World Without End

Talking about Revelation: An Eschatological Hermeneutic

Earlier this week I posted about how local churches need to engage with Revelation. To some, this might be an insurmountable task.

The character of Revelation makes an auditory involvement necessary. In country terms; We need to HEAR Revelation.

Those in the company of preachers must learn to call the church to its eschatological dwelling place.  In the enterprise of the earthly church taking Revelation back, local pastors serve both as truck drivers and road crew.  We direct the energy as well as take care of the movement so that the laity can travel alongside. Intentionally preaching eschatologically means a deliberate admonition of the end that comes across as assured as the deliberate notions of beginning. Our role is to theologically play the childhood game of “connect the dots”. We are story-tellers, not date-setters.   

As pastors we must tell people about the other world,  living in the the subversive act of preached hope. Instead of romantic historical meanderings that lament morals gone amuck, we focus on preached time. Preached time creates the path to New Jerusalem.  This alternate narrative answers the question of who really is in charge.

Whenever I teach Revelation to a new group of people, I start with a question. It goes something like this; "I am going to let you make a decision as to how we will read this book and how I will teach it to you. We can either let Revelation be a book that only pertains to a distinct group of people at only one time in the history of the world or we can read it as though it has informed the church for 2000 years and will continue to speak to us."

I have never had a group take option A. Even if they are hardcore Left Behinders, the second choice just sounds better. If teaching Revelation freaks you out, let the congregation make the first choice. Present to them a basic reading strategy. It will allow you to stay away from so many testy issues.

Revelation doesn't work in a passive setting. We have to be intentional and deliberate with it, but shouldn't we with all scripture?

Related Posts:
The Apocalyptic Pastor
Preaching, Mindmapping and the Apocalypse of John
Christian Time and the End of Times

Glory be to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit:
As it was in the beginning, is now, and shall ever be, world without end.

Tackling the Antichrist: Part 2 True Devotion

In the last post we looked quickly at the only four occurrences of “antichrist” in the scriptures (1 Jn 2:18,22 4:3 and 2 Jn 7). At the end of the post I asked the reader to spend some time in these verses alone and answer this question.

How would you define antichrist?

When looking at the verses, I think 2 John 7 really sums up everything.

2 John 7  Many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh; any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist! (NRSV)

The theme of antichrist (ἀντίχριστοι) follows the larger theme of idolatry, prophecy and devotion  of the entire scriptures.  The desires that cause us to fall away from God are not grey matter...but they are the works of what tear us away from God.  What fights for our allegiance away from God?

1 Jn 2:19 gives us more of look at what and where the issues stems from. “...But by going out they made it plain that none of them belongs to us”.  The larger discussion in chapter 2 about antichrist surrounds what defines Christian orthodoxy, a very important matter in those days.  It was necessary to have proper thought about who Jesus was in relation to YHWH, the chain of Father->Son was crucial.

John doesn’t write from the place of the academic theologian, but from the place of the pastor. He cared about his people.  His primary concern is voiced at the end of this section in v.28

1 John 2:28  And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he is revealed we may have confidence and not be put to shame before him at his coming.

We are beginning to see that this idea is much more important to us as individuals, and bears on our current fate, than the expectation of some single person in the future. What tears us away and causes us to turn our hearts from God? What causes us to fall into sin and idolatry?

Next, I want to look more at the biblical spirit of antichrist, getting into the apocalyptic books of Daniel and Revelation. We often hear the question "Who is the AntiChrist?" but how often do we wonder how we ourselves feed into the idea?

Glory be to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit:
As it was in the beginning, is now, and shall ever be, world without end.

Proposing Ears to Hear

I am often asked by friends and those in church circles if I ever want to formally put my thoughts regarding Eschatology and the book of Revelation together.  I carefully navigate these questions because I feel called to the local church. Therefore, much of my energy related to these topics is placed inside the local church. I don't like the idea of meandering through 100 pages of the use of the genative case. I know people much better at that than me, and I will gladly point others in their direction.

I am writing a Master's Thesis, because I liked the idea of a place to systematically work through some ideas.  My proposal was approved last week, and I am officially starting today, although I have spent years mulling over various rabbit trails regarding Eschatology and contemporary culture.

If you are so inclined, here is my proposal.  Only 3 pages are actual writing, the rest is bibliography and such. Thanks for staying with me on this journey.

Thesis Proposal v.3

The Apocalyptic Pastor

Eugene Peterson is about as mystical as Presbyterians get. He is a great example of a 21st century contemplative. Over the last few weeks I have been studying the use of Revelation in preaching and the pastoral vocation. Peterson devotes an entire chapter in The Contemplative Pastor: Returning to the Art of Spiritual Direction to the topic.

Peterson quickly identifies the role of apocalyptic as an adjective of the pastor. Insisting on the realities of the kingdom against the realities of the world is part of the task of the pastor. They are there to remind us of our exact station. Too often, the church acts like Israel, waiting for the promised Messiah. The Christian life lives in the expectation birthed by the resurrection.

Below are the three broad strokes that Peterson takes describing the apocalyptic pastor.

1. Apocalyptic Prayer-
Prayer is the pivotal action in the Christian community. In his task of being a pastor, John situates himself in prayer through the whole book. At the beginning and end of Revelation, John is in a posture of worship. Living on the boundary between Rome and the Kingdom, prayer connects the Christian life. Prayer is a formal, awesome activity. Pastors pray to bring people into the presence of God. Prayer is the true reality of a Christian

2. Apocalyptic Poet-
John is playful in Revelation, because he shapes a new reality for the reader. This is translation, not memorization. The creative task of the pastor is to shape the praying imagination of his people, therefore poetry must be used. Poetry is original speech, bringing things into being. Words make truth.

3. Apocalyptic Patience-
We want things quickly. The apocalyptic community is patient because it dwells in holy wedlock with Christ. It develops us into the true people of God. Apocalypse is urgent without being hurried. Patience is needed to enter into the "subtle and glorious poem vision". It takes patience to unlearn our hurried life and abide in the "deep time" of God. 

If you are familiar with Peterson, you understand that he constantly promotes a John 15 approach to Christianity, bed rocked in a constant and on-going relationship. This quick chapter is just another step in his dance.

Related Posts:
Story Telling and Re-Telling
Forming an Eschatological Community: Formation through Text

Glory be to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit:
As it was in the beginning, is now, and shall ever be, world without end.

New Directions in 2011

The last few days I have been working on blog stats and planning how both this blog and my "usual" blog outsideisbetter.net will run for the next year. It is always good to be constantly tweaking things.

I am moving towards version 2.0 ( I like to call it POMO2.0) on PostModernEschatology.com. My desire for this site has always been to resource and write for the average Christian, and putting the book of Revelation back into the hands of worshipping congregations. These slight changes in POMO2.0 are designed to help this site work better inside that mission. I just wanted to let you know of a few upcoming things.

1. Swag- I and a few others are producing some great little pieces of swag for the blog. I think that in the 21st century, Christian resourcing needs to take on the idea of the grassroots rock band instead of the huge publishing house. So why not have fun stuff?

2. Giveaways-I held a contest on twitter a few months back, and I send the winner a random package of Revelation related stuff that I had collected. I have a great reader pool that sends me all sorts of stuff, so I want to pass that along to you. Sometimes these giveaways can be serious and at other times they can be zany.

3. Videos- I am writing a producing a few short videos that are designed to be used as conversation starters for small groups and bible studies. These videos will be given away free on the internet, but I might package them together and sell them on disc CHEAP.

The main move will be taking content on the blog in a more focused direction towards resourcing. When I looked at the stats for my first few months I had a better reader spread. As the months went along I noticed a dip when my posts became more technical than they needed to be.  This happened when I spent to much time in original languages and more complicated information. Since I study Revelation and Eschatology in the Academic Sector, I fall into this mode at times. 

But that doesn't fit the original model and mission of the site.  In the next week I will be rolling out a format where I spend several posts on a topic, and at the end of the series I will release a .pdf of more research oriented material for the folks that like that type of information.  That way I can provide two levels of writing and information that YOU can use.

I wanted to share this so you can keep your eyes open in the future for POMO2.0. I am really excited and I hope you are as well. If you have any thoughts please feel free to share them in the comments.

Glory be to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit:
As it was in the beginning, is now, and shall ever be, world without end.

Christian Time and the End of Times

I took this picture earlier in the year of my favorite prayer shack at the Abbey of Gethsemani in Bardstown, Ky.  Famous as the monastery of Thomas Merton, I can completely lose track of time during my retreats there.  This particular Rosary Hut is my favorite place to forget about things and concentrate on prayer. I leave behind the time that often rules me and enter into the liminal space of eternal time.

In my studies on the book of Revelation, I am coming to the growing conviction that the book is less about a linear dating of a dramatic close of life and instead that it is a narrative of Christians living inside the world.  How we further identify our own dwelling place, either in the city of God or in Babylon, Revelation speaks to the timeless breadth of the Church. 

I have been surveying what others think about this idea and I have found some very interesting thoughts.  In the book Narrative Reading, Narrative Preaching: Reuniting New Testament Interpretation and Proclamation,Stanley P. Saunders writes a chapter titled Revelation and Resistance: Narrative and Worship in John's Apocalypse. Saunders quickly sums his reading of Revelation in this quote;

Revelation was created for oral performance amid the eucharistic gatherings of the early Christians.

Saunders trots this out by dealing with the linear structure of the way that we assume narrative generally takes place, and explains it as only making sense inside a non-linear "imaginative participation".  I have also been listening to lectures by Thomas Hopko's Apocalypse: The Book of Revelation Within Orthodox Christian Tradition. This series outlines the book of Revelation within an Orthodox framework.  The Orthodox lectionary doesn't have a single reading from Revelation, it is the only NT book left out of their reading cycle.  Hopko goes on to teach that its inclusion is not necessary because Revelation is woven throughout the Orthodox liturgy as a foundational principle.

Christian time differs from earthly time.  It is caught up in the idea of time being something that is conceded to man so we can better understand who God is. Worship is then an active rehersal of the world according to God.  To think of time being final to God is quite silly.  Revelation as scripture is highly illogical in the most rational sense, because it must be read in relation to the entire canon. By removing the fairly recent interpretation of Revelation being a calender and instead integrating it within Christian time gives us a better reading, and a truer one to the larger tradition of Christian history.

Doing this isn't easy, and it takes stretches that might need a generation.  Revelation must be preached, and not just to ease congregational concern.  It is like remolding play-dough, and even having to add some water to it in the process.  Revelation is a book of worship acted out in participation.  It is an apostolic narrative of resisting the world.  The 7 churches in chapters two and three set the stage, and the rest of the book is a culmination of biblical idolatry and the consequences of it. 

In the end (no pun intended), we live against the idea of the end of times and actually think of the book as the entirety of time.

Glory be to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit:
As it was in the beginning, is now, and shall ever be, world without end.

 

Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture

This semester I have been prepping to write a Thesis on the book of Revelation.  I spent some time in a Doctoral seminar on the history of Biblical Interpretation.  As part of that class I read Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture by Francis Young. This book looks at the foundations of Christian exegesis (the study of scripture) and how it was part of forming the unique Christian culture in the first few centuries of faith.  I read the book and then engaged it specifically with the book of Revelation and how we can apply some of the patristic principles to our modern day reading of Revelation.  Here is the paper (embedded from my Scribd account).

Engagement With Young and Revelation

Revealed Glory: unmasking apocalypse

Lately I have been thinking and reading about the “aim of scripture.”  Not the point behind scripture, but the overall view of what it tells us.  The aim takes in the entire book, from Genesis to Revelation, and inside of the idea we are consistently looking at scripture to explain itself through scripture.

That sounds kinda complicated....doesn’t it?

What this means is that the places that are really confusing should be interpreted in light of the whole text.  This isn’t just jumping around the Bible and trying to find something similar (this is pretty dangerous actually), but instead working out a view and reading of the Bible as the overarching story of God in this world.

I am writing a paper right now that of why the aim of scripture is important, directed at how the early Church Fathers had to use scripture in defense against the gnostics...who were particularly good at sculpting scripture to say what they wanted it to say. This practice didn’t die in the 3rd century. To them, the aim of scripture and the act of a right reading, is what defined what was Christian and what wasn't.

In books like Revelation, the aim of scripture become extremely important, because many people will separate Revelation from the greater sense of the biblical text, especially the New Testament.  For a book that is considered part of the community of John (G.of John, 1-3 John and Revelation), these fantastical interpretations really pull it out of the greater characteristics of it’s literary family.

The best place to start off this idea is the word apocalypse (in greek Ἀποκάλυψις).  At the beginning the book is identified as an apocalypse of Jesus (Ἀποκάλυψις Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ) given to John (Rev 1:1).  Often, we think of apocalypse as a word describing a dramatic and violent ending.  A simply lexical study will prove this false.  The BDAG gives us a major definition as follows

1. Making Fully Known
a. of the revelation of truth (Romans 16:25, Eph 1:7), a light of revelation to the gentiles (lk 2:32)
b. of revelations of particular kinds, through visions etc..(Gal 1:12, Rev 1:1, 2 Cor 2:1), the secret was made known by revelations (Eph 3:3, 2 Cor 12:7)
c. of the disclosure of secrets belonging to the last days (1 Pt 4:13)

2. As part of the book title-

So we see that apocalypse, defined as revealing, has meanings listed higher than the one that we usually ascribe to it (c). But even the references behind c gives us a picture.

1Pet. 4:13 But rejoice insofar as you are sharing Christ’s sufferings, so that you may also be glad and shout for joy when his glory is revealed.

Even in the supposed “doom and gloom” definition, we see a distinct idea of the term Ἀποκάλυψις through the witness of scripture (also see 1 Pet 1:7, 13, 1 Cor 1:7, 2 Th 1:7) . Even in 1st Peter’s usage, we don’t see a cataclysmic reading, but the idea that the glory of Jesus will be revealed.  So it is in the defining of the “glory being revealed” that a view of the end is formed, not a view of destruction.  In the finality of our knowledge of Christ, our adoption will be revealed in its full sense of power.  This revelation is part of our inheritance as part of the family of God.

Yes, the vision given to John is a revealing message.  The first word of the book is heavily loaded, instantly painting a picture across scripture of the glory of God being revealed...and many of the references are specifically directed to his people.  How will we handle this knowledge placed to us?  In Revelation we don’t read the theological treatise of Paul regarding the exalted Christ, but we see him living as the risen Lord Jesus.  This is BIG knowledge.   I also do not want to discount judgement, because it is going to happen, but it should be placed in the proper context.  Allowing judgement to be the defining theme of Revelation as well as defining the word apocalypse simply isn’t a good use of scripture. 

So how do Christians understand Revelation to be about God and His glory incarnated in the Son of Jesus Christ?  That is the contemporary question that exists within Revelation today.  Just as the 7 churches struggled with distinguishing themselves from the world, we today have the same call. By us better understanding Jesus Christ we better interpret our place in this world. We are what we worship!!!

Glory be to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit;
As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be

St. Augustine on the Lion and the Lamb

I am preaching from Revelation 5 this weekend, and in my prep I was reading through the Revelation (Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture) volume on Revelation.  This is a great series highlighting Patristic writing on the Bible.  Below is an extended quote from St. Augustine on viewing Christ as the Lion and the Lamb in chapter 5.

"Like a sheep he was led to be slaughtered, and like a lamb in the presence of the shearer he was without voice, thus he did not open his mouth." Who is this? Obviously the one about whom he goes on to say, "In humility his judgement was taken away. His generation, who shall relate?" I can see this model of humility in a  king of such power and authority. Because this one, who is like a lamb not opening its mouth in the presence of the shearer, is himself "the lion from the tribe of Judah."

Who is this, both lion and lamb? He endured death as a lamb; he devoured it as a lion. Who is this, both lion and lamb? Gentle and strong, lovable and terrifying, innocent and mighty, silent when he was being judged, roaring when he comes to judge. Or perhaps both in his passion lamb and lion, and also in his resurrection lion and lamb. Let us see him as a lamb in his passion. It was stated a moment ago: "Like a lamb in the midst of his shearer he was without voice, thus he did not open his mouth." Let us see him as a lion in his passion: Jacob said, "You have gone up, lying down you have slept like a lion." Let us see him as a lamb in his resurrection.

The book of Revelation, when it was talking about the eternal glory of virgins, "They follow the lamb, it is said, wherever he goes." The same book of Revelation says, what I mentioned just now, "The lion from the tribe of Judah has conquered, to open the book." Why a lamb in his passion? Because he underwent death without being guilty of any iniquity. Why a lion in his passion? Because in being slain he slew death. Why a lamb in his resurrection? Because his innocence is everlasting. Why a lion in his resurrection? Because everlasting also in his might" Sermon 375 A.I."

I love how the Fathers are able to explain scripture from what is called "the mind of scripture", being that they were so read in the scripture that they are able to explain things from the entire canon, reading the Christ event across the whole text.

Glory be to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit;
As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be

An active Eschatology

I really enjoy thinking about how it is possible to leave a fear based cataclysmic eschatology (one filled with the fear of the end, and fascinated with escape) and enter into an active view of the culmination of creation and the marriage supper of the lamb. I wrote a series on forming an eschatological community last March.  In it I focused on worship/formation and how inside of worship the Church thrusts itself into the future.

Think about (with the exception of Kari Jobe's Revelation Song) the last time you remember the average church service interacting with either Revelation or Eschatology outside of the sermon.  When was it and how was it done?

We had opening chapel today at Asbury and we participated in a great call to worship from Revelation 7.  My friend Zack Glenn did an amazing job leading it. The bold type is where the community responded.

After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.
They cried out in a loud voice, saying,

“Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!” 

And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God,
singing,

Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom
and thanksgiving and honor
and power and might
be to our God forever and ever! Amen.” 

This was a great way to enter worship....anytime you have 500+ people saying words like that it has to be powerful.

Glory be to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit;
As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be