same reason he says that he was not the son of a Prophet, for there were then, we know, colleges for Prophets, and this is sufficiently evident from sacred history.

Since then these colleges were instituted for this purpose—that there might always be seminaries for the Church of God, so that it might not be destitute of good and faithful teachers—Amos says that he was not of that class. He indeed honestly confesses that he was an illiterate man; but by this, as I have already said, he gained more authority for himself because the Lord had seized on him as if by force and set him over the people to teach them: “See, you shall be my Prophet, and though you have not been taught from your youth for this office, I will yet in an instant make you a Prophet.”

It was a greater miracle that Christ chose unrefined and ignorant men as his apostles than if he had at first chosen Paul or men like him who were skillful in the law. If Christ had selected such disciples at the beginning, their authority would have appeared less; but as he had prepared by his Spirit those who were previously unlearned, it appeared more evident that they were sent from above.

And to this refers the expression the Prophet uses when he says, Jehovah took me away: for it intimates that his call, as we have said, was extraordinary. The rest we will defer until tomorrow.

Prayer:

Grant, Almighty God, that since you permit reins so loose to Satan, that he attempts, in all manner of ways, to subvert your servants—O grant, that they who have been sent and moved by you, and at the same time furnished with the invincible strength of your Spirit, may go on perseveringly to the end in the discharge of their office. And whether their adversaries assail them by crafts, or oppose them by open violence, may they not desist from their course, but devote themselves wholly to you, with prudence as well as with courage, that they may thus persevere in continual obedience. And do you also dissipate all the mists and all the crafts which Satan spreads to deceive the inexperienced, until at length the truth emerges, which is the conqueror of the devil and of the whole world, and until your Son, the Sun of Righteousness, appears, that he may gather the whole world, so that in your rest we may enjoy the victory, which is to be daily obtained by us in our constant struggles with the enemies of your only Son. Amen.