Monday, July 3, 2006

Good Morning  

 

Hope everyone had a good weekend. 

 

Today's Reading:    Revelation 17(all), Barclay 156-160  

 

 -- Today's section is about the Beast mentioned in chapter 17. We have some work to do to figure out our own thoughts about this passage.

 

-- In short, Barclay writes that the references to the beast are to the Roman Empire.  The references to the seven heads work out to connect to the series of emperors of Roman Empire, beginning with Augustus.  This all connects also to Barclay's discussion about the anti-christ, and the legends of John's time that Nero would return in all his evil.  In this scenario, the anti-christ, the beast, would have to be identified as Domitian, who Barclay details as a very evil man, and Barclay spends some time discussing some examples of his evil nature.  More about Domitian can be found here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domitian and here: http://www.roman-emperors.org/domitian.htm and here:  http://www.bartleby.com/65/do/Domitian.html.  I included three references because, I was surprised to see in the online research, not as much play about Domitian's cruelty and evil nature -- in fact, some of these articles say that Domitian's persecution of Christians and his evil nature perhaps was overstated. 

 

-- Barclay points out there are a couple of problems with identification of Domitian.  First, given the way John has written this, his references to time don't work out in a manner to point to Domitian -- if Domitian is the answer, then the passage is written as if John is writing during the time of Vespasian, two emperor's and about 10 years earlier, but John wrote during Domitian's reign.  It may be a case that we are wrong about when John wrote this..  The second issue is the reference to the 10 kings -- Barclay doesn't really have a take on this, other than to suggest that it may be a reference to provincial governors of Rome.

 

-- While you could argue back and forth about the references to Rome, and they do work out very well, the fact of the matter is that where we are in the book, I just don't see how this could be Rome, because everything else John writes about -- the plagues, the darkness, the earthquakes -- hasn't happened yet.   I haven't seen or heard a good explanation for everything else.  I haven't yet bought into Barclay's implied contention that John is doing what all good writers do -- write what they know.  So far, starting all the way back with the letters to the seven churches, I think that Barclay's point of view is that John is writing in a highly poetic and symbolic way about the events of his day -- that he doesn't have a perspective of looking thousands of years into the future.  I just haven't bought into that perspective/approach as of yet -- but we need to keep an open mind, and let the scriptures speak to us and ask God to help us understand his message.

 

Today's Scripture 

 

Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart.

 

Hebrews 4:7

 

Today's prayer requests:     For our country

 

During this Independence Day holiday, we need to pray for our country, and to give thanks for the freedoms that we have been blessed with. 

Today's class member prayer: 

 Wes Russell     

 

Jay