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They come for some as the hand of judgment: "… because you trample on the poor … you have built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not dwell in them" (5:11).

For others, they come as chastisement and prodding: "Hate evil, and love good, and establish justice …" (5:15).

For everyone, they come as an expression of, well, love. St. Paul asks us to consider "the kindness and severity of God" (Rom. 11:22). We love to note the first part. But we are not enthusiastic about the second, even though it is a version of kindness.

Severity, if I understand Amos correctly, is both warning and prelude: "Behold, the days are coming," declares the Lord God, "when I will send a famine on the land — not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, to seek the word of the Lord, but they shall not find it" (8:11-12).

God forbid.

According to this ancient pundit of the economy of his day, we might consider this current economic disaster as first and foremost a spiritual disaster. And a spiritual opportunity. That sort of talk would not make sense if we didn't know God's mad method of working in and through things like crucifixions. But he does. He is even said to bring on disasters, economic and spiritual, so that people will return to him. Again, from Amos, "I give you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and lack of bread in all your places, yet you did not return to me" (4:6, emphasis mine).

So simplistic, say the Bible scholars. So pietistic, say our theologians. So sentimental, say the practical heads among us.

And when their words have a proven track record and are still being pondered 2,800 years later, maybe I will give them as much weight. In the meantime, I am more apt to consider where Amos thinks anger and fear are supposed to take us in this hour.

Mark Galli is senior managing editor of Christianity Today. He is author of Jesus Mean & Wild and of the forthcoming (in March) A Great and Terrible Love: A Spiritual Journey into the Attributes of God (Baker).

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December (Web-only) 2008, Vol. 53