But exclude the outer court; do not measure it, because it has been given to the Gentiles. They will trample on the holy city for 42 months. – Revelation 11:2

Today’s Scripture Reading (April 30, 2018): Revelation 11

One of the national byproducts of war is the loss of cultural artifacts. Any place that has experienced conflict for any length of time understands that. Areas with great history lose their archeological connection with the past. Important religious buildings and idols are destroyed. And personally, I weep every time it happens. There is a connection with history that is simply lost forever, a connection that cannot be recovered, and we are made less by the loss. War is the enemy of history; it removes from us what is important about our past.

When the Romans defeated Jerusalem in 70 C.E., they did such a great job of obliterating the Temple that we still do not know where the foundations of the Temple might lie. We do know more about the area that surrounded the Temple. For instance, we have uncovered the Western Wall, or the wailing wall, an area that has become sacred to the Jews because of its connection with the Temple. But the Western Wall was not part of the Temple proper; it is a relatively small section of the retaining wall that was most likely built around the time of Herod the Great’s expansion of the Temple. The Western Wall was part of a larger structure that likely surrounded the Temple courtyard, but it is not part of the Temple.

Of course, right now an examination of Temple Mount is impossible because the Mount is in the possession of Islamic believers. Traditionally, it is believed that the “Dome on the Rock,” an Islamic shrine that was completed in 691 C.E. and is the oldest extant Islamic building in the world, stands on the foundation of the Jewish Temple. The destruction of one important religious shrine has led to the construction of another shrine from a different religion that is built on the same spot.

But recent research indicates that we might be wrong about this placement of the Jewish Temple. (Stress the “might be,” we don’t know anything about Temple Mount for sure.) But the research indicates that the Jewish Temple might actually have stood just north of the “Dome on the Rock.” If that is true, then the “Dome on the Rock” stands in the outer court of the Temple.

Cue John’s Revelation. He says that he was told that the “outer court” had been “given to the Gentiles.” Gentiles is simply a word used to describe people who are not of Jewish descent. The presence of the “Dome on the Rock” on what might be the area of the outer court of the Temple would seem to be a fulfillment of this prophecy. But we need to be careful because we know so little about the positioning of the buildings on Temple Mount during the Herod reconstruction of the Temple.

It should also be noted that, by the time John records his Revelation, Temple Mount has already been razed by the Romans. Nothing is left. John is being told in his vision to go and measure a building that is no longer standing. It might have been John’s belief that the Temple Mount had already been trampled by the Gentiles in the form of Romans. Which brings us to the “42 months.” Most scholars seem to agree that this indicates the last half of the Great Tribulation, which means that even if the “Dome on the Rock” is built on the outer court fulfilling part of John’s prophecy, the real trampling of Temple Mount has likely not even begun. The real trampling waits for some of the rest of the end times prophecy to be fulfilled.     

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Revelation 12

And he swore by him who lives for ever and ever, who created the heavens and all that is in them, the earth and all that is in it, and the sea and all that is in it, and said, “There will be no more delay! – Revelation 10:6

Today’s Scripture Reading (April 29, 2018): Revelation 10

Procrastination, a human idiosyncrasy. The ability to put off what should be done today so that it can be done tomorrow, or the next day, or maybe never. I think all of us procrastinate at least a little bit, but probably for very different reasons. Sometimes, some things just rank higher on our list of importance, and so what is unimportant is put off for another time. Sometimes were are mentally or physically tired and simply do not have the energy for the task at hand. And then, of course, some of us like me, are just lazy. Our motto is often “why do something today when it can just as easily be done tomorrow or the next day – or never.”

Please do not take my next words as sacrilegious, but that brings me to another question. We believe that we are created in the image of God, does that mean that God procrastinates? Okay, I am sure that God does not procrastinate as we do. He doesn’t “not do” something because he is too lazy or too tired to do it. Yet there are those of us who believe that God sometimes chooses not to do something. Usually, the focus of the discussion around God’s procrastination is on his return and the possible end of the earth that seems to be the subject of at least part of John’s Revelation. The question that leads down this avenue of thinking is “why has Jesus not returned to the earth?” Peter gives us part of the answer.

The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare (2 Peter 3:9-10).

God has procrastinated his return because there was something more important to him than doing what it is that he has committed to do – and that something is us. He wants to give us every opportunity to prepare for a future with him rather than one without him. (By the way, discard all of those thoughts of hellfire and the idea of burning for eternity. The reality is much worse. God will, in the end, give us what we want and that will be either eternity with him, or without him. We have no idea what an existence totally devoid of God could be really like. Even some famous atheists are bothered by that question because without at least the idea of God, there can be no morality and the result, these atheists argue, would be a fascism worse than any this world has ever known.)

But the time is coming when the procrastination of God will end. Peter says the Lord will come like a thief in the night. John maintains that angel who is standing on the sea and land will eventually speak that there can be no more delays, and will do so swearing on the name of the one who lives forever, and who has delayed things up until this moment.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Revelation 11

The fifth angel sounded his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth. The star was given the key to the shaft of the Abyss. – Revelation 9:1

Today’s Scripture Reading (April 28, 2018): Revelation 9

George Washington called death “the abyss from where no traveler is permitted to return.” Death is an ending point. Beyond this place, mere mortals fear to walk. Death is Shakespeare’s “undiscovered country,” yet it is also a country that we are all doomed to discover at some point in our lives. Death is the end of the world that the ancients sought to find by going east or west, yet were always frustrated in their attempts.

John speaks of an abyss or a bottomless pit. Some take this to be a literal bottomless pit, even arguing that it can only mean a pit that has been dug to the very core of the earth, a place where there is no more down, but only up in every direction. But again, we need to be reminded that this is simply what John saw. A pit does not have to be bottomless to appear bottomless. And while some argue that we should not spiritualize John’s words, this is an instance when it seems hard not to.

May I suggest that this abyss is death, an abyss so deep that from this place no traveler is permitted to return. And if that is true, then we turn to the question of the star. There seems to be little question that the star should refer to a person, and many people have been suggested. Part of the key is that John says that he saw the star that had fallen, past tense, from the sky to earth. If the abyss is death or hades, then it is tempting to identify the star as Jesus himself. After all, Revelation begins with Jesus claiming that he holds “the keys of death and Hades” (Revelation 1:18). And Jesus is one of the suggested people who experts have identified as possibly being the identity of this star.

But there is also a struggle with this identification, and the struggle is found later in this reading – “They had as king over them the angel of the Abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon and in Greek is Apollyon (that is, Destroyer)” (Revelation 9:11). Here the angel of the Abyss appears to be evil, just as John Bunyan imagines it in his book “Pilgrim’s Progress.” Christian, the protagonist of Bunyan’s tale, does battle with Apollyon the Destroyer, the angel of the Abyss in Bunyan’s book.

Some argue that Revelation 9:1 is unrelated to Revelation 9:11, but that seems unlikely. If the two verses are about the same entity, then we have to rule out Jesus as a possible identity of the star. Maybe Satan or one of his lieutenants might be an option. But at the end of the day, this is just fodder for conversation. We don’t know the answers, and most likely will never know, just be able to defend our guesses as we converse with each other.  

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Revelation 10

The first angel sounded his trumpet, and there came hail and fire mixed with blood, and it was hurled down on the earth. A third of the earth was burned up, a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up. – Revelation 8:7

Today’s Scripture Reading (April 27, 2018): Revelation 8

I am a child of the cold war. I remember the days before the Berlin Wall and Iron Curtain fell. I remember the suspicion and fear that the Soviet Union brought to the world that existed outside of the Soviet Bloc. I can still see the old videos in my mind teaching children to “hide under their desks” in case of a nuclear attack, and the belief that such an attack could happen. It is likely that in the real threatening times, such as the Soviet arming of Cuba in 1963, we were all kept blissfully ignorant of everything that was going on and all that could have happened to spark that feared nuclear holocaust. And yet, children kept hiding under their desks.

And then the Iron Curtain fell, and for a time we breathed a little easier. The world seemed to be a little less threatening. We laughed together as we thought of the kids hiding under their desks. I mean, when a nuclear bomb went off, a desk was going to be of little help. Slowly, the world seemed to become a more livable place.

Lately, we seem to be heading back in the wrong direction, returning once more to the days similar to the days of tension between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. But today might be even worse. It is not just Russia, China, and the United States that can wreak nuclear horror on the earth. There is beginning to be a host of other nations with the capability, including some of the most unstable governments on the planet like North Korea and Iran. And the reality seems to be that there are more nations with nuclear capability than we are even aware.

One repeated theme in Revelation is that John reported what he saw. While we can’t completely rule out other interpretations of John’s words, for the most part, this is what he saw. And a lot of what he saw, John struggled to put into words. And so we have to use our imaginations when we read John’s writing. John was unfamiliar with a nuclear war. He would not have had the words to describe such an even. So, for some, it is a nuclear conflict that John’s words might bring to mind. A third of the earth being destroyed, and all of the grass is something that we can imagine in the midst of a nuclear conflict. In fact, a third of the earth might be just a limited nuclear conflict. After all, the governments of the earth have enough nuclear weapons to destroy the earth several times over.

Of course, that interpretation might also be wrong. We just don’t know. But one thing that is for sure is that when these events happen and however these events happen, it will be with the full knowledge of God.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Revelation 9

Then one of the elders asked me, “These in white robes—who are they, and where did they come from?” – Revelation 7:13

Today’s Scripture Reading (April 26, 2018): Revelation 7

The French philosopher Voltaire (the pen name of Francois-Marie Arouet) argued that we should “judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.” The problem with answers is that they tend to set our minds in stone about the topic at hand. If I know the answer, then I stop looking at the problem. Questions indicate that we are still actively involved with the problem. Voltaire’s comment is very true even when it comes to exploring the biblical writing. When we come to the Bible with answers, we have actually shut down the real power of the sacred work. When we come to the Bible asking our questions, then the power of the Word of God is given a chance to work in us.

Of course, often we come to the Bible, and we seem to be either awed or confused and don’t know the proper questions to ask. And if that describes you, you are not alone. Apparently, that describes John at this moment. He is awed by everything that he sees going on around him. It is not that John believes that he knows the answers. He is quite aware that he doesn’t. The problem is that, at this moment, he doesn’t even know the questions that he should be asking.

So one of the elders prompts him by asking the appropriate question. In contemporary conversation, we might just offer the information. But in this case, the elder asks the question, maybe recognizing the power of a question. Who are these people? It is a gentle reminder to John that this is important. He needs to know. John needs information that he simply does not have.

One of my favorite phrases is “I don’t know.” But sometimes I miss things that I need to know, and I don’t ask the questions that need to be asked, and I often need someone to prompt me or remind me about what is important. Unfortunately, with many of us, we feel that that lack of knowledge is a weakness. But it isn’t. In fact, it is the reverse. The questions that we are willing to ask reflect our strength and not our weakness. And there is no doubt that Voltaire was right. We need to be able to “judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.” And we need to be willing to ask questions, rather than to think that we know it all because the reality is that we don’t understand everything, and even some of the things that we think we understand are actually wrong.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Revelation 8

I watched as he opened the sixth seal. There was a great earthquake. The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon turned blood red … Revelation 6:12

Today’s Scripture Reading (April 25, 2018): Revelation 6

Friedrich Nietzsche argued that “All things are subject to interpretation and whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.” The power to place a particular interpretation on any belief is incredibly important. Hitler’s power over the German people in the first half of the Twentieth Century depended greatly on his interpretation of the penalties and restrictions that had been placed on Germany following World War I. His ability to commit atrocities against Jewish people was dependent on his ability to place his interpretation onto the subject of racial history. His interpretation with regard to race was not in any way based on truth, but rather a reality of the power that he held.

The horror of what happened in the Second World War is not an isolated incident. As Christians, I believe we need to understand that it is possible that some of what we believe is only because of the power of interpretation, and not the truth of interpretation, and that his holds true for even some of our most strongly held beliefs. For instance, while some might argue that our belief with regard to same-sex sexual conduct is clearly laid out in the Bible and has been consistent over time, that is not quite true. Those who have had power have interpreted the biblical restrictions in very particular direction. In the early centuries after Christ, the predominant interpretation of the biblical same-sex attracted restrictions were in the direction of condemning the practice of pederasty, the predilection of some married men for having sex with young boys, often inviting them into their households and educating them as a payment for sex. Later, the prohibitions were in the direction of the celibate priesthood, who somehow believed that having sex with a male partner was not a violation of the vows of chastity, which, unfortunately, is a practice that the priesthood seems to have chased into our contemporary experience. Today, it is a total prohibition of same-sex sexual conduct. But we need to be careful that we recognize that even this may be an interpretation placed on the appropriate passages by those in power. (And, no, while I recognize the problem, I do not have an answer.)

The same is true of our interpretation of much of Revelation. Those in power often rule what it is that we believe. In today’s environment, it seems that power resides with those who believe that Revelation is to be interpreted literally, and is about future events. Books about the “Blood Red Moon” have been written and red as an indication that Jesus will soon return. But that is not the only way to interpret these passages. Some, not in power, argue that much of what is in Revelation should fall into the category of fulfilled prophecy, and still others argue that Revelation speaks more about the world in which John lived then it does about what we, in our century, are still waiting to happen sometime in the future. All are actually viable interpretations, and what we believe about them says more about who has the power of influence in our churches than it does about truth.

So in the current passage, some argue that John recorded exactly what he saw and that this event is yet to come. Others spiritualize John’s words and take them in a different direction. Adam Clarke, a pastor who wrote an extensive commentary in the early nineteenth century, actually argues that John’s vision of an earthquake may have been fulfilled in the early fourth century when Emperor Constantine came to power. He argues that this earthquake was “A most stupendous change in the civil and religious constitution of the world. If it refers to Constantine the Great, the change that was made by his conversion to Christianity might be very properly represented under the emblem of an earthquake.”

The important thing here, as it is through much of Revelation, is that we hold our conclusions lightly because what we believe the words are meant to signify will often speak more about the power voices in our lives than they do about what is true.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Revelation 7

Personal Note: Happy Birthday, Kenzie.

Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing at the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders. The Lamb had seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. – Revelation 5:6

Today’s Scripture Reading (April 24, 2018): Revelation 5

Brandon Sanderson in “The Way of Kings” remarks that “Expectations were like fine pottery. The harder you held them, the more likely they were to crack.” Verbally, our plan in life often seems to be that we will live without expectations. After all, expectations will often fail to be realized, leaving us disappointed. But the truth is that expectations are necessary for life. We live with them constantly. They are both our friends and our tormentors, as well as a key element of the plot twist in a good mystery.

John expects after the conversation that has gone on before to see a Lion. But it is not just any Lion that John expects, but rather the Lion of the tribe of Judah. John is told that the Lion of Judah has the power to open the scroll. But when he turns to look at Lion, his eyes reveal a Lamb instead. And it is not just any Lamb. The word that John uses to describe the Lamb is “arnion,” which indicates a diminutive or little lamb, bringing to mind, for contemporary readers, the lamb of Mary, as in “John had a little lamb, whose fleece was white as snow.”

Except that the second part isn’t right. The little Lamb is mortally injured. It seemed, in heaven, to bear the marks of its injury eternally, as if the assault had recently taken place. One can imagine from John’s description that instead of the fleece being “white as snow,” it was stained and dripping with blood. This little lamb had been slain. John was expecting a Lion, but what he saw was almost as far from the King of beasts as any animal could be; he saw a Lamb that had been beaten and was dying from its injury.

But just as John settles his expectations, changing them from a Lion to the Lamb that he now sees, his expectations fail him once more. Because this was not some ordinary lamb, this Lamb had seven horns and seven eyes. The significance of what John saw was that this Lamb, small, beaten and slain, possessed immeasurable power, signified by the seven horns, and unlimited knowledge, signified by the seven eyes. And this power and knowledge, this omnipotence and omniscience, was sent out by the seven spirits, to cover the entire earth. These seven spirits, or maybe a sevenfold spirit, is often referred to as the Holy Spirit, who is complete in that he is both the Spirit of God and Christ. The omnipresence of the Spirit joins the omniscience and omnipotence of the Lamb.  

Out of defeat, the Lamb would triumph. This might be the only place in literature where the Lamb becomes the Lion, and the expectations of both are melded into one. According to John, Jesus Christ is both the Lion and the Lamb. Jesus is both sacrifice and the power to save. And so he is also all that we need.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Revelation 6

The first living creature was like a lion, the second was like an ox, the third had a face like a man, the fourth was like a flying eagle. – Revelation 4:7

Today’s Scripture Reading (April 23, 2018): Revelation 4

“I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion.” The words belong to Alexander the Great and reflect our great respect, and fear, for lions. There is something about a lion that is special. It possesses great strength, it has few enemies outside of other lions, at least in its middle adult years. There is great danger in approaching a lion. But maybe the greatest aspect of the lion is the one that Alexander sees when he encounters this wonderful animal; the lion is a leader and one that many humans wish to emulate.

So maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise that when John first sees the four living creatures, which were covered with eyes front and back, it is the one that resembles a lion that grabs his attention first. These beings are believed to be cherubim, unearthly beings who attend directly to the desires of God. It should be noted that cherubim, strictly speaking, are not angels; they are something else. And because of their proximity to God, they are something special. And scholars have struggled to find meaning in the appearances of these particular cherubim since the day that the first readers gave their attention to John’s apocalypse.

There have been many interpretations. These four cherubim are the elements, cardinal virtues, or maybe the powers of the human soul. They have been identified with the four sections of Israel, each consisting of three tribes, which camped around the tabernacle during the desert exile. Maybe one of the most attractive, from a human-religious perspective, is that these cherubim are representations of the four gospels. The Gospel of Matthew roars like a “Lion,” Mark reveals Jesus as a humble worker and takes on the role of the “Ox,” Luke is a history that seeks to reveal Jesus as a “Man,” and finally the Gospel of John soars like an “Eagle.”

But maybe the best interpretation is a simpler one; in these four cherubim, we find all of creation. The Lion is the King of Jungle and all that is wild, the Ox is the strongest of the domesticated animals, the Eagle rules over all of the air, and man represents the pinnacle of creation, the one created in the very image of God. In this representation, there are no sheep, only leaders in their field, and through the leadership of these cherubim, all of Creation worships God, calling out to him “Holy, Holy, Holy.”    

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Revelation 5

Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have found your deeds unfinished in the sight of my God. – Revelation 3:2

Today’s Scripture Reading (April 22, 2018): Revelation 3

The Greek Historian Herodotus tells the story of Cyrus the Great, in 549 B.C.E., stumbling onto the city of Sardis. The Persian King marveled at the defensive position of the city. The cliffs that seemed to surround the city were too steep to climb. And so the king desired to make the city his own. He offered a reward to any soldier who could find a way into the city. One soldier was watching a guard at the top of the cliff when his helmet fell off and bounced down the steep embankment. He watched as the guard climbed down the cliff to get his helmet back. The Soldier recognized that there must have been a path to the top for the soldier to regain his helmet so easily. Once they located the entrance of the path, Cyrus ordered his army to climb up the path at night, under the cover of darkness. When they got to the top, they found the leaders of the city had not bothered to even posted a guard at the entrance. They were so confident that no one could reach them that there was no need to post a watchman. Within minutes, the city fell to Cyrus.

We might think that the fall of the Sardis to Cyrus would have cured the city of their overconfidence, but we would be wrong. In 214 B.C.E., Cyrus’s capture of Sardis replayed itself out one more time. This time the King was Antiochus III of the Seleucids, and once again the city was captured because of this same overconfidence.

It is this history that Jesus points to through John. If only a watchman had been posted, the city might not have fallen. No matter the strength of the attacking army, coming through the bottleneck of a path entrance at the top of a cliff is often an equalizing situation. It might not have taken much at the top of the path to dissuade the opposing forces from attacking. Even a meager defense would prove that the city simply could not be taken. But the people, and the soldiers, at the top of the cliff, were asleep and offered no resistance to the attacking army during either situation.

The message to the Christian Church at Sardis was a simple one. They, like the guards of the city, had fallen asleep. They were about to be defeated, and yet they didn’t even know they were under attack. They didn’t recognize that danger was near or that their task had not yet been completed.

The image of the Sardis Church could be compared to the Christian Church which is content to rest on its past accomplishments. This church believes that it understands everything. It is overconfident and often has accepted an easy faith. They are no longer watching out for evil because they believe that no evil can touch them. And for all of these reasons, they are a church which is about to die.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Revelation 4

I know your afflictions and your poverty—yet you are rich! I know about the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. – Revelation 2:9

Today’s Scripture Reading (April 21, 2018): Revelation 2

Antiochus III was a Seleucid king who ruled over Syria and large parts of Western Asia by the end of Third Century B.C.E. Antiochus III is sometimes called Antiochus III the Great, but “The Great” is a self-chosen title. Antiochus believed that he was “Basileus Megas” or “Great King,” a traditional title for Persian Kings. Antiochus III was a military king who experienced military success during the middle parts of his reign.

However, he also suffered a major setback close to the end of his reign. Antiochus III pitted his Seleucid forces against the army of the Roman Republic, and for four years the two powers fought for control of Western Asia. By the end of the four-year war, it was clear that the winner was the Roman Republic, and one of the areas that the Roman Republic had liberated was the city of Smyrna in modern day Turkey. The people of Smyrna responded to the liberation by building the first Temple to “dea Roma” in the city. Roma was the female deity that had come to personify the city of Rome.

Over the next few decades, Smyrna continued worshipping the emperors of Rome. And by the time that John was writing Revelation, almost two centuries later, Smyrna had gone from being a place where the Emperors of Rome could be worshipped, to being a city where Emperor worship had become mandatory.

The mandatory worship of the Emperors of Rome presented a special challenge to the monotheistic Christians and the Jews of the city. John remarks that they were poor, and the word used here is not just that there was a level of poverty among the Christians of Smyrna, but that their poverty was severe. The reality was that one of the ways to control the belief structure of the people is to control the employment of the people. Those who did not measure up to the belief standards of the city would be fired, refused employment and robbed because of their lack of belief. These measures continue to be used today. But the Christians were willing to put up with even this level of poverty and the loss of their belongings because they knew they had riches elsewhere. In a city that was known for its riches, Christians were rich even though they were materially poor.

John adds a comment about “those who say they are Jews and are not.” Some have argued that this indicates that true Jews worshipped Christ, but the more logical reading of the text is that there were Jews in Smyrna who seemed to believe that they could serve both the God of Israel and the Emperor, and were possibly encouraging the Christians to do the same. But these were not real Jews. Judaism has always persisted in the radical belief that there is only one God who is worthy of our worship, and as Christians, we too believe in one God, who reveals himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is not that the Roman pantheon of gods could not be expanded to accept one more, but rather that Jews and Christians refuse to bend their knee to any gods other than the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And even if poverty is the result, we will persist in our worship of only one God.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Revelation 3

Write, therefore, what you have seen, what is now and what will take place later. – Revelation 1:19

Today’s Scripture Reading (April 20, 2018): Revelation 1

Aerospace Engineer Werner von Braun (1912-1977) in the mid-Twentieth Century predicted: “that before the year 2000 is over, the first child will have been born on the moon.” It is easy to simply say that he was wrong, but what is often harder to ask is why. Is it possible that, if we had maintained our drive into space with the same intensity as we had during the space race in the late 1950’s and 1960’s, Werner’s prophecy might have become a reality? Or maybe the idea of having a baby in space is simply not healthy for either the child or the mom was something that, at the time, Werner von Braun simply did not understand? But, while standing at his particular place in time, a child born on the moon by the turn of the Twenty-First Century seemed like a possibility. Ultimately, however, we are still waiting for any long-term habitation of earth’s only satellite, and it has been decades since any earthling has even set foot on the moon. (Of course, if you believe that the moon landings were faked, then we have never set foot on the moon.)

When Werner von Braun made his bold prediction, he drew a line from the past to the present, and then extend that line into the future. In the middle of the Twentieth Century, a lot was going on in space research and, by the sixties, all of the focus was on the moon. And I think the belief was that if we could reach the moon, and have a man walk on the moon, then why wouldn’t we want to stay there.

But priorities changed. The Space Shuttle program pioneered the idea of reusable space vehicles; the Space Station pioneered longer-term space living and research. And the moon faded from the focus that we gave it during the mid-Twentieth Century. For this reason, von Braun’s prediction failed to materialize.

John is instructed to write down what he has seen, what is now, and what is yet to come. And John’s Revelation (not Revelations) is a strange mixture of the past, present, and future. It is cryptic, and we don’t know what it all means. But we must remember that another part of the discussion is that John’s Revelation was written near the end of First Century, and at least some of the predictions of John have been fulfilled while others are obviously waiting for the end of time. How much of this prophecy has been fulfilled? That is the question that we discuss. And there is no answer.

When reading Revelation, the best advice that I have is to hold truth lightly. And throughout the reading of the letter, breath the prayer that John closes this work with; Come, Lord Jesus. And throughout the process of your reading, may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen!

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Revelation 2

The elder, To the lady chosen by God and to her children, whom I love in the truth—and not I only, but also all who know the truth— 2 John 1:1

Today’s Scripture Reading (April 19, 2018): 2 John 1 & 3 John 1

When I was eight-years-old, my family made a move about 2000 miles away from family for health reasons. I remember saying goodbye to family and driving off in a three-ton truck that my father had bought for the move. On that day, everything changed. I was now miles away from grandparents, aunts, and uncles, cousins, all of whom had previously lived in a relatively small area around my house. For the last few months of my time in this sheltered environment, one set of grandparents lived just a couple of houses away, and my other set of grandparents lived only a few miles away. My mom says that the day we pulled out was one of the only times she watched her mother cry. It was a traumatic experience for all of us.

Once we arrived at our new home, I set myself to the task of writing my maternal grandparents a letter. (Actually, my paternal grandparents had made the trip at the last minute to help us get moved.) I still remember sitting down to write about everything that had happened on the week-long trip from my old home to my new one. And I remember signing the letter, Garry. I looked at the letter and wondered if my grandma would remember who I was? After all, we had been separated for almost a week, so I hastily added “Mullen” to the end of my name. Amazingly, fifty years later, tears still well up in my eyes when I think of that moment of my childhood.

John begins his second letter with some cryptic language. It is likely that the letter was written during a time of local persecution. So rather than identifying himself as the Apostle John, he identifies himself as “the elder.” This term is very unlikely to mean a clerical office or position. Elder simply reflects his age. John was likely, at this point, a man of over 90, and also “elder” is a sign of the respect that age and his teaching had naturally brought to him. The early church almost universally recognized that the writer of the letter was John. They knew the author had to be John by use of the phrase “the elder,” just as my grandmother would have recognized my first name without the necessity of me adding my last.

Likewise, although the identity of the recipient has been lost in time, those of that day within the Christian Church would have recognized who the lady would have been to whom the letter was directed. Scholars seem split between whether the lady indicated a specific church (it is highly unlikely that this letter was written to the general church) or to a specific person. But John refuses to name names because he knows that if the letter were to be intercepted, that it could mean someone’s death, including his own. And so he uses cryptic phrasing to get his point across, knowing that those who were meant to understand, would understand, and those who were to be kept in the dark would never know the mystery revealed in this simple salutation.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Revelation 1

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well. – 1 John 5:1

Today’s Scripture Reading (April 18, 2018): 1 John 5

Facebook excels at creating religious memes. I was tagged on one recently that promised that if I would share the meme with twenty people, that God would give me a miracle. The message behind the message seemed that God is on a public relations tour and that he is hiring us to be a part of it. So spread the word, share the meme with your friends, and you will be paid for your service. Of course, the meme didn’t depend on just the carrot; there was also a stick. Without actually using the words, the same message that promised a miracle if you did share the message, promised that hell was awaiting you if you did not.

The problem with these posts is that it presents a very skewed image of Christianity, and this skewed image is the only image of which many people are aware. Christianity, for some people in our culture, has become a game of trying to receive the miracles and avoid hell. And on Facebook, the pathway through the minefield is to annoy your friends with all of these silly religious messages.

In reality, being a Christian has nothing to do with sharing these Facebook messages. And it has little to do with miracles or with hell. The main focal point of Christianity is, and always has been, love. And that is it. Love. John’s message is one of love. Love each other, and that will be enough. If you love God, then you love Jesus Christ, his son. If you love the Son, then you will love each other. It is by loving each other that you prove your love for God. The tendrils of love move in and out of our lives. There can be no end to this kind of God-given love for the Christian.

And if we really do want the approval of God, then love is the only path that is open to us. And this is my problem with many Christian examples that I see in the developed world. The examples are almost totally devoid of love. Without love, you cannot claim to know Christ. If you can hate and do not feel guilty about it, then you are far from God because God is love.

Or maybe I could say it this way, paraphrasing the Apostle Paul. “If you share that Facebook meme, but have not love, then you are just an annoying voice in the crowd. If you retweet your belief in God, but have not love, then you are just making noise.”

Without love, our faith is useless. Without love, there is nothing that can redeem us in this life. God is love, and love is the starting and ending point of our faith.    

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 2 John 1 & 3 John 1

We love because he first loved us. – 1 John 4:19

Today’s Scripture Reading (April 17, 2018): 1 John 4

Ernest Hemmingway in “For Whom the Bell Tolls” writes;

I had an inheritance from my father,
It was the moon and the sun.

             And though I roam all over the world,
             The spending of it’s never done.

We understand what Hemmingway was meaning. Being taught to love nature is an inheritance that we can continue to enjoy throughout our lives. This kind of inheritance is not one that we will ever use up but rather renews itself day and night with every moment that we get outside and enjoy the natural world.

John makes a similar statement here. After speaking about the necessity of Christian love, he pauses and tells us where it is that this love originates. Christian love is not something that wells up naturally from the depths of the human soul. It is a gift from God; it is our inheritance from our Father. We love because he made the first move and loved us.

Love is the Christian’s incredible gift given to us by our Father. And like Hemmingway, we can emphatically state that we can roam all over the world, and the spending of our inheritance will never be completed. We will never find ourselves in a situation where love is not required. We will also never run out of love, no matter how much we love because the love that we share flows freely through us from Dad.

Of course, much like the inheritance that Hemmingway speaks of, we have to use our inheritance, or we are in danger of losing access to it. If we do not keep in the practice of love, we will find that we will lose our ability to use our incredible inheritance. There are many Christians that have turned sour and bitter and often maintain a very negative outlook on life. And with all that God has given to us, the only reason that I can find for that bitterness is that they have forgotten how to use their incredible inheritance. This love that God has bequeathed to them has become a stagnant pond. Much like the Dead Sea, love flows in, but it never flows out. And therefore life can no longer be sustained within its reach.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 1 John 5

And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. – 1 John 3:23

Today’s Scripture Reading (April 16, 2018): 1 John 3

My paternal grandfather was big on the idea of keeping the family name going. He wanted his Mullen heritage to passed down through the generations; he wanted his family name to be given to his children. And he did his part. Grandpa Mullen had two sons, Duane (my father) and Walden, to carry on the Mullen name. The next generation wasn’t as kind to my Grandfathers ambition. Of his four grandchildren, only one was a male (me). Oh, don’t get me wrong, my grandfather lavished his love on all of his grandchildren; there is no question that he adored his granddaughters, but only one of us would carry on the name. And so as I married and began to have children, the pressure was on. Our firstborn was a girl, Alyssa. My Grandfather loved his great-granddaughter, but he was still hoping for a boy. And the boy came with our second child, Craig. I proudly called my grandfather to announce the happy news. His Mullen name would be carried on for at least one more generation. Grandpa would die in a household accident just a little over a year after that phone call, but I am so glad that he lived long enough to greet and hold his great-grandson.

As I write these words, my son and his wife are expecting their first child. And in the waiting time, at this moment when we don’t yet know whether they will have a boy or a girl, I find my thoughts drifting back to my grandfather, wondering if there will be one more boy to carry on his name through one more generation.

Of course, I am also painfully aware that the name doesn’t mean anything unless we do something positive with it. It is one of the worries that I have had over the years and a worry I still maintain today. Am I a positive example of the Mullen name. Do I bring honor or dishonor to the family of my grandfather? It is a heavy weight to bear, and I am afraid that, at times, I have not weathered up well to the name. And so I try a little harder to carry on with honor and dignity the name that my grandfather has left me.

John says that we have been commanded to do two things. The first is to believe in Jesus, although he phrases it this way – to believe in the Name of Jesus. The Name is important. We sing that there is Power in the Name. Speaking the Name is important because it is one way that we bring honor to Jesus, we perpetuate his Name. The second command that John insists has been left to us is to love each other. In actuality, the two are connected. We bear the name of Christ; we are called Christians. And Christians often have a bad reputation in this world for one reason. I can’t explain why, but we often refuse to love one another. Sometimes we want to put restrictions on that love. The command is to “love one another” which means love other Christians. But to believe in this limited form of love means that we have to ignore Jesus’s parable of “The Good Samaritan.” But even if we do accept that limited definition, we don’t even seem to love other Christians well. Christ commands that we love those who love us and those who hate us. We love when it is easy and when it is hard. We love those who agree with our political stance and those who oppose it. When we have to protest, we do not do it with hate and with guns, but we choose nonviolent forms of protest so that we can get our message across. Again, straight from the words of Jesus, we are instructed to be the ones who turn the other cheek and walk the extra mile.

And as we do this, we bring honor to the name of the Son, the one in whom we believe.   

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 1 John 4

Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates a brother or sister is still in the darkness. – 1 John 2:9

Today’s Scripture Reading (April 15, 2018): 1 John 2

I am in fairly constant contact with several people who are in the process of deconverting from the Christian faith. They are often filled with angst, and that angst is often directed at me. Admittedly, as a pastor and visible Christian, I make a convenient target. Each one of these friends has a slightly different story to tell, and I try to listen to them as they tell it. But there is one common denominator in all of their stories. One of the main reasons for their deconversion is Christians. Each one of them has suffered hurt, and what they would interpret as hate, from people who claim to be followers of Christ. And I have to admit that we are often not great advertisers for the faith. I believe that there are a few reasons for this.

First, not everyone who calls themselves a Christian, is a Christian. The Christian Church is filled with people who have never fully accepted the claims of Christ. We know that. Some of these pretenders grew up in the church, and they are simply mimicking the things that they believe to be Christian. Some simply want to fit into a social situation. The Christian Church is often a magnet for the lonely and rejected who want to find a place where they belong. But mimicry or wanting to belong does not mean that they accept all that means to be a disciple of Jesus.

Second, we are all damaged. Admittedly, my deconverting friends don’t want to talk about this one, but it is a very real truth. All of us are damaged property. Some of us might hide it better, but that doesn’t make this fact any less the truth. It is impossible to move through this life and not receive some damage. Now, some of us are more damaged, but no one on this planet is unscathed by life. We are a damaged product of our planet. We can blame the damage on life or original sin, but the reality is that we are all damaged. And the truth is that, for every one of us, when we are placed in stressful situations, that damage tends to leak out.

Third, we are in process. I have been a Christian for decades, but there is a marked difference between who I am now and who I was ten years ago. I know there will be a marked difference between the person that I am now and the one that I will be ten years into the future. Some of that might be the process of growing older, but I believe that most of it is the process of God working in my life. There is a huge difference in the character of someone who has been a Christian for a week when compared to someone who has been a Christian for a decade or several decades, regardless of age. We are in process. And we will never be the perfect Christian until after we reach the end of this life. Which means that if you meet a breathing Christian, then you are in contact with a Christian who is in process

There are more reasons why we are not great advertisements for the faith, but there is also a litmus test. A real Christian, of any maturity, loves. Again, all of my deconverting friends have felt a lack of love from Christians, but according to John, that is simply impossible. The truth is that they have felt a lack of love by people in the church, but they weren’t Christians. Christians are defined by how they love. Now, I also need to let some in the church at least a little off the hook. Not all of the blame can be placed on the people in our churches. Did I mention that we are damaged? Often that damage means that we cannot receive the love that is being offered to us. We misinterpret it. We place motives on actions that just are not there. But for a Christian, we desire to persistently love even through even those situations. And there is nothing that anyone can do that will stop us from loving the people that we come into contact with in the world. This is who we are in Christ.  

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 1 John 3

If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us. – 1 John 1:10

Today’s Scripture Reading (April 14, 2018): 1 John 1

I love Salvador Dali’s quip that you need to “have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it.” The comment explains so much about life. From the moment we were born, we started our process of making mistakes. Much of what we learn in life, we learn from the mistakes that we have made, although I reject that that is the only way that we learn. If we cannot learn from the mistakes of others, as well as ourselves, then we will be maimed or dead long before we have learned very much. Still, mistakes are important to our learning process. Anyone who declares that they never make mistakes has long ago stopped trying to expand their circle of experiences. There is no other path to a perfect life. If my opinion is worth anything, I don’t believe that we fail near enough. We are too scared of our imperfections to allow them to be put on display. Yet, making mistakes is part of the path to success. So, maybe it is time that we admit that we all make mistakes. No one is immune. This is simply the reality of our lives.

So why do we sometimes have so much trouble admitting that we also have sin in our lives? Sin is essentially nothing more than spiritual or moral mistakes. Maybe looking differently at sin is what is required for us to understand our sin. No one is without sin. This statement is not supposed to be guilt-inducing any more than the mistakes that we make are evidence of our weakness. It is just a normal part of our existence.

Maybe we need to recognize that there are many kinds of sin. The Sunday School answer for the definition of sin is “a willful transgression of a known law of God.” But this is just one kind of sin. The Bible says that we are born into sin, which has nothing to do with the process of birth or conception, no matter how hard some might try to convince you of this, but just indicates that we are all prone to rebel. Not all rebellion is sin, but out rebellious natures often carry us into sin. If you wanted to sit down with my parents for a few minutes, they could regale you with stories of my rebellion and sin starting at an extremely young age. Not all of my rebellion was sin, but some definitely was. This natural tendency to rebel, especially when it comes to sin, is something that we have the power to curtail. Having extramarital relationships with porn stars is a choice of rebellion that we don’t have to make – it is a rebellion that we should be able to control. Lying instead of telling the truth is a choice that we make that reveals our inner character. Sin of this sort, as we grow older and our character matures, we should be able to avoid. But this is only one kind of sin.

Sin is not always intentional. There are some things that we do that accidentally carries us into sin. This category of sin we often have no control over because we don’t realize that we have sinned. Often this type of sin is a violation of the law of love. We have hurt someone with our actions, for which we are responsible, but without intention and sometimes even without knowledge. I am a fan of hockey, and this kind of sin might be best illustrated by the “unintentional high sticking” call in the sport. The rule is that every player must be in control of their stick. But at the speed of the game, sometimes high sticks happen. Hitting an opposing player in the head area with a stick, even if it is unintentional, will net a player, at a minimum, a two-minute penalty and time in the area colloquially known as the “sin bin.” We are responsible for the actions of our lives, and for our moral transgressions, even when we do not know that these transgressions are present in our lives. The recognition of this type of sin is the purpose of the Jewish holiday “Yom Kippur” or the Day of Atonement. The Day of Atonement was designed to provide ritual forgiveness for our unintentional sin.

And then some sin is situational. Peter is a great example of this type of sin. During the trial of Jesus at the end of Passion Week, Peter denies Jesus three times. There is no doubt that this denial of Christ is a sin. But I have often argued, to anyone who will listen, that we need to look at the circumstances of the denial. Peter, a fisherman, was unaccustomed of being in places like the courtyard of the High Priest, and especially uncomfortable in this moment because a trial of the movement of which he was a key part was taking place in the courtyard. Peter was asked three times if he was a part of this Christian movement. And three times Peter said no. He denied even knowing his friend who was on trial. It was a massive failure and sin on the part of Peter. But the rest of the disciples, who did not deny knowing Christ, had long since gone into hiding. Peter’s sin is a direct result of the situation that he had placed himself in while the others had abandoned Jesus. In Peter’s defense, at least he was trying.

Paul writes “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). John says that if we deny the existence of that sin, then we call Jesus a liar and deny him one more time. But the other side of the coin is that this is why Jesus died on a cross for our sin. The purpose of his death was to free us from the guilt that comes along with all of our sins. As we mature in Christ, our “willful transgressions” should decrease. After all, we are adults who should be able to define our characters and not be blown from place to place by the winds of our culture. But, if we are willing to recognize that sin does exist in our lives, the penalty for that sin has already been paid. The recognition of our sin is nothing more than an affirmation of the trust that we have placed in Jesus Christ.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 1 John 2

But even the archangel Michael, when he was disputing with the devil about the body of Moses, did not himself dare to condemn him for slander but said, “The Lord rebuke you!” – Jude 1:9

Today’s Scripture Reading (April 13, 2018): Jude 1

Sometime during the First Century C.E., someone sat down and wrote a story of Moses. We only know of the story from its appearance in other documents and a partial copy of the work dating from the sixth century C.E. It might be that the story was written with fragments of tales about Moses that had been told around campfires from family to family down through the generations, and while parts of the story might be of ancient origin, it appears that the story was added to with each passing generation. The story is supposed to be a prophecy that Moses gave to Joshua about what would happen next. The story relates the history of Israel from the death of Moses to the time of Herod the Great and his sons, and this history is recorded in the form of a prophecy. In the end, Moses encourages Joshua not to fear what was going to happen, but rather to understand that all of this is part of God’s plan for his people. The resulting work has been called the “Testament of Moses” or the “Assumption of Moses” (and even here we aren’t really sure if these are two works or different names for the same piece of writing).

Then the author uses another ancient tradition to describe the end of Moses life. According to the Bible account, Moses went up on a mountain alone as the people of Israel crossed over the Jordan River and into the Promised Land. Moses died alone on the mountain. Because he died alone, there was no one present to take care of his body after death, and so God sent the archangel Michael to be the gravedigger for Moses. Apparently, as Michael digs the grave of Moses, he comes into a dispute with Satan. Maybe the dispute was over the idea that God would care for someone like Moses, we really don’t know, but during the dispute, Michael rebukes Satan with the words “The Lord rebuke you.”

It is this work that Jude is referring to and the inclusion of this into Jude’s letter and then subsequently into the Christian Testament presents us with an interesting problem. The Assumption of Moses holds no authority in either Christianity or Judaism. The book is regarded as just some unknown person’s rambling, and it is not considered to be inspired by God. The question that we are presented with is this – should Jude’s reference to the work increase the authority of the work. This is a dilemma for anyone who holds a very literal interpretation of the Bible. If you interpret the Bible literally, then this reference in Jude should mean that Michael actually did act as the gravedigger for Moses, even though that idea is presented nowhere in the accepted canonical books of either the Jewish Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) or the Christian Testament, with the exception of here in Jude’s letter. If this reference to this obscure book is rejected, then we can’t interpret everything in the Bible literally.

While this is a significant problem for some, it really shouldn’t be. The best solution is that we try to understand the underlying principle that Jude is trying to illustrate, which is that even the archangel Michael did not think that he had the power to rebuke Satan, and so he said “The Lord rebuke you” rather than rebuking Satan on his own authority. And Michael does not consider it right to rebuke Satan on his authority, then neither should we rebuke Satan on our authority, but rather place that power where it belongs, in the hands of our God. This is God’s message through Jude to us, and the rest is just a parable.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 1 John 1

I want you to know that our brother Timothy has been released. If he arrives soon, I will come with him to see you. Greet all your leaders and all the Lord’s people. Those from Italy send you their greetings. – Hebrews 13:23-24

Today’s Scripture Reading (April 12, 2018): Hebrews 13

A good ending always seems to bring us back to the beginning. And the Epistle to the Hebrews ends with the same question that leaps off the page at the beginning; who is it that wrote the letter? The traditional answer has been Paul, although support for Pauline authorship has never been strong. Even by the end of the First Century, just a couple of decades after the writing of the letter, the idea that Paul wrote the Epistle to the Hebrews seemed like a convenient lie. There is just too much that is different about the letter when we compare it to other Pauline letters of which we have copies. Even the opening words of the Epistle to the Hebrews is dramatically different from any other letter that Paul wrote. The themes might be things that Paul would agree with, but that only means that the author was familiar with Paul and agreed with his theology.

So who wrote the letter? If it wasn’t Paul, then we have a long list of names that could have written the letter. Clement of Rome, Barnabas, Apollos, and Luke the Evangelist, who wrote both the Gospel of Luke and Acts, have all been suggested. My guess is that it might have been Priscilla who wrote the letter. If Priscilla did write Hebrews, then a woman writing a letter like this in a male-dominated world might explain the anonymity of the letter. The addition of Priscilla’s name, unlike Paul’s, would not increase the authority of the letter for those who read it. On the other hand, there is no doubt that the original recipients of the letter knew the identity of the one who wrote it.

The fact that the letter seems to have been written from Rome (“those from Italy send you their greetings”) would also give the idea of Priscilla as the author some credence. After all, Priscilla and Aquila had roots in Rome and had left the city only because the Christians had been thrown out by Emperor Claudius. It is quite possible that they returned to the city later in their careers.

But for those who cling to the idea that Paul was the author of the letter, there is support for that view here as well. The author seems to not only know Timothy, Paul’s protégé, but speaks with authority over him. Apparently, Timothy has been released. In itself, that comment is a bit of a mystery. We just don’t know from what Timothy has been released. Some argue that he was released from prison, but we don’t know that Timothy was ever in prison. Those who argue that he was in prison have only this verse to point to as their evidence.

Another theory is that Timothy had been on some kind of a mission, but had been released from that task. This would imply that the writer of the letter was in some kind of ecclesiastical authority, and of all of the possible writers suggested for the letter, it is Paul who most closely would fit that description. This implied authority also makes a strike against the possibility that Priscilla wrote the letter.

In the end, we are only left with our guesses. But as a friend of mine once remarked, “I am convinced that whoever wrote Hebrews, it was written by someone with whom we would be comfortable with their authorship.” In other words, it is written by someone who was deeply respected by the first-century church, and we should honor that respect.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Jude 1