Friday, July 7, 2006

Good Morning 

 

It's been awhile, but I will be at church on Sunday.  Been missing all of you.

 

Today's Reading:    Revelation 18:1-5, Barclay 168-172

 

-- we start chapter 18, getting close to the end -- only three chapters to go after this one.

 

-- we learn a new term in Barclay's commentary for this section -- "doom song" -- which is his description for the passages in this section that reflect on Babylon's fall. This form has other examples in the Old Testament, as prophets there foretold of the destruction of various cities, such as the actual Babylon.

 

--  Just a reminder, Barclay's take is that Babylon is ancient Rome.  Our challenge is to see whether we accept that, or if we think Babylon represents some other country to come, one that is a world power wielding significant political, religious and cultural inflluence.

 

-- A couple of times in Barclay's commentary, he continues to say something to the effect "John must have been thinking about this passage or that passage" in the Old Testament when he wrote portions of Revelation.  That continues to bug me, as to me the implication is that John is writing what he thinks, rather than what he is seeing.  He very well my be revisiting the language and format of the Old Testament, but I'm not happy with the idea that he is doing so because he is making this up as he goes along.  Perhaps I'm more fundamentalist than I think, but I'm of a mind that John is writing about a vision that God revealed to him.  I'm not ready to say that John was simply making this up as he wrote.

 

-- The fact that Barclay says that I think explains why he is sure that Rome is the beast, etc.  If John did not see the future, and he was simply making all of this up, then he follows that he would write about what he knew, and John knew about Rome.  There actually would be no need for him to be "in the Spirit" to see all of this -- most of it happened during his lifetime.  It's clear to me that Barclay's approach is that John took two things he knew -- Roman history, including its attitude towards Christians, and his knowledge of Old Testament apocalyptic literature, language and symbolism, and merged them together to form this new 'revelation' that was his personal 'inspired' take on what the future holds. That is a far cry from being a book that looks thousands of years into the future to warn and educate people about what is to come.  We still have three chapters to go, so perhaps I'll come around to Barclay's thinking once I've read the entire book. 

 

--  I think that it is clear that Revelation really challenges us as Christians about our attitudes about scripture and the Bible, and what we believe about the words written there.  The content of Revelation is so different, and so challenging, that whatever belief we have about what is written in the Bible -- that every word is literally true, or symbolically true, or a mix -- is challenged by what John has written.

Today's Scripture 

 

Surely God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid, for the Lord God is my strength and my might; he has become my salvation.

 

Isaiah 12:2

 

Today's prayer requests:       Saundra Aaron

 

Valerie's brother's mother-in-law continues to go through treatment for cancer.  We did get a good update on her on Tuesday from Valerie's sister-in-law, but she still needs our prayers as her treatments continue.

 

Also need to continue to remember Kelley Thaxton and her husband Don, and Megan's friend Kayla.  

 

Today's class member prayer: 

 Krystle Hatton      

 

Jay 

Thursday, July 6, 2006

Good Morning  

 

 

Today's Reading:    Revelation 17:7-18, Barclay 165-168 

 

-- Couple of quick sections to conclude study of Chapter 17.

 

-- Again, I think that just for purposes of understanding, you can see why there are those who interpret the symbolism in this chapter to mean present day New York, with possible references to United Nations, to the European Union, to the seductive nature of American culture -- there are a lot of elements in this chapter that you could, if you wanted, connect to the US.  I'm sure that reader in the 18th century probably could have done the same with London or Paris.  Such is the nature of Revelation.

 

-- Barclay continues his commentary in the context of Rome, and he mentions in passing how he is dealing with a bit of the time issue, by noting that John is projecting himself BACK to the time of Vespasian.  Just don't see why John would do that, or to what purpose, but it is an approach that Barclay needs to work to make his other elements work out.  That is a point of dicussion for us whether we agree with that approach or not.

 

-- The other thing for today is the idea that Barclay pulls out of the scripture -- that those who are not Christian will be 'dazzled' by the beast and his works and his power.  Evil is seductive, and exciting, and powerful, and without a firm foundation, we as humans are easily lost to it.  It reminds me of the old saying "If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything."

 

Today's Scripture 

 

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.  Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

 

Galatians 5:1

 

Today's prayer requests:      From Megan:

 

Please keep my friend Kayla and her family in your prayers.  She is currently pregnant with their 2nd child and has recently found a mass in her throat.  The doctor's did an ultrasound last week and determined that a biopsy was needed.  She will have that done Monday.

 

Also need to continue to remember Kelley Thaxton and her husband Don.

 

Today's class member prayer: 

Michelle Ray     

 

Jay 

Re: Wednesday, July 5, 2006

Please keep my friend Kayla and her family in your prayers.  She is currently pregnant with their 2nd child and has recently found a mass in her throat.  The doctor's did an ultrasound last week and determined that a biopsy was needed.  She will have that done Monday. 

Wednesday, July 5, 2006

Good Morning  

 

Hope everyone had a great 4th of July holiday  

 

Today's Reading:    Revelation 17:1-6 , Barclay 160-165

 

-- Several quick sections focusing on portions of chapter 17.  As noted earlier, we are going to try to pick up the pace and do multiple sections so that we can finish this study by the end of July.

 

-- Some quick thoughts about today's readings. First, a couple of thoughts on the use of the concept of a "whore" to describe Rome.  First, it is interesting that, in trying to communicate the idea that Rome is the most sinful of cities, that whore (and by definition), sexual sin is associated with it, rather than other sins such as greed, or hatred, or violence, etc.  That leads into the second point, which one that Barclay references, is the idea that a prostitute not only sins herself, but intentionally persuades others to sin.  There is this idea, this thought in Revelation, that many will be coerced into worshipping the beast and taking his mark, and that may be true (through economic sanctions and threats of violence).  But this imagery in Chapter 17 leads us to believe that many will be seduced into worshipping the beast, and that is a different thing to resist altogether.

 

-- A second thought about Rome, etc -- Barclay quotes from Tacitus on page 165 about Christians, and Tacitus has this quote about Rome:  "where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular."  There are those who would assign such a description to New York perhaps, or maybe better yet, Hollywood.

 

-- On a completely different thought, there is this idea of John being taken in the spirit to the desert, to the wilderness, to see this vision.  This is a regular theme in the Bible, through all of the prophets, and even in Jesus life -- to go the wilderness to better commune with God, to hear his message -- to find a place where all of the distractions around us are gone.

 

Today's Scripture 

 

Be dressed and ready for service and keep your lights burning, like men waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for him.

 

Luke 12:35-36

 

Today's prayer requests:      From Kelley Thaxton -- emailed at 3:20AM, July 4th:

 

(fyi, Kelley has been very faithful in following along with the class via email for a couple of years now)

I would like to ask you to pray for my husband, Don Thaxton.  He was in an extremely bad car accident on Friday morning at 4:20am on I-459 S.  You may have seen it on the news.

He is going to survive, but it will be a long time before he’s out of the hospital.  

Additionally, our daughter, Sierra, is having a very hard time with this, because she wants to see her daddy and to come home. (She’s staying with my mother in Huntsville right now.)

Additionally, the woman who was in the car he hit is in total despair and unsaved.  (We are asking everyone to keep her in their prayers.)

Obviously there are many aspects to this.  I am currently spending all of my time at the hospital, from the 10:30am first visit until the 12:30 am last visit. 

God’s hand is all over this, and we are truly experiencing small miracles every day.  You’d be astounded at all of the different ways that God is revealing his might, wisdom, and plan through so many different people.

Today's class member prayer: 

Brad Douglas     

 

Jay 

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