In my last post, which, admittedly, was a while ago, I promised to tackle The Revelation to John, one of the most misunderstood books in the Bible.  I can't do this all in one sitting, though.  There's a lot to uncover, but it's not complicated.  So let's just start with some basics and some history.

Probably the most important rule of Bible interpretation is to understand the context.  What was going on at the time?  How did the people of that day understand their own situation?  We'll need to take a hard look at that.

First of all, however, we need to say a word or two about this particular "style" of literature called "Apocalyptic."  This literary genre, which developed in late post-exilic Judaism, served as a vehicle to carry messages of hope to people under persecution.  That's very important.  Hang onto that thought.

Apocalyptic literature often uses symbolic language.  There are "beasts" with "horns" and numbers and colors -- all of which mean something.  Some have suggested that this was John's "secret" code language so those persecuting the Christians wouldn't know what he was writing about.  That's absolutely false.  the people who heard and read this letter understood it well, and John makes every effort to make sure they see what he's writing.  But over the years, we have lost some of the symbolism, though not all.

Think of apocalyptic as you think of a political cartoon.  If we see one on the Op-Ed page, maybe making reference to President Obama's effort to put people back to work, we know what it's about, because we're familiar with what's going on in the political arena.  2,000 years from now (or even 20) will anyone know what that was about, or understand the irony or humor that the cartoonist was going for?

With apocalyptic literature, in order to understand it TODAY, we have to know what was going on THEN, as nearly as possible.  The Revelation to John was never intended to be a timetable for the end times.  It's not the context of what's going on here.  That whole "end times" piece is, in fact, less than 200 years old.

It might help to clarify things to know that the Hebrews (and these new Christians were, essentially, Hebrews) did not have a concept of "eternity" like Christians have.  The word in the Bible that is often translated into English as "forever" or "everlasting" simply meant "for a long time" -- but a long time in THIS life.

Jewish apocalyptists had a two-age approach:
    The present age of suffering (or persecution)
    The new age with the persecution removed by God's intervention.

After evil runs its course (which God allows, in their understanding), God would intervene, destroy the evil persecutor, and establish the new age with the persecution eliminated.  This new age was not in heaven or at the end of history, but a continuation of history -- a new and better day in this life.

In apocalyptic writing, we don't get a chronological presentation of events.  Rather, we get a series of visions, which are not chronological.  The "seer" begins by recognizing that a persecution is in progress, and ends with the persecution removed.  Very specific images are used, and the images have specific meanings.

Beasts, for instance, show up with heads and horns, grotesque and hideous.  Beasts always represent nations.  Heads and horns always represent rulers (kings and emperors).

Numbers have significance.  Those with special meaning are 3, 4, 7, 10, 12, and 3-1/2.
    3 = the realm of the Spirit
    4 = that which is related to the created order
    7 = completeness -- something that has come to completeness or fulfillment
    10 = similar to seven, but suggests completeness with the nuance of inclusiveness
    12 = the people of God
    3 1/2 = the length of time evil is allowed to run its course.
And, of course, multiples and combinations of these numbers show up, also.  For instance, the number 144,000, which is made quite a lot of by some, is a combination of multiples of 10 and 12, allowing the author to make a larger statement about the full or total number of the people of God.

Colors are also significant.
    White = victory
    Red = war or conflict
    Black = lack of something (food in famine, health in pestilence or plague, etc.)
    Greenish-grey (which the Revised Standard Version translates "pale") = corpse/death.

What was important to the writers of The Revelation to John was not the end times, but the present struggle and the call for endurance now.  To read each apocalyptic work as if it were foretelling the end of the world, therefore, is to read into the text a meaning before determining what the book actually intended to teach.  It is always a call for faithfulness in the midst of persecution for the causes of God in evil times.

There are 3 areas in Revelation that we will look at that are important to understanding its meaning:
    1 - the numbered cycles of 7 (7 seals, 7 trumpets, 7 bowls of the wrath of God)
    2 - The 2 historical surveys (chapters 12-14 and 17-19)
    3 - The thousand-year reign of Jesus with the saints (known as the millennium)

The early church interpreted the millennium in a couple of different ways:
    1 - The millennium, an earthly kingdom, would begin after Jesus returned.  This belief is known as premillennialism -- Jesus would return before the thousand-year reign.
    2 - This period could be the church in the world presently -- until the return of Jesus at the end of the 1,000 years.  This belief is known as postmillennialism -- Jesus would return after the 1,000 years.
    3 - When the year 1000 came and went -- and no Jesus -- it began to be suspected that this language might be symbolic rather than literal.  Christ was reigning in the church and the world, and would continue to do so until the time came for Jesus' final return -- a time which, according to Jesus, no one knows.  the millennium was "in process."

There is a particular modern interpretation sometimes called "Bible prophecy" or "pre-millennial end times," or, more properly, "dispensationalism."  It is what is behind all the modern fiction that is so popular, being adopted by people who have no idea what it means.  It is only about 180 years old.  Here's how this came about...

Persons dissatisfied with the Church of England/Ireland formed cell groups for home study which later became organized into a movement known as the Plymouth Brethren.  They felt the established church was corrupt, and only they were faithful, loyal, and "true blue."

An Irish/Anglican priest, John Darby, joined himself to this movement.  This gets convoluted, so hang on.  Darby taught that God intended to deal with the world through the nation of Israel, but since the Jews rejected Jesus, God put the church in place as a temporary institution until God could get Israel shaped up.  At the "end" the church would be removed.  Darby used 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 (totally out of context) to say that the church would be removed from the world prior to God's coming in and kicking butt and taking names.  And this became known as "The Rapture" -- the faithful church being caught up out of the chaos of God's return to judge the earth -- the unfaithful, "left behind."

Darby began, then, to search the Bible for supporting Scriptures that talked about "The End," and stumbled across The Revelation to John -- without any consideration to what it meant in its context.

Darby traveled to North America 7 times between 1862 and 1877.  America, at the time was in the throes of the Civil War -- an apocalyptic time if there ever was one!

Darby recruited James H. Brookes in 1875 to teach his theories.  Brookes had enormous influence over one student in particular, Cyrus I. Schofield, who helped him realize his dream in 1909 when he published the Schofield Reference Bible -- a Bible supporting Darbyism theology.  Schofield's mantle fell on Lewis Sperry Chafer who became the first president of a school that was founded for the purpose of studying and espousing Darbyism: Dallas Theological Seminary.  A graduate of DTS -- Hal Lindsay -- is the latest interpreter of Darbyism with books like The Late Great Planet Earth, The Rapture: Truth or Consequences, etc.

It is one thing to believe in a system of interpretation, but it is another thing to impose that system on texts which originally did not mean what advocates of that system want them to mean.  The simplest, best, most honest way to understand Revelation is to allow the text to speak for itself.  It still carries a powerful, pertinent message that has tremendous application to life in the 21st Century.

We'll begin to explore the specifics next time, beginning with the letters to the 7 churches, and the 7 seals and the 7 trumpets -- if it's not too much for one blog!  Start reading!

I am always caught up short when things I take for granted are shown to be false.  I end up having to re-evaluate my assumptions, and that's almost always a good thing!

We pastors probably forget that our parishoners do not typically know as much about the Bible as we would like to think they do.  There was a time when we could make a sermon reference to The Good Samaritan, or to David and Goliath, and everyone in the congregation would know what we were talking about.  But many of our worshipers now come from what we arrogantly call "unchurched" backgrounds.  Through no fault of their own, Church wasn't part of their life as children, youth and young adults.  So these casual references leave them saying, "David and who?"

Johann Gutenberg did the Judeo-Christian world a huge favor when he invented the printing press, and enabled the common people to have Bibles of their own to read, no longer dependent on the professional clergy to tell them what the Bible said.  And one of the beautiful things about the Bible is that anyone can read it and get value out of it.  Eugene Peterson, among others, has helped to put the Bible into more modern vernacular with his publication of The Message, a modern paraphrase that is also very good scholarship.  The Millions of copies sold would suggest that perhaps Eugene is a modern-day Gutenberg!  But just reading the Bible doesn't go far enough.

There is a huge difference between Bible reading and Bible study.  For instance: at the very beginning -- Genesis -- there are two dramatically different accounts of creation.  The first starts with nothing, and from the chaos of nothingness, God separates dark from light, the waters from the firmament, and then God creates small animals, fish, birds, etc., and finally a human being.  This creation is accomplished by what is called "Divine Fiat" -- God said, "Let there be..." and there was!

Slammed right up beside that account, without so much as a new chapter, is a second account that begins with God forming a human from the dust and clay of the ground and "breathing into his nostrils the breath of life" -- completely anthropomorphic -- very different from Divine fiat -- and then creating and bringing to the man other creatures, to see what he would name them, as God sought a suitable "helpmate" for the man.

Are we to believe that the Hebrews who put Genesis together didn't realize these accounts were in opposition to one another?  Or could it be that they weren't trying to say HOW creation was accomplished so much as they were trying to tell us WHO accomplished it?  And this has huge implications, don't you think, for the debate between "creationism" and "evolution" -- a debate which has needlessly generated much more heat than light!

And yet, how many people read right through this first three chapters of Genesis and never get it?  This is only one elementary  example from the Bible's first three chapters.  Can you imagine how much exciting stuff awaits our discovery when we go deeper in -- from "reading" to "studying" the Bible?  There's so much in there, and there are zillions of great, scholarly commentaries that can help us in our exploration.

So I want to make the case for studying God's Word.  We're not too old to go to Sunday school after all!

Next blog, we're going to take a look at some of the amazing discoveries we can pull out of the most mis-understood book: The Revelation to John.  I'll give you a couple of weeks to read it first!

Be peace!

Our NC Legislature is placing "the marriage question" before the voters -- because they don't have the backbone to make a decision which might be unpopular with one constituency or another.  They're calling it "in defense of marriage," but nowhere in the legislation is marriage really defended -- just defined -- narrowly.

But on the positive side, I'm hoping this will be an opportunity for the church -- all churches and synagogues and mosques, for that matter -- to get OUT of the business of acting on behalf of the state.  This has to be some sort of hold-over from ancient of days.  Other cultures handle it much differently, and much better.

I have done my fair share of weddings -- approaching 500.  When the couple is not associated with the church, I try to make a judgment about whether it is the intention of the couple to establish a Christian home.  Of course they all tell me it is.  If not, I show them the door.  Admittedly, I err on the side of grace.  I don't like doing non-member weddings for people I don't know.  I feel sort of like I'm prostituting my ministerial credentials.  So I've continually raised my non-member fee!  If I'm going to be a prostitute, at least I'll be a well-paid one!

You see, a significant portion of couples unthinkingly bow to the cultural expectation to be married in a church, whether they've ever been inside a church before or not.  Their families and friends would feel cheated if they were invited to a courthouse for a wedding.  It's just not done!  And even if they wish to conduct their ceremony on the beach, or while sky diving, they feel they need a member of the clergy to do the honors.  (Yes, I've done the beach thing; no, not the other!)

When all is said and done, I take out my pen, fill out the paperwork provided to me by the Wake County Register of Deeds, and declare, on behalf of the State of North Carolina, that this couple is now married.  In so doing, I am an agent of the state, co-opted for this service, but not compensated by the state in any way.

I performed one wedding of a Congolese couple (members of this church) a few years ago whose custom was to first go to the courthouse to be married by a Justice of the Peace, and then come to the church to have a wedding celebration, offering their vows to God.  It was a joy.  And, in my opinion, that is what churches should insist on.  Let the state be the one to marry people -- all couples -- both those who love the Lord and those who don't give a hoot about God's role in their union.  And then, for those who do, let this sacred union be celebrated in the churches and congregations where they already have a relationship.

It's time for the church to get out of the whole business of state weddings.  If the legislature is going to define for its citizens who is and who is not fit to be married to one another, then we need to let the state have all the fun that goes along with these weddings.  I'm taking down my shingle!

This coming Sunday - the first in October - is celebrated across Christendom as World Communion/Peacemaking Sunday.  The history of this celebration goes back quite a few Octobers.  It's one of the Sundays I always look forward to each year.  I can picture folks around the world, from all sorts of traditions and backgrounds, on all seven continents, sitting together at the Table of Remembrance, honoring Christ by honoring their familial links to one another.

I've been deeply troubled lately by what I see as an increased polarization among us.  I don't know if it's a trait exclusive to American culture.  Perhaps it is also occurring in other places.  But I am seeing more and more people gravitate toward people who think and believe and vote as they do, and less and less tolerance - let alone embracing - of those who think and believe and vote differently.  The Presbyterian Church (USA) is struggling heroically with divisive issues, seeking God's wisdom in finding common ground and mutual support.  It is a gut-wrenching struggle for the church.

Recently it became clear to me that someone who was in disagreement with me also apparently greatly dislikes and disrespects me - because of their disagreement!  And this is troubling.  No, I can handle people not liking me.  Happens all the time, I'm sure.  But what is troubling is that there is this sort of automatic connection between the two.  If I disagree with you, I must also dislike and/or disrespect you, and therefore have to disassociate myself from you, seeking instead the company of those who mirror my ideologies exactly.

Nothing could be further from the Christian's call to love one's enemies.  How do we sync this with Paul's admonition to "Let this same mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus?"  Nothing could be more damaging to the society or the church than that we sort ourselves out into think-alike groups who slap each other on the back and heap agreement and acceptance on one another, casting aside all those with whom we disagree.

World Communion stands as a witness against that sort of closed-minded intolerance of others who are "different."  It affirms that though we may not all be of one mind in many ways, we are all sisters and brothers in Christ.  As his disciples, we can find ourselves in vigorous disagreement with one another, but we cannot behave disagreeably and hope to honor our Savior.

It is difficult, at best, to affect peacemaking at the global level.  Most of us don't have that kind of influence.  But it is indeed possible - in fact, it is required - that we be peacemakers in the more day-to-day arenas of our discipleship.

May the blessings of holy communion and peace be yours this week.

I have an interesting story to tell this Sunday (9/25) about a woman who planted daffodils until she had created quite a beautiful "quilt" on a hillside.  She said it was done "one at a time, by one woman.  Two hands, two feet, and very little brain."

There's something to be said for having a vision and sticking to it.  And if your experience is like mine, you may find that it's sometimes one step forward, and two steps back!  No matter.  Keep taking those steps -- even baby steps, if necessary -- until the vision is realized.

What's your vision?  What's your vision for your life?  For your family?  For your church?  For your nation or even your community?  Do you think your small steps make no difference?  Do you feel like you're losing ground?  If so, you're probably wrong.  The Apostle Paul calls for humility in Philippians 2:1-13.  Take on that servant's role, as Jesus did.  Resist the temptation to put your self above others, or above the "cause."  You'll be amazed some day when you look back and see what you've accomplished.

Based on Exodus 16:2-15

We know all about "portion distortion," and it is shocking to discover the difference between the government's "Recommended Daily Allowance" and our normal serving sizes.  The Israelites were having a similar struggle with God's provision of manna and quail for them.  As it turns out, it was a trust issue.  Where are you in relation to God's provision for you?  Is God's promise of abundance going to be abundant enough for your needs?  We hope to  see you Sunday.

This month we will observe the tenth anniversary of the events of September 11, 2001, when terrorist attacks in New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C. killed thousands and precipitated a “War on Terror” that has now spanned a decade and circled the globe.  Some would argue that, as a result of this action, we are even less safe than before.  Others would counter that, at least, we are more aware and watchful, and therefore potentially safer.