Silence (Rev 8.1-5)

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Revelation

(You might want to start by reading Revelation 8.1-5)

Reflecting on the text

With the breaking of the seventh seal we would expect the end.

Instead we get silence.

For thirty minutes, no one in heaven says a word. Not God. Not the angels. Not the elders. Not the living creatures. No one.

No songs. No speeches. No declarations. No pleas for vindication.Nothing.

Except silence.

Strange, isn’t it?

I’m tempted to leave the rest of the page blank, just to help you experience how weird it would be to get silence when what you expect is more explanation.

What You See Is Who We’ll Be (Rev 7)

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eschatology, reconciliation, Revelation

Reflecting on the text

Revelation often catches us by surprise.

Sometimes John surprises us by the shocking, explosive nature of his imagery. Other times he surprises us in more subtle ways.

For example, what should we expect at the end of chapter six?

I don’t know about you, but it sounds like everything is about to come crashing to one final end. I’m thinking that after 6.12-17 (which cannot be taken literal, mind you—there would be no “then” after verse 14) everything is over.

We expect more destruction, but we get…

Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Rev 6.1-17)

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Revelation

Reflecting on the Text

Welcome to the most difficult chapters in Revelation. In my opinion, the three cycles of judgments found in chapters 6, 8-9, and 16 are where many people totally mistake the meaning of this book.

In chapters one through five it is clear that John is a real person talking to real people. The first few chapters are obviously speaking about things happening in first century Asia Minor.

But for some reason when people get to chapter six they start to forget all about the first recipients of the letter of Revelation. John has been forced into all sorts of fanciful future-prediction grids simply because we want him to be talking directly to us instead of the people to whom he was originally writing.

Perhaps we need to briefly revisit the question of genre:

Resuming Lifting the Veil (blogging through the book of Revelation)

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Revelation

So I think I might actually resume blogging through the book of Revelation (a series I’m calling Lifting the Veil). Most of the material is already written, but I ran into some pieces I really wasn’t happy with and I didn’t know how to fix them, so I pushed pause (for a really long time). Here is the inventory so far…

Introduction

What is the book of Revelation? (pt 1)

What is the book of Revelation? (pt 2)

What is the book of Revelation? (pt 3)

What We Need Most (Rev 1.9-20)

No Obedience Without Resistance (Rev 2-3)

Jesus Saw It First (Rev 2-3)

Lukewarmness and Satan’s Throne (2.12-17; 3.14-22)

Throne Wars (Rev 4)

The Beauty of God (Rev 4)

Why Are They Crying? (Rev 5)

The Shape of Jesus’ Victory (Rev 5.5-6)

“Political” Musings on the Fiery Furnace (4 of 4)

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America, american culture, christendom, crucifixion, discipleship, gospel, jesus, martyrdom, new testament, old testament, politics, salvation

“They disobeyed the king’s command and yielded up their bodies rather than serve and worship any god except their own God.” (Daniel 3.28b)

This is my final post offering reflections on the “political lessons” we learn from the very strange story in Daniel 3. See previous posts here,  here and here. So far I have claimed from this story that (1) Politics is a question of idolatry – that is, competing claims for allegiance; (2) Obedience to God sometimes requires disobedience to the government; (3) This “theo-political” showdown is often fought on the battlefield of symbolic ritual; (4) In the ancient world God’s people faced persecution due to their position as a minority outsider in an imperial world; (5) Loyal servants of idolatrous political powers often die needlessly and tragically; (6) Sometimes governments do acknowledge God’s superior power to save; (7) The “political idolatry problem” does not rule out participation in political affairs. Below are the final two of my nine reflections (the last one is my favorite!).

“Political” Musings on the Fiery Furnace (3 of 4)

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America, american culture, christendom, church, God, idolatry, old testament, politics

“They disobeyed the king’s command and yielded up their bodies rather than serve and worship any god except their own God.” (Daniel 3.28b)

This is the third of four posts offering reflections on the “political lessons” we learn from the story in Daniel 3 about  Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego being thrown into a fiery furnace by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. See previous posts here and here. I’m offering nine reflections in all, and 4-7 are below.

“Political” Musings on the Fiery Furnace (2 of 4)

“They disobeyed the king’s command and yielded up their bodies rather than serve and worship any god except their own God.” (Daniel 3.28b)

A while back I preached a message on Daniel 3 – the story of Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego being thrown into the fiery furnace. This is the second of four posts where I’m offering some political reflections on this story. In the first post I talked about how politics is always a question of idolatry– that is, competing claims for allegiance. Below are musings two and three (of nine).

2.  Obedience to God sometimes requires disobedience to the political powers that be.

“Turtle Dialogues” Interview

Some old friends from my college (Ozark Christian College) are doing a blog called “Turtle Dialogues” where they interview graduates about how their thinking has expanded, developed, or changed since their respective good ol’ days at OCC. I got interviewed and it went up a couple days ago. I thought it was fun. Check it out if interested – Turtle Dialogues Interview.

“Political” Musings on the Fiery Furnace (1 of 4)

Tags

daniel, old testament, politics

“They disobeyed the king’s command and yielded up their bodies rather than serve and worship any god except their own God.” (Daniel 3.28b)

A while back I preached a message on Daniel 3 – the story of Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego being thrown into a fiery furnace by Nebuchadnezzar the King of Babylon. I really enjoyed learning about this story (beyond what I learned as a kid in Sunday school), but afterwards I noticed that this was a text about defying a government, which I found pretty interesting! I took the sermon in a different direction (can’t say everything), but I took some time to write out some reflections about some potential “political” insights we might gain from this story (nine of them, to be specific). I’ll post what I came up with in four parts. This is the first. Keep in mind that these are meant merely to be suggestions. This text is hardly a thorough prescriptive recipe for Christian political activity, but there are many things we can learn from it in this regard.

1.  Politics is a question of idolatry– that is, competing claims for allegiance.