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Revelation Ministry in a Hostile World | Derek Tidball · Reformed Thinking

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You know, usually when we talk about receiving a letter from a
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beloved mentor, there is this expectation of like, warm
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greetings, right? You anticipate practical advice,
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maybe some comforting words about your daily struggles, or,
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you know, a bit of conventional wisdom just to help you get
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through a tough week. Yeah, you expect a pat on the
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back. But imagine opening that letter
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and instead of a friendly check in, you find an urgent encoded
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military briefing. Wow.
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Yeah, that's a shift. Right.
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It is full of startling imagery, multi headed Dragons, grotesque
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beasts rising from the sea, cosmic battles in the heavens,
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and the underlying message is essentially the enemy is at the
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gates, absolute hostility is imminent and here is your
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survival protocol, which is. Terrifying, honestly.
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Welcome to Reformed Thinking. Today we are taking a massive,
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detailed look at an absolutely fascinating piece of analysis by
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Derek Tidball, specifically looking at Chapter 14 of his
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work Ministry in a Hostile World.
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It is such a good chapter, it really is, and our mission for
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you today is to look at the Book of Revelation from a completely
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different angle. We are going to examine it not
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as a confusing, cryptic puzzle to be solved, but is a highly
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practical pastoral manual designed to prepare a persecuted
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church for survival and faithfulness.
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Yeah, that pastoral angle is huge.
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OK, let's unpack this, because the historical reality that
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provoked this text is, well, it's staggering, and it demands
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a completely different reading than what most of us are used
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to. It really is a staggering
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context. To frame our discussion, we
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should probably look at a brilliant quote from Eugene
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Peterson that Tidball includes. Oh, I love Peterson.
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What did he say? Peterson said he wanted to play
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Cupid between the words apocalyptic and pastor.
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Play Cupid. Yeah, he pointed out that those
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two words grew up on different sides of the tracks, and you
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know, you rarely hear them in the same sentence.
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That's so true. Think about what comes to mind
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when you hear apocalyptic You think of terrifying visions,
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world ending catastrophes, bizarre symbolism, and a sort of
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frenzied fever pitch tone. Right.
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Like action movie stuff? Exactly.
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Now think of pastor. You picture gentle care,
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counseling, quiet conversations over a cup of coffee.
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Maybe a nice cardigan. Yeah, Cardigan, careful
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shepherding. Those concepts seem violently
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opposed to one another, but Tidball makes the case that
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Revelation unconsciously reveals a massive amount about the
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specific kind of ministry required when the Church faces
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total hostility. I mean the threat of
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annihilation. See, I don't buy this right out
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of the gate. No, no, I mean, if my house is
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on fire, I don't want a poem about a water dragon.
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I want the exit route. Fairpoint.
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Why is John wasting time with multi headed beasts when people
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are literally being thrown into arenas?
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Yeah, if the persecution was so horrific and the danger was so
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immediate, why write something so heavily symbolic instead of
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giving direct, practical instructions like hide in the
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specific cave system or avoid the marketplace on Tuesdays to
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dodge the Imperial Guards? That is the perfect question to
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ask, and it forces us to look directly at the nature of the
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threat itself. Practical instructions on
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physical survival would assume that physical survival is the
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highest goal of the Christian life.
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Oh, oh, OK. But for John, spiritual
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faithfulness to Jesus Christ, who is described in chapter 1 as
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the faithful witness, the first born from the dead, and the
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ruler of the kings of the earth, that is the highest goal.
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So it's about loyalty and not just staying breathing.
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Right. But to understand why plaintext
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instructions wouldn't work, we have to put ourselves in the
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shoes of the original audience. We have to look at the Roman
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emperor Domitian, who ruled from AD 81 to 96.
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Right? This was not casual
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discrimination. Domitian was the very first
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Roman emperor to demand worship as Lord and God in Latin
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domenicit Deus. Let's park there for a second
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because that is a massive shift. Previous emperors might have
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been deified like after they died, right?
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Yes, usually posthumously. But Domitian is demanding this
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while he is still breathing, eating and walking around.
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How did that actually play out in the daily life of an average
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person living in Asia Minor? It meant that the imperial cult
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became the inescapable fabric of daily life.
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This wasn't just about showing up in a temple once a year.
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Like a holiday or something? No, not at all.
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The Imperial cult was tied to the trade guilds, the local
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economy, the civic festivals and the public markets.
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Wow, if you were a Baker, a tent maker, or a merchant in Ephesus
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and you refused to acknowledge to mission as Lord and God, you
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were frozen out of the economy. So you couldn't buy or sell?
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You couldn't participate in the Guild feast, which meant you
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lost your business contacts. You became a social pariah, and
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the mission instituted cruel systemic persecution against
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anyone who refused that demand. He wasn't messing around.
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Yeah, Tidball references a letter from Clement of Rome,
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written right around 1896, which speaks of unexpected misfortunes
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and setbacks and shared torment in the same arena.
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When Clement says torment in the same arena, we need to be clear
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about what that means. Yeah, it's brutal.
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We are talking about the visceral reality of the Coliseum
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and the provincial amphitheaters.
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We are talking about families being torn apart by wild animals
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for public entertainment. It's.
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Unthinkable for us today. We are talking about absolute
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state sponsored terror. It was a brutal environment.
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I mean, the mission was so cruel, so paranoid, and so
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demanding of absolute loyalty that a conspiracy eventually
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assassinated. Him, even his own people, had
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enough. Yeah, so the church in Asia
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Minor was facing an absolute totalitarian threat.
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This is military, economic, secular and sacred opposition
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all rolled into one. Which brings us right back to
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your pushback about why John uses apocalyptic language
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instead of practical survival tips.
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Right, the dragon palms. Right when you are facing
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absolute totalitarian hostility, straightforward plain text
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pastoral letters might not offer the scale of hope required.
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If the state claims absolute divine authority over every
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single aspect of your life, the state says we own your body, we
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own your business, and we own your soul.
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A simple letter saying Hang in there simply does not match the
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magnitude of the threat. Hang in there feels a bit thin
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when there are lions involved. Spot on.
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The apocalyptic genre blows the roof off the immediate political
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crisis to reveal the cosmic reality.
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It bypasses the immediate trauma by showing that the true battle
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is not just against a paranoid Roman emperor, but against
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spiritual forces of evil. And that God maintains absolute
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sovereignty over all of it. Yes, that is the core of it.
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Furthermore, Tidball highlights the specific phrase from
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Revelation chapter one, verse 1. John states he is preparing the
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church for what must soon take place.
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It is an immediate, urgent text. I look at it like a military
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briefing given to soldiers right before a major perilous
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operation. That's a good way to put it.
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This is not theoretical theology discussed in a comfortable
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classroom. It is practical survival
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protocol for the front lines. Absolutely.
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But if the Roman states goal was total assimilation and the
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Christians were just trying to survive, Rome wouldn't have
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cared this much unless the Christians were doing something
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that made them a specific threat.
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Right, they had to be a thorn in the side somehow.
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Yeah, because Rome crushed armed rebellions.
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They didn't typically care about private book clubs.
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What were these Christians actually doing, or what did they
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represent that made them a target in the first place?
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The conflict comes down to competing identities and
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competing kingdoms. Early in the book, in chapters
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one and five, Revelation defines the Church's identity.
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There is described as a Kingdom and priests to worship God the
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Father. Their primary calling was to be
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the visible representation of God's reign on earth.
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Kingdom and priests. Yes, and this priesthood was not
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a special elite class of clergy standing in front of a passive
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audience. Every single member of the
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church was viewed as a priest. So the Baker and the tent maker.
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The Baker, the slave, the wealthy merchant.
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This is a direct echo of the Old Covenant promise in Exodus 19,
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where God tells Israel they will be a Kingdom of priests, and it
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echoes Peter's words In First Peter too.
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Everyone in the Christian community is called a St.
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Let's breakdown what a priest actually does.
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A priest is a mediator. A priest stands between the
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divine and the mundane. In the Roman context, the
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emperor was the ultimate mediator.
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The pawn effects maximus. The bridge builder.
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Right. But here John is telling a group
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of persecuted, marginalized, economically frozen out
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believers. No, you are the priests.
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You are the ones mediating the true God's presence to the
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world. And claiming loyalty to a higher
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supreme authority, declaring that Jesus is Lord, not Caesar,
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was viewed by the Roman Empire as politically subversive and
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highly treasonous. I can see why.
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Yeah, the Kingdom of priests operating within the Roman
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Empire was essentially A rival Kingdom.
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Rome demanded total allegiance. They didn't like competition,
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not at all. When Christians refused to offer
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a pinch of incense to the genius of the emperor, they weren't
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just being stubborn about a religious ritual, they were
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publicly denying the absolute sovereignty of the Roman state.
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To a Roman magistrate, this looked like an insurrection.
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It absolutely did. Furthermore, the role of a
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priest involves offering sacrifices.
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Tidball notes that in chapters 7 and 16 of Revelation, the
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sacrifice these priests are sometimes called to offer is
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their own lives. They are participating in the
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ultimate witness against the state's idolatry.
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I am struck by how decentralized this makes the early church
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look. How so?
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Well, Kevin Giles is quoted in the source material noting that
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the Church order reflected in Revelation is quite undeveloped,
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with little fixed structure. Right, no massive hierarchy.
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Yeah, the letters in chapters 2 and three are addressed to the
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Angel of the Church, which most scholars take as a
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personification of the whole congregation across those seven
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representative churches in Asia Minor.
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Yes, that's the general consensus.
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It feels very much like a decentralized resistance
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movement without a rigid top down hierarchy.
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They are much harder for an empire to eliminate.
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They rely entirely on their shared core identity as Saints
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and priests. This decentralized nature made
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them incredibly resilient, but it also made them extremely
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vulnerable to local pressures. What kind of pressures?
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Well, we need to look at a specific phrase John uses that
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highlights this vulnerability. In the letters to the churches,
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John mentions the synagogue of Satan.
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Hold on, let's camp on that idea of the Synagogue of Satan for a
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minute, because that sounds wildly offensive to modern
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years. What was actually happening
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there? In the Roman Empire, Judaism was
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a religio listed, a legal, permitted religion.
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Jews were historically exempted from participating in the
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imperial cult because the Romans, for all their faults,
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respected ancient traditions. OK, so they had a legal pass?
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They did, and in the earliest days of the church, Christianity
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was viewed by the Romans as just a sect of Judaism.
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So Christians enjoy that same legal protection.
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They were riding on their coattails, so to speak.
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Pretty much. But by the time of the mission,
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the local Jewish communities in Asia Minor were actively
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distancing themselves from the Christians.
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Why? Because the Christians were
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bringing heat down on them. They were telling the Roman
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authorities these people are not with us.
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They are a new rogue group. When the local synagogues kick
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the Christians out, the Christians lost their legal
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umbrella. They were suddenly exposed to
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the full lethal demand of the Imperial.
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Cult, so they were completely vulnerable.
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Completely. So when John uses that harsh
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language, he is reacting to the fact that these local
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communities were essentially handing the Christians over to
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execution. That makes total sense.
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It is not just a theological dispute, it is a matter of
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physical survival. Literally life and death.
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The local synagogue pulling that legal protection away meant the
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Christian Baker Oregon merchant was now fully exposed to the
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wrath of the state. But here's my question.
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If their structure was so undeveloped and they are facing
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this intense crushing pressure from the government on one side
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and losing their legal protection on the other, how do
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they maintain unity and orthodoxy?
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How did they not just fracture into 100 different compromise
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groups? The answer to maintaining that
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unity under pressure lies in the unique leadership role that
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Revelation highlights more than any other New Testament book.
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The prophet Prophets are mentioned 8 times in Revelation.
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They are placed on par with apostles and they are explicitly
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said to face martyrdom for their witness.
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That is a dangerous job description.
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Very. David Hill provides a fantastic
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analysis here, pointing out that Revelation actually lacks some
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of the typical features of standard apocalyptic literature.
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Wait, most apocalyptic literature from that era is
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highly stylized and usually pseudonymous, right?
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Yes, exactly. The author usually pretends to
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be an ancient figure like Enoch or Moses to give the book extra
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authority. Why is Revelation different?
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Because it is at its core, a pastoral letter, John uses his
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real name. He is a known entity to these
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churches. He is their pastor, currently
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exiled on the island of Patmos. He's not hiding behind a fake
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name. No, he makes no pretense to
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secret elite knowledge available only to a few initiates.
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It is not a coded Riddle meant for a secret society.
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It is fundamentally an open communication meant to be read
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aloud in the gathered congregations.
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John is a prophet speaking directly to his people.
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This reminds me of an open source software project designed
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to counter a malicious operating system.
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Oh. I like that run with it.
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Think about it. Rome is the malicious operating
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system. Emperor worship is the mandatory
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terms of service that you have to click agree to if you want to
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participate in society. That's a great analogy.
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John is writing the patch, the code to resist this malware, and
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there is no secret code hidden away for a select few elites.
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The instructions are open source.
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They are read aloud for the entire congregation, giving
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every single believer the slaves, the merchants, the
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wealthy, the poor, the tools to decode and resist the Empire's
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programming. That analogy holds up
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beautifully when you consider that the text suggests the
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church itself is corporately prophetic.
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Corporately prophetic. Yeah, Tidball points out that
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John's writing bears all the classic hallmarks of Old
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Testament prophecy. It is inspired by the Spirit, it
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uses formulas like these are the words of, and it contains severe
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judgments on both God's people and the surrounding nations.
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But it is not just John who is the prophet.
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The two witnesses mentioned in Chapter 11 are widely understood
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to symbolize the entire Christian community.
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The two witnesses in Chapter 11, they prophecy they are killed,
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their bodies lie in the street of the great city, and then they
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are resurrected, right. This isn't just about two
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specific guys. This is the the job description
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of the whole church. Yes, the corporate nature of
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this prophetic calling is central to understanding the
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book. Richard Baucum argues that the
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Church is meant to confront Rome's idolatry in a massive
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prophetic conflict. OK, like what?
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He compares it to Moses confronting Pharaoh and his
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magicians, or Elijah facing down Jezebel and the prophets of
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Baal. Those are heavy hitters.
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Think about those Old Testament showdowns.
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Moses didn't just ask Pharaoh politely to let the people go,
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he systematically dismantled the authority of the Egyptian gods
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through the plagues. Right, it was a theological
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takedown. And Elijah didn't just disagree
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with the prophets of Baal, he set up a public high stakes
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demonstration of who the true God was on Mount Carmel.
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With the fire from heaven. Right.
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The entire church functions as a school of the prophets in this
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exact same way. They do not just sit passively
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and receive John's message, they are actively equipped by the
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Spirit to bear their own witness to the hostile world around
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them. Although I should know that
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Tidball mentions one single negative use of the word prophet
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in Revelation 11.10 regarding 2 witnesses who harm the city and
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people of God. Wait, wait, actually let me
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clarify that the negative use is referring to the false prophet
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in the later chapters, one who deceives the inhabitants of the
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earth to worship the beast. Right, the false prophet.
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The two witnesses in Chapter 11 are the true faithful Church.
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The false prophet acts as the propaganda arm of the state.
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But that contrast just throws into sharp relief the
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overwhelmingly positive, vital calling of the true Church to
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bear faithful witness. They are the counter propaganda.
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And to execute this corporate prophecy effectively, the Church
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cannot rely on human willpower. No, definitely not.
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You do not face down a Roman arena just because you have
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strong willpower. You need a supreme source of
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inspiration. This brings us to the
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theological framework John lays out early in the book and
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chapter one we read about the seven spirits before God's
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throne, which builds on the imagery from Zechariah Chapter 4
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all. Right, let's explain this like I
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am five years old. Seven spirits sounds bizarre to
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a modern year. Are there 7 different holy
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spirits? And what is the imagery in
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Zechariah chapter 4 doing here? Why did it matter to a 1st
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century Jew? In Zechariah 4, the Prophet sees
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a solid gold lamp stand with a bowl at the top and seven lamps
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on it. There are two 2 olive trees
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beside it, continually dripping oil directly into the bowl.
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OK, I can picture that. Zechariah asks what this means,
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and the Angel says not by might nor by power, but by my spirit,
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says the Lord Almighty. The lampstand represents God's
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witness in the world, and the oil is the endless, unceasing
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supply of God's Spirit that. Makes a lot of sense.
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The number 7 in Hebrew literature represents
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completeness, perfection or fullness.
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So when John speaks to the seven spirits, he's not saying there
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are 7 distinct spirits. He is referring to the absolute
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perfect fullness of God's active spirit at work in the world.
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This is the Spirit who continually fuels the Church.
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This Spirit inspires the prophet to expose false idols, to
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proclaim Christ's reign, and to bring messages of both rebuke
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and judgment. And that spirit is entirely
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focused on one specific person, Revelation 19.10 says.
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For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
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Jesus is the center of it all. He is portrayed as the slain yet
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triumphant Lamb who is actively orchestrating all of human
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history. He's running the show.
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The Spirit's role is to reveal the true identity of this Lamb,
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who alone is worthy of worship. Look at the contrast John is
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making. Rome worships power, military
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conquest and domination represented by the beast, right?
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The Church worships a lamb looking as if it had been slain.
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It is a complete inversion of what the world considers
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powerful. And how John communicates that
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inversion is brilliant. We have to look at the specific
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communication strategy he uses. The scholar GR Beasley Murray
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compares John's writing to a contemporary political cartoon.
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I want to stretch this political cartoon analogy because it is
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the key to unlocking the whole book.
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Please do. How does a political cartoon
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work today? If a cartoonist wants to make a
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point about the national debt crushing the middle class, they
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don't draw a literal spreadsheet.
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That'd be. Boring.
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Right. They draw an average guy
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carrying a massive suffocating anvil labeled Debt while a fat
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cat in a suit looks on. It uses exaggerated symbols,
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animals, monstrous figures, distorted features to convey a
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striking truth about a political situation without necessarily
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naming the individuals directly. Spot on.
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John writes of beasts, bowls, trumpets and uses symbolic names
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like Babylon for Rome and Jerusalem for the true people of
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God. He deliberately exaggerates
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these images to make the spiritual reality undeniably
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plain to the believers. This allows John to speak
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entirely treasonous truths about the Roman Empire in a medium
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that believers can easily decode, while Roman authorities
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might read it and just see baffling mythical nonsense.
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Yeah, they. 'D just be confused.
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A Roman centurion intercepts this letter, reads about a multi
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headed dragon chasing a woman into the wilderness and throws
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it in the trash thinking it's just the lunatic ravings of an
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old man on Patmos. But the church reads it and they
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see the reality of imperial oppression.
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The symbol bypasses the censor. It bypasses the censor, but
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crucially, it also bypasses trauma.
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What do you mean by that? How does a symbol bypass trauma?
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Think about the psychology of persecution.
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If you are a believer whose brother was just executed in the
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arena, or whose shop was just burned down by a mob, your
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nervous system is in a state of absolute overload.
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You're in fight or flight. Right reading a dry theological
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treatise on the sovereignty of God might not penetrate that
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trauma, but an apocalyptic image, a vision of a beast
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rising from the sea, validates the sheer monstrous horror of
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what you're experiencing. It matches what they feel
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inside. It says yes, this empire is a
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monster, your terror is justified.
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But then it immediately shifts the camera to heaven, showing
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the Lamb on the throne holding the scroll of human history.
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It engages the imagination, which is often the only part of
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the human mind still accessible when the rational mind is shut
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down by severe trauma. That is a staggering insight.
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The apocalyptic imagery provides cognitive relief to someone
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living in constant terror. And the key to decoding this
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cartoon, the key to understanding the imagery, is
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the Old Testament. It's heavily saturated in it.
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Tidball notes the massive volume of Old Testament illusions and
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revelation. Commentators agree that Isaiah,
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Daniel, Ezekiel, and the Psalms are the most frequently
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referenced. John uses these illusions
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analogically, by contrast or to show direct.
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Fulfillment, He really does. Why does John use the term
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Babylon instead of just saying Rome?
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Because Babylon is the ultimate Old Testament archetype of a
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proud humanistic empire that opposes God and crushes his
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people. By calling Rome Babylon, John is
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tapping into centuries of Israel's history.
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It carries all that weight. The depth of that Old Testament
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connection cannot be overstated. John Sweet counted 40 Senate
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allusions from Isaiah, 31 from Daniel, 29 from Ezekiel, and 27
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from the Psalms. That is just incredible.
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John is completely immersed in the language and thought forms
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of the Hebrew scriptures. He uses that framework to
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describe the terrifying world the church is facing, giving
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them a theological vocabulary to interpret their.
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Suffering it grounds them. By drawing on Daniel's beasts or
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Ezekiel's visions, John is telling the church God has
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handled massive, arrogant empires before.
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He broke Babylon, he broke Persia, he broke Greece, and he
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is handling Rome right now. But this raises a huge issue for
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how people read the book today. Oh, here we go.
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If the entire book functions like a 1st century political
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cartoon meant to comfort traumatized believers in Asia
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Minor, does that mean modern readers are missing the forest
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for the trees? Often, yes.
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People today spend countless hours trying to map every single
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horn, every trumpet and every seal on into specific modern
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events like helicopters, microchips, or specific
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political leaders. Are we completely abusing the
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text when we do that? When we treat revelation is a
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timeline of future events or a crystal ball for the Evening
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News, we completely strip it of its pastoral intent.
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We rob it of its original meaning.
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We turn it into a puzzle. Exactly, and John was writing a
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form of Christian exhortation and encouragement to real people
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facing real death in the 1st century.
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The symbols were meant to reveal the monstrous nature of state
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idolatry and the assured victory of the Lamb.
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If we lose that focus, we lose the Pastor Prophet's entire
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message. It's tragic when you put it like
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that. Which brings us to how John
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successfully merges several distinct leadership roles to
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accomplish this massive task. Yes, the merging of the pastor,
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the prophet, and the teacher. 1st Corinthians 14 tells us that
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prophecy is meant for strengthening encouragement and
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comfort, but Hans von Kampenhausen makes a very
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helpful distinction between prophets and teachers in the
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early church. Let's unpack the mechanics of
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this. Von Kampenhausen argues that
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prophets brought a fluid, immediate word from God,
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focusing on proclamation. They were the ones saying, Thus
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says the Lord, right now, right? Teachers, on the other hand,
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were circumscribed by tradition. Their job was to carefully
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expound Old Testament texts, hand down the established faith,
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and make sure everyone understood the doctrine.
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What is remarkable is that John refuses to separate the those
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roles. He acts as a meticulous teacher,
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heavily expounding the Old Testament to give his readers a
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solid intellectual framework. He is grounding them in covenant
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theology. But he also acts as a prophet,
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delivering a highly immediate, vivid declaration of God's
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victory over the mission's empire.
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He uses the prophetic tradition to instruct the church, digging
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into recurring scriptural themes to provide far more than simple
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sound bite promises. Because sound bites don't hold
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up in the arena. No, they don't.
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He wants to ensure their patient perseverance is built on a rock
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solid theological foundation of God's absolute sovereignty.
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And as a pastor, John completely rejects superficial comfort.
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This is the part of Tidball's analysis that hits the hardest.
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It's very confronting. When people are going through
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terrible suffering, the temptation is to offer cheap
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platitudes. John avoids all of that.
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He never says don't worry, the persecution might blow over.
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Or just look on the bright side. Maybe the next emperor will be
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nicer. That would just be cruel,
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honestly. He doesn't even offer a
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thoughtless, out of context quote of Romans 8.28.
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Instead, he enters fully into the absolute horror of the
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onslaught they're about to face. He there's them nothing, he
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tells them. Some of you are going to be
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thrown into prison, some of you were going to be killed.
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Validating their fear is a psychological of spiritual
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necessity. By not minimizing the threat of
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demissions cruelty, John establishes immense credibility
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with his readers. They know he's telling the
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truth. He acknowledges that the forces
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of destruction, the beast from the sea, the beast from the
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earth, would annihilate them if they could.
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But after validating that terror, he offers a hope that is
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demonstrably stronger than death.
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The ultimate hope. He paints A vivid picture of
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Satan and his companions being banished to the lake of burning
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sulfur and the ultimate restoration of Eden, where God
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dwells with his people in the new heavens and the new earth.
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It's beautiful. He proves, proves that the worst
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case scenario, martyrdom is not a defeat, it is not an accident,
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it is a participation in the victory of the Lamb.
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I think of it like a doctor giving a severe diagnosis to a
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patient. Go on.
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A bad doctor wanting to avoid discomfort and wanting to keep
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the mood light might say you'll be fine.
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Don't worry about it. Take some aspirin.
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Which doesn't help at all. Right.
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That leaves the patient completely unprepared for the
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reality of the illness when it ravages their body.
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A great doctor looks you in the eye and says this disease is
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highly aggressive. The treatment is going to be
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brutal, you are going to lose your hair, you're going to be
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sick and it will be the hardest thing you've ever done.
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But there is a cure. Yes, the great doctor says.
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But I have the precise medical protocol that will cure you, and
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I will be with you through every single step of it.
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John is that great doctor. He details the brutality of the
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beast, but prescribes the absolute triumph of the lamb.
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David Hill summarizes the prophetic role beautifully, and
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it applies directly to what John achieved as this pastor,
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prophet, teacher. What does he say?
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Prophets speak with authority. They address a community that is
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itself called to be prophetic in its daily life.
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They interpret history through a theological lens.
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They reinterpret the Old Testament in light of Jesus
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Christ. All of those pieces coming
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together. And they do all of this to keep
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the church persevering and faithful when compromised with
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the culture would be the easiest, safest, and most
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economically viable option. John's writing is the ultimate
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example of this pastoral prophetic synthesis.
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So what does this all mean? As we wrap up this deep dive,
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the main take away is incredibly clear.
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It really is. The Book of Revelation is far
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from a cryptic puzzle meant to confuse us or a massive code
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book for end times survivalists. It is a brilliant Old Testament
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saturated survival guide. Yes, it was written by a pastor
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prophet who loved his people enough to tell them the
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terrifying truth to encourage a Kingdom of priests facing total
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life threatening hostility. And that brings it directly back
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to you, the listener. Imagine you are sitting in a
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covert house church today. You might not be facing the
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specific arena torments of the 1st century or a Roman emperor
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demanding incense. Most of us aren't.
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But if you are experiencing hostility in your workplace, if
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you are feeling economically marginalized for your
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convictions, or if you feel overwhelmed by a culture that
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demands your total uncritical allegiance to its ideologies,
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you are participating in the exact same corporate prophetic
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witness that John was writing about.
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You are part of that Kingdom. You're part of that Kingdom of
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priests called to declare that Jesus, not the state, not the
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culture, and not the economy, is the true ruler of the kings of
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the earth. Spot on.
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Which leaves us with a final thought to Mull over.
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John used the vivid, wildly exaggerated symbols of beasts
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and Babylon to reveal the true monstrous nature of the Roman
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Empire to his congregation. He pulled back the curtain.
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He really did. He showed them what was really
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going on behind the scenes of their daily suffering.
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If John were sitting down to write a pastoral letter to us
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today, utilizing the exact same strategy, what political
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cartoons or symbols might he use to expose the modern ideologies,
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economic systems, or cultural forces that demand our absolute
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loyalty today? That is a challenging question.
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What does the beast look like in our century?
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Thank you for joining us on Reformed Thinking.
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We will see you next time.