Latest / Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture / Revelation and Empire: Shane Wood | Faith & Politics #11

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Revelation and Empire: Shane Wood | Faith & Politics #11 · Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture

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  Speaker 1: The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that
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  Speaker 1: deny God. As such, we need Thinking Christian to become
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  Speaker 1: as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast.
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  Speaker 2: I'm Dr. James Spencer.
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  Speaker 1: Through calm, thoughtful, theological discussions, Thinking Christian highlights the ways
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  Speaker 1: God is working in the world and questions the underlying social, cultural,
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  Speaker 1: and political assumptions that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now,
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  Speaker 1: on to today's episode of Thinking Christian.
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  Speaker 2: Hey, everyone.
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  Speaker 1: Welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian.
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  Speaker 2: I'm Dr. James Spencer. I'm joined today by Dr. Shane J. Wood.
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  Speaker 1: He is the professor of New Testament and Christian origins
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  Speaker 1: at Ozark Christian College.
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  Speaker 2: I actually said that wrong.
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  Speaker 1: He's the professor of New Testament and its origins at
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  Speaker 1: Ozark Christian College.
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  Speaker 2: Just reading too far ahead.
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  Speaker 3: It's all right, man.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: So, we're going to have, if you all don't know,
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  Speaker 1: Shane's been on the show a couple times. One of those,
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  Speaker 1: we talked about his book on Revelation called Thinning the Veil.
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  Speaker 1: And that's encountering Jesus Christ in the book of Revelation.
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  Speaker 1: And so, I want to have Shane back on as
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  Speaker 1: part of this series that we're doing on Christians in Politics.
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  Speaker 1: because Revelation has so much to do with the intersection
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  Speaker 1: of Christian faith and governing authorities, economy, all those kinds
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  Speaker 1: of things. And I just feel like there's some really
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  Speaker 1: important patterns in the book that we could unearth.
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  Speaker 2: So thanks for being back, bro. Really appreciate it. Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Thanks for having me, man. You never know whenever you
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  Speaker 3: go on a podcast, if you're ever welcome back. So
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  Speaker 3: I appreciate you even. This is the third time.
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  Speaker 2: It's yeah, it is.
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  Speaker 3: That's right.
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  Speaker 1: We'll get to five and then we'll do a whole
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  Speaker 1: Saturday night live five timers thing.
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  Speaker 2: It'll be great. I'll get you a smoking jacket. You'll
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  Speaker 2: love it.
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  Speaker 3: That's great.
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  Speaker 1: Um, so, so my assumption, and I've read, I read
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  Speaker 1: your book, obviously on revelation. I've read, uh, reading revelation
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  Speaker 1: responsibly lately. Um, you know, I've been through Beals commentary, um,
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  Speaker 1: taught through revelation, my church, um, There seems to be
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  Speaker 1: some really interesting takes on what political implications.
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  Speaker 2: You might tease out from Revelation.
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  Speaker 1: Some of them with very Anabaptist roots, sort of like,
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  Speaker 1: let's just stay out of this kind of vibe. Others
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  Speaker 1: with a little bit more militants might be like, no,
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  Speaker 1: let's just avoid the Antichrist.
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  Speaker 2: Let's crush him under our heel. So I'm kind of
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  Speaker 2: wondering what your.
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  Speaker 1: Take is on this and how you think the revelation
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  Speaker 1: might speak to sort of the heart of being Christian
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  Speaker 1: in the world that is governed by these authorities that
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  Speaker 1: are instituted by God.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, what I love about this conversation, not
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  Speaker 3: just your guys' series on politics, but this one about
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  Speaker 3: revelation is that this is the core question that revelation
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  Speaker 3: begins with. You know, these these Christians in Asia Minor
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  Speaker 3: are under the thumb or under the shadow of the
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  Speaker 3: empire at a time when the emperor has kind of
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  Speaker 3: just lost his mind. So Domitian at the end of
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  Speaker 3: the first century is is spiraling. And he his primary
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  Speaker 3: people that he's attacking is number one is the Roman elite, especially.
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  Speaker 3: So senators are our number one targets that he is
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  Speaker 3: killing mercilessly. And then number two is Jews of the
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  Speaker 3: Roman Empire, of which Christians would have been considered a sect.
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  Speaker 3: You know, you had the Pharisees, Sadducees, Herodians. And from
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  Speaker 3: the Roman perspective and these other ones that follow this Christ,
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  Speaker 3: you know, or as Tacitus says, this Crestus. So they're
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  Speaker 3: being crushed uniquely, being caught really between if, you know,
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  Speaker 3: if let's say, for example, the Roman Empire comes after
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  Speaker 3: this Jewish community and the Jewish community, once in some
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  Speaker 3: sense to protect themselves, they may grab a Christian and
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  Speaker 3: put them in front of them. So Christians are being, um,
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  Speaker 3: at the end of the first century that they're caught
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  Speaker 3: in a world, a war of politics, um, which is
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  Speaker 3: frankly like the Bible. Like this, one of the things
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  Speaker 3: I'm just going to be honest, like there's one of
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  Speaker 3: the things where I'm like, we don't have to wait
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  Speaker 3: till revelation for the Bible to get political. Right.
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  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 3: Like the, the entire Bible is trying to help us navigate, uh,
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  Speaker 3: this world that is frankly, um, militantly warring against, I
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  Speaker 3: would argue, warring against God himself, but ultimately outworking the
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  Speaker 3: grammar of death that they've learned from their father of lies.
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  Speaker 1: Well, that does raise a question I wanted to ask
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  Speaker 1: you anyway that goes outside of Revelation. But one of
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  Speaker 1: the things that I've been thinking about with regard to Paul,
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  Speaker 1: So Paul has these really interesting little nuggets in first
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  Speaker 1: Timothy six, one and Titus two, five, where he's talking
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  Speaker 1: to bond servants in the first one. And he says, Hey,
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  Speaker 1: act in this way so that the name of God
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  Speaker 1: is not reviled. And the teachings of the church are
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  Speaker 1: not reviled. And Titus two, five, he does very, something
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  Speaker 1: very similar. It's a little bit different phrasing, but it's, uh,
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  Speaker 1: to young women. You also have then Paul sort of
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  Speaker 1: relocating the, um, the household code in places like Ephesians five,
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  Speaker 1: he's relocating it. What I mean by that is he's
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  Speaker 1: pulling it out from under the auspices of Roman authority
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  Speaker 1: and pulling it back out under God's authority. So he's saying,
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  Speaker 1: let's not, let's not reduce the structures to rubble. Let's
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  Speaker 1: revise the structures based on this new authority. Right. And
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  Speaker 1: so my question was really around my curiosity in this,
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  Speaker 1: not being a Pauline scholar. is just sitting back and saying,
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  Speaker 1: it seems to me that part of what Paul may
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  Speaker 1: be trying to do is he's trying to avoid, A,
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  Speaker 1: creating a greater offense within Rome other than the gospel, right?
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  Speaker 1: So we're not going to tear down these institutional structures.
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  Speaker 1: We're just going to act differently within them because we
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  Speaker 1: are trying to live relatively peaceably within the Roman Empire.
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  Speaker 1: But that ultimately, even as he's doing that, There's a recognition,
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  Speaker 1: and we go to other texts in Paul to see this,
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  Speaker 1: but because the world is bending away from God's order,
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  Speaker 1: there's always going to be a friction between what Christians
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  Speaker 1: are supposed to do and what the world wants them
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  Speaker 1: to do. And that friction can sometimes create enough heat
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  Speaker 1: that Christians are going to get burned. Does that reading
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  Speaker 1: strike you as, is that viable?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think what you're surfacing is there is a
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  Speaker 3: clear tension within especially the New Testament text of obedience
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  Speaker 3: and subversion. There really is both that's at stake, which
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  Speaker 3: is why you're going to find scholars that really move
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  Speaker 3: to the extremes of the spectrum. And they both will
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  Speaker 3: have sufficient amount of text to justify their position. I think, though,
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  Speaker 3: what you're bringing up and I think is what is
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  Speaker 3: important is, but how do we hold the spectrum? How
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  Speaker 3: do we allow both ends of the spectrum to exist
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  Speaker 3: in a coherent way of understanding a Christian's relations to
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  Speaker 3: political entities? Yeah, yeah. So what Paul is arguing, which
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  Speaker 3: Revelation argues as well, but let's stick with Paul for
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  Speaker 3: a minute. He's arguing that when Christ came, he remapped
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  Speaker 3: the universe. The universe is now remapped around Christ himself
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  Speaker 3: as the king over not just the kings of the earth,
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  Speaker 3: which Revelation will argue that as well, but also the
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  Speaker 3: cosmic order. However, that word order is key because if
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  Speaker 3: Christ is the king, then the natural reaction would be,
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  Speaker 3: then is it justifiable for us to move into some
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  Speaker 3: sort of anarchic upheaval of the– of the Imperial entities.
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  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 3: Um, what, what Paul basically says is he, first of all,
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  Speaker 3: he says, um, if you think that the empire is
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  Speaker 3: the actual enemy, uh, then, then you're missing the, the
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  Speaker 3: bigger target. And John says this as well.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Uh, but like Rome is too small of a target
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  Speaker 3: in both Paul and, uh, in, in revelation, which is
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  Speaker 3: why Paul can say things like, you know, you know,
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  Speaker 3: Oh no, like, Yeah, obey in as much as it
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  Speaker 3: is up to you, Romans 12, keep peace with all
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  Speaker 3: the governing authorities, like leading into Romans 13. However, in
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  Speaker 3: as much as it is up to you, like what
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  Speaker 3: Paul is not saying is, so just roll over and
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  Speaker 3: rubber stamp anything they do, slapping the label of God
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  Speaker 3: on it as if because they're a government, whatever their
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  Speaker 3: actions are, it now dictates what is morally acceptable by
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  Speaker 3: our God. That's right.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Paul never says that, and neither does Revelation. Instead, whenever
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  Speaker 3: you remap the universe, it doesn't lead to disorder. It
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  Speaker 3: doesn't lead to chaos because Genesis 1 is closer to
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  Speaker 3: the manifestation of the nature of our God. He's a
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  Speaker 3: God of order. From chaos, he brings structure. So even
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  Speaker 3: more than keeping the institutions, what Paul is clarifying is
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  Speaker 3: the institutions themselves are not what is evil. It's the
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  Speaker 3: ones that are either populating it with the will of Satan.
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  Speaker 3: or the demonic entities directly themselves. So you can restructure
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  Speaker 3: current institutions as long as Christ is the center in
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  Speaker 3: such a way that it both looks like and completely
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  Speaker 3: is opposite of the institutions that the empires themselves are implementing.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
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  Speaker 3: So whether we're talking bond servants or household codes or anything,
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  Speaker 3: the key is when Christ is the center of the universe,
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  Speaker 3: how does it bring a new order into Yeah. Yeah,
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  Speaker 3: because I think that's right. I mean, 1 Corinthians 7
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  Speaker 3: is another one.
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  Speaker 1: Of those that I kind of nude along. and it's like,
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  Speaker 1: you remain as you are called. And he has that
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  Speaker 1: reference to the bond servants there. And Paul doesn't tell
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  Speaker 1: the bond servants, Hey, you're a bond servant now and
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  Speaker 1: you're a bond server forever. No, what he's saying is, listen,
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  Speaker 1: you don't have to not be a bond servant to
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  Speaker 1: serve Jesus Christ because You can, you can serve where
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  Speaker 1: you're called. Now, if you have an opportunity to get free,
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  Speaker 1: go ahead and do that.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: But don't think that you have to change your situation
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  Speaker 1: in order to do what God is calling you to
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  Speaker 1: do is sort of a general idea.
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  Speaker 3: That is correct. Our politics is not contextual. It transcends
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  Speaker 3: all contexts. Right. Absolutely.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. Okay.
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  Speaker 1: So when we, When we jump into Revelation a bit
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  Speaker 1: and we're trying to think through, you know, how do
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  Speaker 1: we hold these different pieces together, this obedience and subversion?
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  Speaker 1: What we're starting to run to an awful lot in
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  Speaker 1: Revelation is subversion has its consequences. These are going to
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  Speaker 1: be pretty negative consequences. So as we obey the Lord,
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  Speaker 1: we are going to feel negative consequences from that obedience.
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  Speaker 1: And that leads then to what we see in the
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  Speaker 1: seven churches is compromise, different reactions to these negative consequences.
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  Speaker 1: Ephesus seems to pull back. Laodicea seems to lean in.
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  Speaker 1: And then you have Smyrna and Philadelphia that seem.
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  Speaker 2: To do it well.
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  Speaker 1: But those two churches are not without negative consequences for
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  Speaker 1: doing it well. So how do you see some of
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  Speaker 1: that working itself out there?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, so when Revelation remaps the universe around Christ, part of–
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  Speaker 3: so you look at– like you brought up Smyrna.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Smyrna has been remarkably obedient, and this is their gift.
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  Speaker 3: It's going to get worse. Yeah. Like physical persecution is coming.
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  Speaker 3: You're welcome.
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  Speaker 2: Keep it up.
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  Speaker 3: Right. Which if you think about that, that almost feels
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  Speaker 3: like a punishment for being good. But really what ought
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  Speaker 3: to be surfaced is, but we have a certain metric
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  Speaker 3: by which we are measuring what is a positive response
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  Speaker 3: to my obedience. So whenever you remap the universe around
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  Speaker 3: Jesus Christ, who is a crucified king, now all of
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  Speaker 3: a sudden our definitions begin to shift. So what is
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  Speaker 3: victory or what is reigning in an empire? What is suffering?
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  Speaker 3: What is like all of these definitions that an empire
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  Speaker 3: really is governed by?
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  Speaker 2: Yes.
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  Speaker 3: Like we have definitions of what it means to win.
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  Speaker 3: You know, even in even in modern America today, what
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  Speaker 3: does it mean to win a war? No one would
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  Speaker 3: say when you all are killed. It's like, no, no, no, no.
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  Speaker 3: The definition would be whenever you kill enough of the
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  Speaker 3: enemy to get your the result that you were after. Well,
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  Speaker 3: the reason why that is, is because we have a
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  Speaker 3: narrative that has given us definitions that allows us to
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  Speaker 3: measure what it is that we're doing positively or negatively
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  Speaker 3: and assess the outcome. Well, in Revelation, whenever the crucified
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  Speaker 3: king is the center of the universe, Smyrna, he's not
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  Speaker 3: looking at them saying, because you've done good, I'm going
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  Speaker 3: to now hit you.
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  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 3: He actually says you have been victorious and your victory
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  Speaker 3: parade will continue.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: So, so it's, it's invite revelation is inviting the Christians
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  Speaker 3: to see the world clearly by piercing all of the, the, um,
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  Speaker 3: the definitions that frankly are just, they're backwards in Christ's economy.
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  Speaker 3: But the fact that, that Christ is reigning and that
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  Speaker 3: we are reigning alongside of him, especially when we are, um,
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  Speaker 3: transformed or, um, expressions of his actual being on earth,
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  Speaker 3: his will, whenever Revelation guides us into those categories, it
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  Speaker 3: is also offering a way in which the empire won't
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  Speaker 3: be able to understand what we are doing, or at
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  Speaker 3: least they'll be conflicted by what we're doing. So a
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  Speaker 3: quick historical example, you're talking about 20 years after Revelation's written, 112,
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  Speaker 3: Pliny the Younger, governor of Bithynia, which is just north
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  Speaker 3: of Asia Minor where Revelation's written. He's writing to Trajan
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  Speaker 3: in Epistles 96. He's going, okay, the economy has been
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  Speaker 3: absolutely ransacked in Bithynia, and he's been charged to go
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  Speaker 3: figure it out. He's like, this is what I found.
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  Speaker 3: The reason why is because all of their temples have
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  Speaker 3: been abandoned because, and I'm using his word now, because
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  Speaker 3: of this contagion known as Christianity. Because Christianity has spread.
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  Speaker 3: Now all of the temples are intricately interwoven. We see
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  Speaker 3: this in Acts 19. They're intricately interwoven with the economy,
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  Speaker 3: which directly impacts politics. So he's like, so I'm trying
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  Speaker 3: to figure out how to snuff this disease out. And
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  Speaker 3: this is, he goes, so I've grabbed some of the
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  Speaker 3: key leaders. He actually mentions he grabs to torture deaconesses.
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  Speaker 3: He says to figure out what it is that this,
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  Speaker 3: he goes, and all I found was just some silly
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  Speaker 3: superstition and a commitment to to obey all of our laws.
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  Speaker 3: And he gets confused. He's like, he's like, so I'm
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  Speaker 3: kind of confused as like why I'm going after them.
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  Speaker 3: He goes, so this is what I did. He's like,
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  Speaker 3: I brought him in and I'm like, so even when
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  Speaker 3: I told them, he goes, even when I outlawed their worship,
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  Speaker 3: they obeyed. And he goes, so I brought him in
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  Speaker 3: and I'm torturing him. And I'm like, all right, you either, uh,
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  Speaker 3: come up here, you invoke the gods, you curse Christ
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  Speaker 3: and you, uh, you worship an image of Trajan of
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  Speaker 3: the emperor, or I will kill you. And he goes,
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  Speaker 3: and when they all said, well, I'm not worshiping any
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  Speaker 3: of that, he goes, I went ahead and killed them
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  Speaker 3: because I figured, in his words, that that level of
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  Speaker 3: obstinacy deserved to be punished. But the whole letter is
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  Speaker 3: him going, so what? Why am I going after Christians?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, clearly there's something here. There's a stubbornness that
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  Speaker 3: I have to deal with, but it's a stubbornness to
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  Speaker 3: be better citizens than our citizens. Funny thing is, his
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  Speaker 3: Trajan response is, Yeah. Don't, don't allow like, you know,
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  Speaker 3: anonymous lists to be published naming Christians. But yeah, it
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  Speaker 3: seems like you're doing good. Like he doesn't even answer
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  Speaker 3: the question, but that's the, that's the situation that Christians
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  Speaker 3: are putting the empire in. They are obeying the commands.
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  Speaker 3: Even when the command is you either do this or
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  Speaker 3: I'll kill you. They'll say, I will obey it by
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  Speaker 3: being killed because when we die, we win. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: It's, That is the interesting part.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, in working out the kingdom of God in
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  Speaker 1: the world, part of working it out has to be
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  Speaker 1: just radical obedience, regardless of consequence. And so that's what
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  Speaker 1: it is that they're doing. And I think Revelation does
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  Speaker 1: define it like that. I find it fascinating that that
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  Speaker 1: that illustration you give, though, I don't know whether you're
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  Speaker 1: familiar with Kevin Flatt's stuff on sacred social order. He
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  Speaker 1: wrote a book, Secularization, Social Order and World History. And
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  Speaker 1: he takes a guy's philosopher named Philip Reif, argued that
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  Speaker 1: culture transliterates a sacred order into a social order.
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  Speaker 2: Okay. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And so basically what you have in, and I think
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  Speaker 1: I'm getting this right from Flatt's book, he says, you know,
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  Speaker 1: in Rome, what you're seeing is a transition from a
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  Speaker 1: Roman sacred order. But it's not like, you know, everybody
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  Speaker 1: just stops worshiping the pagan gods. He's like slowly, but
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  Speaker 1: surely Christianity comes to be the sacred order and these
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  Speaker 1: pagan gods are then put away, but there has to
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  Speaker 1: be a replacement for that sacred order. And, and part of,
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  Speaker 1: he thinks part of the tension between the Christians and
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  Speaker 1: the Romans is that the Christians refuse to, uh, acknowledge
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  Speaker 1: Rome's sacred order.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: So even in keeping this sort of social order, as
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  Speaker 1: much as they're trying to be good citizens, They're refusing
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  Speaker 1: that this being good citizens is aligned with the deeper
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  Speaker 1: transcendental sacred truth that Romans would have held in high
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  Speaker 1: esteem and really viewed as making their society function.
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  Speaker 2: So it's sort of fascinating. Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah. Rome's entire dominance is according to even Dionysius of Halicarnassus,
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: which is a Greek writing about the Romans. He says,
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: if you want to understand Rome's rise, you have to
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: understand their piety, their worship, like for Rome, worshiping their
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: deities correctly. That's why calendar systems were so important in Rome,
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: because this is one of the things I always find
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: funny with this. Some of my Christian friends will get
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: really upset that we're losing Merry Christmas for Happy Holidays.
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: And I'm like, you know holidays literally means holy days,
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: like days that are set aside in Okay, it's all right. Whatever.
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: But there were holidays because that day, it's the place
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: in time where the deity and humanity can intersect.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: And Rome believed that was ordained by that particular deity
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: for that particular day where the festival then would be
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: in their honor.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: So even calendar systems for Rome was wrapped up in
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: their piety. It's why when Augustus died, comes to power.
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: He brags in his Rescistae Divi Augusti, which he wrote himself,
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: bronze tablets that go around the mausoleum where he is buried.
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: He brags that whenever he came in, he restored every
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: temple that had fallen into disrepair, 82 of them, and
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: even built several others on top of it. If we
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: don't understand that for Rome, worship was a national security issue,
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: you'll never understand Rome. And frankly, you'll never truly understand
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: empires as a whole. So one of the things I
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: teach here at Ozark is a class on the history
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: of Roman Empire. And I actually– I organize the entire
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: class around seven imperial principles where I say every empire
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: must have. And one of the things I say is
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: a unifying religious system. Every empire has to have this
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: because we're beings that crave worship. And if an empire
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: doesn't satiate that craving, then we will not look to
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: the empire to satisfy our needs. So even your most
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: secular of governments still have ritual systems within it and
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: worship intonations. They have to. I mean, Rome was great
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: at it.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting you say that.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, I've done a fair amount of research on
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: American civil religion at this point. And there's a line
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: in Robert Bella's work. He's a sociologist, and he talks
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: about how American civil religion was never anti-clerical. or he
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: says militantly secular. It borrowed selectively from religious language so
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: that American civil religion could be framed in ways that
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: the normal everyday religious person wouldn't notice the difference. And
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: that they can then accomplish through this American civil religion
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: an allegiance to the state that would probably have come
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: at a much harder, would probably have required a much
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: harder road had they not used American civil religion. Now,
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: I'm giving it a more utilitarian spin than I think
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: he would. But the general idea is that a lot
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: of times, even in our context today, you see the
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: conversation around Christian nation, you see the conversations around Christian nationalism,
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: you see all these sort of alignments and you're like,
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: but American civil religion isn't exactly that. Like we're applying
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: that to it. But American civil religion is something far
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: more general and generic that has borrowed very selectively from
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: the biblical corpus, from Christian ideas of the past or
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: what have you. And we really need to make sure
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: that we understand that we're still distinct from it. And
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: it just feels like to me that we've merged a
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: little too closely and are in danger of being, I
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: don't know, that's the wrong way to put it. I
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: think we're leaning toward– we're doing more leaning in in
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: those respects. We're more like Laodicea where we're saying this
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: could be really good for us. We should lean into
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: this because now we can be prosperous and we kind
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: of like this as opposed to really staying in the
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: pocket saying.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: No, that's not who we are. That's not what we do.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: We're just going to suffer like Smyrna and win.
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah. No, you're right. And there's actually two things I
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: would like to say. First of all, I want to
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: back up and in agreement, add to your language of
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: the grammar of civil religion. And then I want to
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: get to your point about how Christians feel that or
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: where we're at as Christians today and how Revelation plays
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: into this. It's not even just the grammar that they've
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: selectively used. It's also the visualization, the iconography. It's like
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: as a Roman historian, whenever I whenever I went to Washington, D.C.
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: for the very first time, which was 2021. So is
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: that no one was there? Like, I mean, it was
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: it was a total ghost town because of, you know,
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: still some of the covid leftovers, stuff like that. So
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: but I remember walking in to the Lincoln Memorial and
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: I immediately went, this is this is a pagan temple.
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: Like you have you have the side porticoes. You have
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: the center place in the seated on the throne where
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: the deity would have been. I'm like, this is exactly
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: what Artemis' temple would have been like in Ephesus. And
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: it kind of took me– I was like, oh, wow.
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: And I'm looking around going, architecturally, there's something more being
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: communicated to me here than merely, wow, this is a
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: really big, cool place. The second thing that I thought was, oh–
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: why it is not incidental or lost on me that,
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: you know, the dome and the Capitol building is this,
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: is this depiction that, that the name of it is
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: actually called the apotheosis of George Washington, which means the
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: becoming of a God of George Washington. And I'm looking
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: at it going, I've seen this depiction throughout hits, like,
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: you know, the history of art where Yahweh would be
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: kind of in a revelation for a moment. it's George Washington. So,
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: so what I'm not, what I'm not doing is accusing
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: anybody of anything. What I am doing is I'm saying this, um,
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: to suggest that visualization or grammar doesn't ultimately guide us. A,
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: that's just, even in churches, we don't believe that, which
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: is why every Sunday we, we have similar mantras that
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: we always say, you know, especially if you're the one
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: that's supposed to be greeting all the guests and you
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: got to mention there's a guest, there's a gift outside.
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: If you just go to the, they're the welcome tent
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: and grammar matters. And then what people see matters. And
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: so we meticulously orchestrate the entire, uh, procession, the entire
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: ritual of the Sunday morning, whether we have light and
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: smoke or whether we have, but you know, where the
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: crosses are or if there's even crosses at all in
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: the sanctuary, this visual and this, um, sorry, there's a
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: bug on my microphone. Uh, This visual and this grammar
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: ultimately is guiding allegiances. That's the whole point. And empires
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: that persist do this best. So whenever Christians then, even today,
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: that's where a lot of the times I'll stop and
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: ask myself the question. I was actually talking with a guy,
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: a pastor up in St. Joseph's, Missouri named Brian Zond.
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: This was a year ago. I just had happened to
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: be talking with him and I just said, okay, you've
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: been doing this for 40 years. So how have we
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: gotten to where we are? And I'm not even, I'm
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: not even assessing where we are. I'm just saying, how
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: have we gotten here?
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: And his response was, I have no idea. I have
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: no idea.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: And my thought was, well, yeah, because it's that subtle.
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: Like you, you just speak the grammar so much. That's right.
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: And you, you are saturated in the visualization so much
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: that you don't even know what is dictating your allegiances.
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: And that's what has fallen. That's why in Revelation 2
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: and 3, there is sternness and tenderness all at the
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: same time that Jesus is speaking to these churches. Right.
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: Because a lot of the times they're compromised. There are
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: little choices along the way. But a lot of the
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: times it is just this incremental. You stop and look
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: and you say, how have I gotten so far away
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: from whence I began?
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: And that's where I see where we're at today. I
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: don't even know a lot of the times if we
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: stopped and reflected. where are we at today? And is
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: this where Christ was intending for us to reside? I
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: don't even know if we would know why where we're
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: at is dangerous or B, how we've even gotten here.
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: And my response is, well, that's because it's worked. The
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: grammar and the visualization has worked. It's never usually a
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: big conversion. It's usually a slow descent.
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I tend to agree.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: I mean, when I look back at this in US history,
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: you see um, the use of the Exodus in ways
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: reminiscent of what we would, uh, arguably speak against in
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: liberation theologies.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: You know, um, God has freed us from the tyranny
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: of great Britain. We are the new Israel. Now we
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: can live on our terms. Um, you know, you just
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: sort of cut off the law there and move forward. Um,
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: you know, um, you, you see, um, You know, you
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: see faith leaders sort of coming in and not doing
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: a particularly well-nuanced job of articulating that, yes, these governing
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: authorities have been instituted by God, and so we should
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: respect them. But also we need to speak correctively and
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: prophetically within this environment. Um, and, and it just feels
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: like it sort of rolls off the tongue. You see
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: the application of various Bible verses. You mentioned Washington, DC.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: I know there are tours that go around and look
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: at all the different carved Bible verses in these different places. Um, and,
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: and you just kind of sit back and you're like, well,
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: that could mean one of two things at least, um,
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: you know, you're interpreting it really positively, but we could
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: also go a different route.
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: Um, you know, the use of second Chronicle seven 14
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: and numerous speeches, you know, if my people were repent
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: and turn and, you know, um, Psalm 33, 14 gets
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: sucked into that, you know, um, a nation who's God
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: is the Lord that all that kind of stuff. So,
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: you know, we see all these little subtle pieces that
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: are sort of drawing us in and, um, and, and,
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: and making it very difficult, I think, for us to
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: distinguish what is and what isn't, um, You know, there's
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: a there's a sense in which we are very much
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: assimilated into a political notion that may not be a
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: political notion of Christ.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: I mean, that's where. I, you know, these same leaders that, again,
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: like you even said, like when we're quoting these verses,
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: it could be positive. It depends on how it's being used.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: Very much.
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: But I will say I'm going, why don't we, why
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: do we select the verses that we select to carve? Like,
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: why aren't we selecting verses? revelation 18, two and three,
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: when it says, come out of her, my people.
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: Like that's in the Bible too.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: You know, so right. Well, and that's like, I always,
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: you know, I kind of like, you know, jokingly quip
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: whenever I'm at, you know, churches where I'm like, I've
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: never once been in my Matthew class at Ozark and
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: ask the question. Never once have I had anybody raise
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: their hand whenever I said, how many of you have
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: highlighted in your Bible, sell everything and give it to
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: the poor.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: No one wants to highlight that one.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: No.
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: Because we love to carve the Bible into pieces and
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: make it serve us.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: And that's where my pushback when it comes to, first
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: of all, it depends on who I'm talking to. My
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: first pushback is always like, if you think that the
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: Bible or the gospel is not political, you're not reading
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: the New Testament.
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: Jesus was crucified on a cross because Romans reserved the
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: cross for political revolutionaries. So on some level, whenever Pilate
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: asked Jesus the question, are you a king? Even though
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: Jesus says, well, my kingdom is not of this world,
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: Pilate still saw his answer as legitimate enough where he
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: could use this execution tool and he wouldn't be violating
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: a Roman law. It would actually make sense. The second
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: thing I always push back on, though, is I'm going like–
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: but to be– to suggest that it is political is
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: not to implement it in the same way that we
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: typically do. That's right. We then typically think, well, if
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: the Bible is political, then how can I get my
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: particular Christian ethic legislated?
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: And my response back is like, the Bible never asks us.
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: I'm not saying don't do that. I'm saying, please tell
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: me your goal is bigger. Yes. Please tell me that
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: you know that the enemy is bigger than that.
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: Right. Yeah. Yeah.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: No, the way I usually phrase it is if we're
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: going to participate politically, our political participation needs to emerge
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: from our discipleship.
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: And so the way I read.
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: Matthew 28 there in the Great Commission is what we
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: usually see. It begins with Christ's authority. This is a
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: political statement. Jesus is now in charge. However we want
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: to read authority, it's going to be hard to get
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: it away from. Christ is now in charge.
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: And so what do you do now that Christ is
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: in charge?
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: Well, you go and make disciples. Yeah. What does that mean?
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: Well, you get people to commit their entire lives to
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: the triune God and, you know, put themselves through this
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: ordeal event in baptism. And then you teach them to
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: obey everything that Christ commanded.
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: That is political.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: And I mean— Because you're learning to live under Christ's authority,
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: to your point, now that that map is re-centered on Christ.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: Discipleship now is learning to read that map.
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: And follow that map.
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: And so you do see a lot of this, I think,
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: people have tended to, and I think this is part
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: of our American context, but I would sort of argue
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: that maybe we see some of this in Revelation as well.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: there was a tendency on some level to pull faith private.
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: In other words, Christ has to be the master of
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: my universe, but not necessarily the universe. And so this
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: is where I can start to compromise. I can say, well, yeah,
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: but it doesn't really seem like Christ's authority is working
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: itself out too well over here, so I can make
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: a different choice. I don't know that that's an appropriate reading,
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: but it seems to me that that's a dynamic that
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: we struggle with throughout scripture.
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah yeah and uh because it reminds me of
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: the way in which i i remember as an undergrad
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: being uh told that with a straight face that people
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: believed that the sermon on the mount applied to individuals
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: but it didn't actually apply to anything on a nate
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: on a national level okay and i'm sitting there going
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: okay now wait a minute but what is a nation
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: made of Right. Individuals. OK, so I don't understand how
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: there's not national together somehow. Yeah, I'm like, I don't
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: understand that. So then I at one point because in
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: the professor wasn't making the argument, he was exposing us
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: to the argument. But I raised my hand and I said,
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: so you're telling me if I just wear a different
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: name tag, I have a different set of ethics that
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: I can obey. And because that's that's I mean, that's
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: basically what they're being said is like, well, no, because
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: my because I have a different name plate. I have
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: a different– because this says senator. That's right. I now
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: don't have to do turn the other cheek.
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: And I'm like, well, no, no, no. Okay. Now, I'm
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: not asking all of my senators to actually obey the
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: Christian ethic. Correct. But I am asking all Christians, even
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: Christian senators, to obey the Sermon on the Mount because
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: Christ is king.
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: And that is actually the whole– so you bring up
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: the end of Matthew, and my first thought was– Okay,
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: so the definition of the word politics is also what
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: gets people confused is we think politics– like politics comes
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: from the Greek word connected to polis or cities.
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: Polis, yeah.
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and it is these principles that organize, that bring
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: structure to a group of people that are living in
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: a similar location. And so polis– well, I mean that–
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: the Old Testament– so Matthew begins retelling– the narrative of
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: Israel just through Jesus. So, you know, you have, you know,
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: especially Matthew chapter two, where all of the children under
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: the age of two are being killed, which is how
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: Exodus begins.
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: And then, you know, Jesus in chapter three, well, well,
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: he's actually protected, you know, by being taken to the
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: heart of Egypt, just like Moses was.
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: He then experiences his own passing through the red sea
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: in chapter three, then goes directly into the wilderness of
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: chapter four, The last temptation of which Satan gives Jesus
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: is to bow down and worship me, and then I'll
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: give you all of the kingdoms of the world. And
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: then in chapter 5, Jesus, just like the nation of Israel,
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: he gives his own law. The Sermon on the Mount, Sinai.
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: Why that's interesting is because Exodus is the story of
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: the forming of a nation.
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: It's the formation of a people around an allegiance and
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: an ethic that regardless of where they go, wilderness or
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: promised land, which that's why it's interesting that in Matthew
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: 8 and 9, there's 12 successive miracle accounts, one for
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: each of the tribes that are established in Canaan. But
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: it begins this retelling, and it ends with your Great
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: Commission because it is establishing that Jesus is king of
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: the kingdom. And that is exactly how Revelation begins. Like,
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: Revelation has the same assumption, which is why Jesus in
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: Revelation 1-5 is referred to as the faithful witness, the
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: of the earth.
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: So if we are his kingdom, if we are pledging
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: allegiance to this king, we cannot bypass, regardless of our occupation,
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: we cannot bypass Christ's commands. That is actually the issue
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: that prompted Revelation to be written. It does not matter
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: what the consequences are.
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: Even if Rome has a sword to your throat. I mean,
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: this is Revelation 13.10. If anyone comes to take you
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: away as a prisoner of war, as a prisoner of war,
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: you go off. If anybody comes to kill you with
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: the sword, by the sword, you will be killed. This
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: calls for patient endurance on the part of the saints.
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: It doesn't matter the consequence. Your allegiance and your call
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: is absolutely clear in Christ.
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: And because we're not simply serving a king who came
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: to the throne through suffering, We're also serving a King
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: who after that suffering was ascended and glorified.
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: The only person to have done that, right? The only
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: life to have ended in resurrection, ascension and glorification. We're
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: pretty sure it's a good idea.
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: To follow him.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: Like this is a guy that you might want to follow.
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: And in his example is going to lead us to
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: good places. Maybe not right at this moment. I'm sure
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: Jesus wasn't hanging on the cross. Like this is awesome. Um,
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: And in the same way, we don't, we don't enjoy
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: the suffering either. We just know that this is how
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: we win.
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: This is the way the kingdom of God fights its battles.
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: It fights it with the blood of the saints through
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: their obedience. Let me ask you this question. Cause I
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: think in, you know, when I look at Romans 13,
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: I get a certain reading of this. And then when
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: I read through revelation, I think it's reaffirmed, but I
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: get the general idea that, um, in as far as
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: we can maintain peace with the governing authorities, yes, that's
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: a big part on us. But when I think about, okay,
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: when do we not maintain peace? Part of that is
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: we're just obeying and at some point obedience is going
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: to run aground. It's going to create friction with the
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: governing authorities. But then there's this other side of it
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: that I usually illustrate in Germany, but.
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: I'll say it just like this. It's like.
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: The.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: Governing authorities are given an authority. Oftentimes what ends up happening, though,
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: is they want to expand the scope of that authority
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: beyond what God has given them.
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: And so as they expand that scope.
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: There's a much higher possibility that they're going to be
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: doing things that we shouldn't agree with. Now, the reason
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: I do that in Germany is because Germany, when we
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: do our tours and we're in Nuremberg, Um, there's usually a,
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: a tour we take and it walks through red, red
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: light district.
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: Like, and so in Germany, prostitution is legal. And so
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: every major town has brothels and those kinds of things.
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: And we'll inevitably get into these conversations about how horrible
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: this is.
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: And so you have interesting conversations about law and, you know, law,
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: not necessarily gesturing toward the ideal, but managing and restraining evil.
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: But then I also like to flip it on its
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: head and say, well, but it also doesn't mean that
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: just because it's legal here means it's okay to do.
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: Like there is this stretching of authority that happens partly
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: because of the limitations of government, like the limitations of
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: people running government. They just don't know how to handle
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: all of this evil. And part of it probably because
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: it is bending away from God's order. There's a natural
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: tendency toward it. Just in that description, does that seem
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: to fit what's happening in Revelation, where you have this
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: sort of hubris developing, but it's not necessarily a direct
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: assault on God, but it's a.
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: More oozing out the sides.
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: As these governments sort of begin to realize that they
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: can't hold it all together unless they get more more control,
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: more authority.
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah. No, that's an interesting question. The problem is, where
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: I hesitate is that the characterization of that with Rome
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: is very emperor-specific.
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: Gotcha.
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: I was sitting there thinking, well, yeah, under Augustus, the
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: the emphasis was very different. He was always constantly trying
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: to deflect on her because, because that was actually the
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: way of accumulating power. Okay. So he's always like, Oh no,
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: you can't call me God. Now you can call me
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: son of a God, I guess, because my dad, Julius
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: Caesar was, but don't call me, you know, he's always
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: trying to play this, but then you have people like Nero.
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: This is one of the things I always find interesting
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: with Romans 13. Yeah. It's, it's written under Nero who
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: eventually is the one that crucifies Peter upside down and
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: beheads Paul. The other thing I find interesting about Romans
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: 13 is I'm going– and with that type of level
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: of hubris in Nero and in therefore his governmental structure,
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: I don't think he would really appreciate being repeatedly referred
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: to as God's servant.
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: I don't think Nero is like, yeah, I love Romans 13.
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: I think he's.
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: Going– Nero is a deacon.
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he's like– Who do you think I'm a servant of? No,
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: your God's a servant of my gods because that's why
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: I'm on the throne. There's this fascinating way that Romans
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: 13 is used that I don't think Rome would have
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: really appreciated. Probably not. The same thing with Revelation, though.
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: With Domitian, you're dealing with a very insecure emperor who is,
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: for the first half of his empire, almost bankrupted the
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: entire empire trying to curry favor with everyone. So he
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: triples the salary for the soldiers because he has no
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: military prowess to command their legions. So then what he
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: does is he throws all these parties. He's bankrupt. And
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: then finally, a Saturninus, a general in around 88, 89,
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: brings a legion to kill him. And it so rattles Domitian.
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: That then begins what a lot of Roman scholars refer
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: to as his reign of terror over the last half,
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: and that's when Revelation is written. So what you have
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: in the situation of Revelation and these Christians is they
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: are a vulnerable group within an empire that is already
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: somewhat ambivalent to them. They've already been blamed 30 years
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: earlier for burning Rome by Nero. So they've been targeted off.
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: Some of their leaders have been executed. Actually, every one
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: of them has been except for John at this point.
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: And he's exiled on the island of Patmos. And now
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: things are getting worse.
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: Not just because the emperor is targeting Christians, although he
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: does kill Clemens and Domitilla, who were the they were
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: they were elite. They're actually their children were going to
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: be the heirs of the throne because Domitian didn't have children.
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: He kills them for, quote, Jewish ways of living. I mean,
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: if you go to Rome today, you actually have the
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: Christian catacombs as the Domitilla Christian catacombs, likely after her.
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: So Christians were being caught up, but Christians weren't really
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: the target. That's the thing. Christians were being caught up
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: in this tension. But it wasn't like Domitian's like, if
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: I kill the Christians, everything's fine. Domitian is spiraling.
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: He's just, yeah.
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: And because of that. And what typically happens is whenever
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: the very elite of any governmental structure becomes increasingly unstable,
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: every person that is trying to– that is frankly parasitic
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: in their relationship to that king, they will start to
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: act in very similar ways in their own sectors. And
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: so it bleeds down. The character of the emperor very
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: much dictates– how the government is either oozing or contracting.
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: But usually it's a reflection of that. That's good.
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: That's helpful. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. Like
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: it doesn't just happen one way. It's going to be
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: a set of contextual factors because I even think back
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: to Pharaoh in Egypt, right? I've made this point numerous
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: times when I teach through Exodus. It's like you sort
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: of have to sympathize with the Pharaoh who knew not Joseph, right?
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: Because all he's seeing is a foreign group multiplying within
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: his nation. And he's going, what do I do with
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: this problem? And so he does what he does. We
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: don't have to agree with what he did and go, oh, yeah,
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: that makes perfect sense. But the logic of going, this
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: is going to be a problem if I don't take
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: care of it does make perfect sense. And he does
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: it out of ignorance. He does not know Joseph. So
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: he doesn't understand that this is a blessing. He doesn't
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: understand what the Israelites can do for his country. Now,
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: as he goes on, there's obviously recalcitrance and he's much
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: more stubborn. He refuses to look at what God is
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: telling him. He refuses to accept God's authority over him.
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: But in that first section, that's not what's at play.
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: He's ignorant.
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: He doesn't understand what's happening, but he sees a real
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: threat and begins to respond to it.
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: And I think we have to give our.
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: Leaders some level of grace there to recognize that even
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: as they're trying to do good or good by the nation,
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: they're working in a partial understanding of the good. And again,
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: the Christian job is to come alongside and say, listen,
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: you haven't, You've recognized something that's important. You haven't recognized
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: it all.
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: That's right. Right.
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: I liken it to the Ethiopian eunuch who's reading Isaiah
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: and Philip comes along and what does he say? He says,
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: how would I know what I'm reading unless I have
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: someone to guide me? I think sometimes we forget that
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: we're the guides.
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: That these good and bad things you're seeing in the world,
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: we're supposed to be guiding leaders toward Christ, toward the kingdom,
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: not helping them decipher political moves.
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: Especially the prophetic tradition. You're right. But I'm like, that's literally–
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: so even what you just described, my initial thought was
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: John the Baptist. Yeah. He gave Herod an opportunity. That's right. Yeah,
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: he did confront him. But a prophet doesn't confront solely
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: out of anger. It's actually a torturous confrontation where it says,
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: I'm telling you, this is going to end bad for everyone,
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: especially you, if you do not repent.
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: And when he confronts Herod, Herod has an opportunity, but
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: Herod denies it because he's trying to still curry favor
• 48:12
  Speaker 3: of the people instead of God and beheads John the Baptist.
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: So the same thing with Revelation. Like, Revelation is a
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: prophetic book.
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: But I will say this, though. I want to make
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: sure that I get this in here before we end
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: because I know we're coming close to the end.
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we are. Yep.
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: But Revelation really– Revelation does depict Rome's destruction. That's not necessarily, though,
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: this anti-Roman– although, I mean, Roman would not say it
• 48:40
  Speaker 3: was pro-Roman.
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: But in depicting the end of Rome, Revelation is– in
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: calling Rome Babylon, Revelation is saying this. Rome will go
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: the same way that every empire before Rome goes.
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: Like the end is secure no matter what Rome says.
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: Rome thinks they're eternal. Every empire thought they were eternal.
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: Egypt did. Babylon did. Rome is going to fall. That
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: is clear. The question, though, is this. I think in
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: Revelation it says, but how do you respond to a
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: war if you don't even know who the true enemy is?
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: Because Christians– I know Rome is killing you. I know
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: they're making your life hell, but if you think Rome
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: is the enemy then you've not looked back beyond the veil.
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: Part of the reason why the suffering is how we
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: win is because the true target is the dragon. I mean,
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: in Revelation 12, 11 says, you conquer the dragon by
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: the blood of the lamb and by the testimony of
• 49:36
  Speaker 3: the saints that would not shrink from death. Our ethic
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: then is The reason why there's this collision is because
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: our ethic governed by our king is targeting the greater
• 49:47
  Speaker 3: enemy that you can't kill with a sword. Or as
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: Paul would say it, our war is not with flesh
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: and blood. And therefore the weapons of flesh and blood
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: won't be effective.
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's been interesting.
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: I mean, that comment, I think we often sleep on
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: Acts 17, 26 and 27. We get kind of caught
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: up in the Athenians and their unknown God. But in
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: Acts 26 and 27, Paul says something very interesting about
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: God establishing nations within a certain set of boundaries and
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: for a particular time so that they may seek God,
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: feel about for him, like grope around in the dark
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: for him and perhaps find him. And as we think
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: about that, it's just this is what the nations are, right?
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: This is part of why God establishes them. it seems
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: evident then that they are not the enemy, that these
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: are good things that are easily corruptible, durable, but not eternal,
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: that give people within them the opportunity to respond to God,
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: to find God, if they have, I would argue, if
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: they have a guide to do so.
• 50:58
  Speaker 3: And so, yeah, go ahead. I would even say that
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: from my revelation Christian perspective, I think that the highest
• 51:07
  Speaker 3: politicians of any empire would be the most pitied, not
• 51:10
  Speaker 3: the most revered. Yeah. Genuinely. And I think we just
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: have it backwards. But that's what I see with the
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: testimony of our early church. Yeah. They didn't look at
• 51:20
  Speaker 3: the emperor as something even to be scared of. They
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: looked at him as genuinely someone to be the most pitied.
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: And it would be wonderful if we recovered that today. Yeah, yeah.
• 51:36
  Speaker 3: And I think it would clarify a lot. I do
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: think back to– and I know that this quote is
• 51:42
  Speaker 3: a little bit out of context, but it's not– I
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: don't think it's inappropriate. I do think back to the
• 51:47
  Speaker 3: wisdom of Martin Luther when he was asked if you
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: want to be king. He said, why would I step
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: down to be a king from being a preacher? Yeah.
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: There's a different economy. With which we're dealing with. And
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: I do. I pity. I pray for our leaders. I
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: do not justify what they do. And I believe they
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: will be held accountable.
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: But I pray for them out of pity because they
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: even have believed that they are the world's greatest men.
• 52:14
  Speaker 3: But in reality, I'm going like, no, like there's a
• 52:17
  Speaker 3: different metric here. Yeah. And I hurt for you. I
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: hurt for you. Yeah. Because of the situations that you're in,
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: the decisions you have to make. And frankly, the system
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: that has actually given you a measurement that's just not real.
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's good, man.
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: It'd be nice if we could cultivate a little bit
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: more compassion for our leaders and take the pressure off
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: them by pulling the responsibility that we have to convey the.
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: Gospel well back onto ourselves. Yeah. Great stuff, bro.
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: Really appreciate you being back on. We're out of time,
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: but this has been a fantastic conversation.
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: So thanks a lot.
• 53:01
  Speaker 3: Thanks for having me, buddy. Appreciate it.
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. All right, everybody. Well, I hope you enjoyed this.
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: Join us back on Thinking Christian next time. And we'll
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: continue talking a little bit about politics and America and
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: all that kind of fun stuff. And hopefully give some
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: guidance that you can use as you're moving into the
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: midterm elections.
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: Take care, everybody.
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: Just want to take a second to thank the team
• 53:21
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• 53:23
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