Medicine Hat Joe

Week 51 Revelation

Since it was first written John’s revelation has been read by two-thousand years’ worth of churches. But back in the beginning it was only addressed to seven congregations in the Roman province of Asia.
I notice that the seven churches are different – each has its own quirks & talents & tastes & gaffs & practices & idiosyncrasies. Different ingredients mixed and baked into different-tasting congregations.
I notice some churches are qualitatively better than others. For example I don’t think anything negative is said about Smyrna or Philadelphia. And nothing good is said about Laodicea.
I notice some churches have serious disabilities. Ephesus doesn’t love God or each other. Pergamum & Thyatira tolerate idol-worship and immorality. Sardis has a fine public reputation but the fact is Sardis is dead.
I notice conflicting combinations of strength & weakness. Thyatira is loving & faithful & service-oriented…but they like bad teaching and they act evilly.
I notice directional differences. Five congregations are warned about heading into the danger-zone. But Smyrna & Philadelphia are making progress and get commended.
Living my life as an independent operator is already pretty complex. But life in the community of the church piles-up complications. By how much? It’s hard to say. I try quantifying it with this rule-of-thumb: 1 unit of personal complexity x local-church population = total community complexity (so…a 200-member church would have a group-complexity level ~200 times greater than one individual life).
I admit it’s a rough guide. But whatever the exact Community Life Complexity Number is it’s way bigger than life alone.

Week 51 Revelation

John was living on an island when the visions of Revelation came to him. He says that one Sunday he heard a voice behind him and when he turned he saw: seven golden lampstands. And standing in the middle of the lampstands was the Son of Man.
John couldn’t describe the Son of Man in normal terms. He had to revert to approximation language:
…white like wool
…white as snow
…like flames of fire
…bright as refined bronze
…like ocean waves
…bright as the sun.
Basically he was awestruck…mentally-unhitched…physically-undone. He was so high on the Discomposure Scale that he says: when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead.
I remember Isaiah’s reaction when he saw the Lord. He said: my destruction is sealed. I remember Ezekiel’s reaction when the Lord appeared: when I saw (him) I fell face down in the dust. I remember Daniel’s post-vision reaction: I…was terrified by my thoughts and my face was pale with fear.
Two things register:
a) sometimes a personal connection with the Lord is comforting (for instance I remember the boy Samuel in the tabernacle in the dead of night. I remember the gently blowing wind of Elijah. I remember Mary meeting Jesus in the garden.)
b) other times it isn’t.

Note: quotes from Revelation 1:12-13, 14-17; Isaiah 6:5; Ezekiel 1:28; Daniel 7:28 (NLT). The other stories are from 1 Samuel 3:1-10; 1 Kings 19:11-12; John 20:11-18.

 

Week 51 Revelation

Feeling words come to my mind when I get to Revelation. Difficult incomprehensible vague shadowy unclear elusive ominous mysterious scary. Like that.
So I stop when I read: God blesses the one who reads this prophecy.
Okay! That sounds pretty nice:
…God blesses the one who reads this prophecy
…which means God blesses a person who – specifically – reads Revelation
…which also means (since I’m reading Revelation) that God blesses me!
So I’m feeling pretty good about that.
I read on and see that the whole verse says: God blesses the one who reads this prophecy to the church, and he blesses all who listen to it and obey what it says.
Right away I notice the two “ands”. When I break the verse down I see that God blesses a person who…
a) reads Revelation…
b) listens to what it’s saying…
c) obeys what it says.
So I’m feeling a little less pretty-good now.
Reading is just the first element. There’s two other members in the set – listening & obeying.
My suspicion is that listening needs some more thinking-about – at the very least I think listening needs an adjective – something like active or attentive or focused listening.
The obeying step doesn’t need adjectival help. I’ve basically just got obey or else disobey.
So anyway…my end-of-the-year bible-reading reminder is that reading is one thing but not the only thing.

Note: quote from Revelation 1:3 (NLT)

Week 51 Revelation

Normally I figure I’ve got a pretty clear idea about who wrote the bible books. For example if someone asked me who wrote Matthew I’d say Matthew. Or who wrote Romans I’d say Paul. The point is I’d name an author.
Revelation is a reminder that I’m not going far enough up the authorial chain.
The title in my bible says: THE REVELATION to John. But then there’s a subtitle that says: The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
The revelation is “to” John…so he’s recording it.
The revelation is “of” Jesus Christ…he’s providing the content.
But then verse-one expands the content-provision group. It’s: the revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave him…(and then) an angel was sent to God’s servant John so that John could share the revelation with God’s other servants.
The transmission process now includes God (the Father) > Jesus Christ > an angel > John. John – the person I would normally say wrote Revelation – is only the fourth one listed on the chain-of-communication. John – a kind of secretary and distributor – passes the memo along to the recipients.
So it’s a reminder to me that if I’m reading the bible (on its own terms) then the genuinely creative content isn’t coming from the writer.

Note: quote from Revelation 1:1 (NLT).
Added note: I get another reminder that on the content-receiver end I’m not even a primary reader (the seven churches in Asia were). I’m a secondary reader…reading over someone else’s shoulder.

Week 51 Jude

As of today I’ve got twenty-two chapters left to read – the book of Revelation – and I’ve got twelve days left to read them. So that’s an easily-manageable task (assuming I don’t end up intubated in the local hospital).
With the pressure off I’ve been thinking ahead to my bible-reading strategy for 2022. What do I read? There’s the nagging OT vs. NT debate. Dated vs. Up-to-Date. Background vs. Foreground. What’s Coming vs. What’s Here Now. I was thinking about that when I landed on Jude today.
Jude mentions a bunch of OT content in his letter. The reason is that: some godless people have wormed their way in among you, saying that God’s forgiveness allows us to live immoral lives…
That’s a pretty seriously deficient view and to highlight how serious it is Jude compares these NT creepers to a) rebellious Israel b) fallen angels c) Cain d) Balaam & e) Korah. Since I’ve read the OT I know Jude isn’t complimenting these people when he compares them to some of the notable derelicts in the OT.
Anyway getting back to my decision…I know that just because the NT refers back to the OT doesn’t prove that I should read it this year. It’s more just a reminder to me of something I already figure makes good sense…that I’m in a stronger position if I read the OT than if I don’t.

Note: quote from Jude 4 (NLT).

Week 50 John

I’d finished the last two letters of John before I got a word book to confirm what I was pretty sure about. Out of the ~215 times the word love is used in the bible John accounts for ~70 of them – ~33.56%. Loved is used 36 times in the NT…23 times by John. So I know love is an important word and idea for him.
But I wish John had used a different word than love. The way love is commonly used in Alberta is almost completely different from the way John uses it. There should be two distinct words (if I hear the word black I can’t be expected to think white).
Couple of examples of what John says about love:
…those who obey God’s word really do love him
…we know what real love is because Christ gave up his life for us. And so we also ought to give up our lives
…let us stop just saying we love each another; let us really show it by our actions
…love means doing what God has commanded us.
So John’s love isn’t sexual or romantic and I’m not even sure if emotion or affection are much involved at all. Which changes love a lot. If love is doing things the Lord prefers then love – for me – might mean doing something I don’t even feel like doing. And taking the sensory thrill out of love doesn’t sound like 21st century love at all.

Note: quotes from 1 John 2:5, 3:16, 18 & 2 John 6 (NLT)

Week 50 John

John says: dear friends, do not believe everyone who claims to speak by the Spirit. You must test them to see if the spirit they have comes from God.
The test John’s referring to isn’t to evaluate whether what a guy says makes sense or is logical or is intellectually defensible or is falsifiable or like that. It’s to test-the-spirit behind the talk. And John says the spirit can be tested by asking one question…did divine Christ become a human?
I try breaking the idea down. Let’s say there’s two guys: Guy #1 and Guy #2. Both guys are asked John’s Test Question.
Guy #1 says True – God materialized in Jesus.
Guy #2 says False – Jesus wasn’t divine.
John accounts for the different answers this way…
Guy #1 is animated by the Spirit of God (S#1).
Guy #2 is spurred on by: the spirit of the Antichrist (S#2).
The debate between Guy #1 and Guy #2 is a debate between guys and also a confrontation between the Two Animators – S#1 & S#2.
And John admits that there’s a pretty common-sense explanation for why Guy #2 (and therefore S#2) have a captive audience: these people (the Guy #2 group) belong to this world, so they speak from the world’s viewpoint, and the world listens to them. All are influenced by the same influencer.
John is saying: I can only believe what my animating spirit gives me the capacity to believe. (That’s not a quote but I think it’s more or less what John’s saying.)

Note: quotes from 1 John 4:1, 3 & 5 (NLT)

Week 50 John

John uses the word abide (or abides & abiding) quite a few times. Today I took five minutes to page back and scan the text. I easily found a dozen references to abide. I checked a word book. In the whole bible abide abides & abiding are used 67 times. In his gospel and letters John accounts for 43 of the 67 – about 64.18%.
I wonder about the word abide. It’s a kind of old-fashioned word but not so dated that it’s indecipherable. It basically means lasting for a long time. Not changing over time.
John uses abide in a couple of different ways but the usage I’m interested in is the one about me-abiding-in-God. John uses it that way several times. For example:
you will abide in the Son and the Father
you abide in Him
we abide in Him
The idea is that when I come into belief in the Lord then from now on I stick with him. I abide. I settle in for the long haul. Undeviating persistence. Come-what-may endurance. I last.
I checked a different version of the bible and it said living-in-God instead of abiding-in-God. I can’t argue with that. But I prefer abide. Living-in-God seems passive…kind of inertial…relaxed. But abiding feels active. Like it’s mine to do. To stick-with or quit.
Reading John’s letters the last couple of days haven’t given me the sense John was a low-demand guy. And I don’t get the sense abiding is a low-demand task.

Note: quotes from 1 John 2:24 2:28, 3:24, 4:13 (NASB)

Week 50 John

John says: do not believe everyone who claims to speak by the Spirit.
That sounds like if I’m a believer then I have to believe…and I also have to doubt.
The reason John tells me not to believe everything is because: there are many false prophets in the world.
I get a scrap of paper and on the top-left write GOD and a bunch of x’s flowing down the page toward Stick-figure Me at the bottom – Truths coming from the Lord. On the right-side I pencil-in WORLD (and the subtitle False-Prophets) with a stream of y’s coming at me – Non-Truths. And John says I have to test all of them.
My sheet of paper has a cascade of x’s and y’s streaming down on me and I have to test them…make some distinctions…discriminate…accept-reject. Not the easiest thing to do.
John’s advice is to go to the source. I have a Truth Source and a Non-Truth Source and John says: if (the source) acknowledges that Jesus Christ became a human being, that person has the Spirit of God. If (the source) does not acknowledge Jesus, that person is not from God.
So John’s base-level test for examining the flood of Truths & Non-Truths that wash over me all day long is this: does the source believe that the Lord Christ came to earth in material form from God.
There’s more to it but this is the place where I start.

Note: quotes from 1 John 4:1, 2, 3 (NLT)

Week 50 Peter

Peter starts by talking about one of the restrictions that’s applied when it comes to believing in the Lord. It’s that I can’t be both a believer and at the same time be a material-things-are-everything guy. Peter wrote: you love (the Lord) even though you have never seen him. Though you do not see him, you trust him…Your reward for trusting him will be the salvation of your souls… (which also means that being a material-things-are-everything guy has limitations).
Anyway what really caught my attention was Peter’s comment about the OT prophets who forecasted NT events long before they happened: this salvation was something the prophets wanted to know more about…they had many questions as to what it could all mean…They wondered what the Spirit of Christ within them was talking about…They wondered when and to whom all this would happen.
I need to keep this in mind next year when I’m reading the OT…to remember that when the OT writers like Isaiah and Daniel were making their long-range forecasts:
a) they really didn’t know details of how those things would play-out
b) they knew very well they were forecasting in the dark
c) the not-knowing gap perplexed them and they tried to dope it out
d) but they lived and died wondering.
There are lots of things I don’t really understand while I’m reading-through. So it’s a small consolation to know that some of the writers didn’t either.

Note: quotes from 1 Peter 1:8-9, 10-11 (NLT)