Category: Uncategorized

Introduction

An old man sits alone on the barren hilltop of a desolate island as punishment for his crime.  His crime against the empire?  Telling people that the world has a Savior named Jesus who wants people to believe in his soul-saving work.  Well, we don’t know the precise charge leveled by the Roman government against the apostle John, but it was his preaching and work as a Christian leader which landed him on the island of Patmos.  Like others of his day, he was persecuted for his faith and pressured to give it up.  While the government couldn’t eradicate Christianity, it could conduct a legal and social war against it.

An example of government attitudes and actions toward Christianity is preserved in letters from a Roman governor named Pliny to the emperor some twenty-five plus years after John’s exile to Patmos.  Here are some excerpts as he describes how he dealt with people accused of being Christians.  “I therefore judged it so much more the necessary to extract the real truth, with the assistance of torture, from two female slaves, who were styled deaconesses: but I could discover nothing more than depraved and excessive superstition….I interrogated them whether they were Christians; if they confessed it I repeated the question twice again, adding the threat of capital punishment; if they still persevered, I ordered them to be executed.”

During his exile, the apostle John was likely the last of Jesus twelve disciples that was still alive.  Firsthand eyewitnesses of the days when Jesus walked and worked in Israel were now rare.  New generations would rely on secondhand recollections and a few writings by the original eyewitnesses.  Yet Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would work faith in the hearts of men and women long after he was gone, and this generation had people of various backgrounds gladly calling themselves Christians.  Like John, they would be harassed and urged to give up their faith in someone perceived by society as a long dead Jew.  Like the lonely apostle on the hillside, these new generations refused to abandon the faith or deny that Jesus was who he said he was, God in the flesh.  “If you have seen me”, Jesus said, “you have seen God the Father”.

When Jesus was on earth growing up as the lowly carpenter’s son, he didn’t appear to be God at all.  During his ministry his religious enemies considered him to be nothing more than a mortal man even though miracles were done at his command.  John did see Jesus perform amazing supernatural miracles but even then, his feet were dirty, hair unwashed, body sweating after a long hard day. Only for a moment did John see Jesus radiating light, shining brightly, talking to souls who lived thousands of years earlier.  From a human perspective one might say that supernatural forces were working through this man named Jesus, but it would be hard to picture anything more than that.  Even after Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to hundreds of people he did not fly through the air, glow with bright glory or surround himself with angelic figures.  He went out of his way to reinforce that the Son of God had taken humanity and joined himself to it permanently.

The apostle John told others what he saw, and he wrote about it as well in the gospel of John.  As he noted in his writing, “these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name”.  Sixty years after Jesus walked the earth John could sit alone on the island of Patmos and know that many people did believe after hearing what he said and reading what he wrote.  They all found that being a faithful Christian was difficult just as Jesus said it would be.  But there were believers all over the known world.  The word of God was working just the way Jesus said it would.

Yet John was about to receive more information that he could pass along to others.  He was given a series of visions that would become the Biblical book called Revelation.  We often associate it with wild stories that are difficult to understand and contain enigmatic predictions of the future.  A cynic would say it was the hallucinogenic dreams of an old man desperate to hold on to his religion.  The first is a superficial description while the view of the cynic is wishful thinking, projecting the cynic’s unbelief without delving into the contents.

The book is exactly what it claims to be in the opening sentence.  God gave Jesus the words and images which would reveal to his servants, his believers, what they would be facing in life.  But not just to the believers alive while John was on the island of Patmos.  The revelation was for all believers of all time.  It showed them much, including what would happen at the end of time and beyond it.  He was giving them the tools to fight the good fight of faith.

But when someone new to the faith, or just curious about the faith, asks what part of the Bible they should read first, we don’t tell them to start with Revelation.  They need to know the details about Jesus work prior to that book.  Revelation is filled with references to Old Testament terms and symbolism and you need an understanding of them as well to appreciate the message found in Revelation.  And the visions of Revelation don’t come with detailed explanations.  The visions are nearly all symbolic, representative of a truth, just as the parables of Jesus had a deeper meaning behind the characters and events in them.  The visions are so unique that even someone familiar with Bible history benefits from scholarly books that can help break down the descriptions found throughout the book of Revelation and provide insight on the origins of the symbolic meaning.  My personal favorite book for additional insight is the People’s Bible commentary on Revelation written by pastor Wayne Mueller.

In this writing I would like to focus on an aspect of the book of Revelation that I often miss and perhaps others do as well.  The book of Revelation shines a spotlight on Jesus, giving us pictures and details that we could only otherwise imagine.  As I review the phrases and imagery that are highlighted as Jesus stands in center stage, I realize my words are not the only perspective.  For example, the phrase ‘faster than a speeding bullet’ evokes thoughts of Superman for some, extreme speed for others, and something dangerous to be avoided in still others.  The purpose of sharing what I see reflected in the spotlight is to encourage others to also take a long look and appreciate it in their own fashion.

Just as we read about the words and actions of Jesus in the gospels describing his three-year ministry to understand his love and saving work, so we can read Revelation to understand his deity and his role in our lives today.  His love is the same both past and present.  But he no longer needs to walk humbly as our substitute.  He has a new role, and we gain new insights as we read the final book of the Bible.  The book does more than show us what we are going to face on our way to heaven.  It shows us who Jesus is and what he’s doing while we are on our way to meet him in heaven.

Of Kings and Prophets

Introduction

Once upon a time there was a king.  Reading the Old Testament historical books can feel like the opening line of a fairy tale or old story.  Strangely named people going through miraculous events sounds odd compared to everyday life.  Most of us don’t have an instant relatable connection to someone with absolute power and great wealth like ancient kings.  Nor do we connect with ancient prophets that devoted their lives to passing along messages received in various ways from God.

But we do relate to people who face trials and hardships.  We know the desire for wealth and influence and how it affects us.  We know that God speaks to us in the Bible.  Maybe the differences between kings, prophets, and us aren’t as vast as it seems when first reading scripture.  We just need to ignore the clothing styles and stone walls and ponder what was really happening when prophets had conversations with kings.

Prophecy is a word that is often associated with future predictions or revelations of events that will never happen in the lifetime of the prophet.  The Old Testament prophets had their share of written messages about events hundreds of years in the future, especially as it concerned the coming messiah. But a reading of any of the prophetical books also reveals messages specific to the time and place of their utterance.  Quite often the foretelling of the future was subtly mixed in with a discussion of current issues.  Their primary audience was not readers in far off centuries but people who needed specific messages vital to their own lives at the time.

While prophets passed along God’s messages, kings ruled the land that God set aside for his people.  Yet, like us, the ruler’s expression of faith, or lack of it, impacted their personal and professional lives.  How much of Old Testament prophecy was directed to the kings?  How much was impacted by the conduct of the kings?  What personal interaction was there between prophet and king? 

This study looks for answers and for a better appreciation of how God reached out to his people as the ruling class sank further into unbelief and idolatry.  We want to pay close attention to those moments when the prophet walked into the palace to talk to the most powerful person in the city.  It was one person talking to another.  Their perspectives and attitudes didn’t always line up.  There was often a crisis at hand and decisions to be made.  There was no guarantee that either would be happy at the end of the conversation.

As we consider the conversations between prophets and kings, we also want to think about any personal relationships between them and how it affected the message and its delivery.  Such observations are not vital or necessary to faith but may help us better understand the interaction of any believer with earthly authority. 

Looking back may also trigger questions about our own lives.  How does God reach out to us today?  What timeless messages were spoken then that still apply to our modern lives?  What messages specific to kings and countrymen would God re-issue to us today?  If God were to send someone into our lives to remind us of his truth, would they need to tailor the message differently?  Would our relationship with someone else change the way we talk to them about Christ?  “Indeed, whatever was written in the past was written for our instruction, so that, through patient endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures, we would have hope.” Romans 15:4. May this review help us move forward with hope and a better understanding of the world around us.

Before we start, we must define the scope and definition of kings and prophets.  God has been speaking through human messengers since the beginning and God’s people have had several forms of authoritative leadership.  So where do we begin and end?

Regarding prophetic messages, prior to the flood Enoch warned the public of the day when the Lord would come with his angels to destroy the wicked.  Noah warned of the impending global flood.  Joseph was given dreams and interpretation to make known God’s will.  The patriarchs like Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were the acting authority as the Israelite tribes expanded and they also were the means of passing down the truth of God.  It’s during the days of Samuel that we read about groups of prophets and thereafter the historical record consistently had prophets who had dedicated their lives to God’s word both past and present. 

Regarding the kingship there was none for God’s people until the time of Samuel.  Even when God determined to make his presence in the world constantly and publicly known by creating the nation of Israel, he did not give it a king to rule.  He was to be their ruler.  He designated Moses as both leader and prophet and God’s messages to him and through him were unique as Israel got its formal start in nationhood.  Moses and subsequent judges were appointed as leaders, acting both militarily and spiritually on behalf of the people but no family line of succession was formed.  Only when the people insisted on a formal kingship did God give them what they asked for and the reign of kings began.  The span of anointed kings in Israel lasted roughly five hundred years and after that the land was led by governors or priests.

For the purpose of this study, we will start with the first of Israel’s kings, King Saul, and continue to the last of Israel’s prophets, Malachi, who ministered during a time when Israel was not permitted to have a recognized king.  Though the final recorded prophets had no king to address, they were part of the mechanism of Old Testament prophecy and the returning captives of their day had other specific leaders governing them.  There are only a small number of prophetic books that are difficult to trace to a specific time and ruler.  We’ll look at the purpose of those messages for the people of their day as well as their usefulness to us. 

Just as kings were responsible for the public welfare, many of us also serve in government jobs and need to determine how faith is properly applied to our work.  Like the prophets, we all are called to serve God first, as well as to serve the government officials.  The governments of our day are not always friendly to believers just as the past kings were often at odds with the prophets.  There should be much we can learn from those days before the life of Christ that we can use as we await his return.