Reading John's Revelation In about the middle of the second century after Christ a new prophet appeared in what is now central Turkey. His name was Montanus. He drew a good number of adherents around him including some prophetesses, Priscilla and Maximilla by name. These were still the early, and clearly turbulent, days of the young Christian movement. The people living were a few generations beyond the time of Jesus. Obviously by this time, no one was around who had actually seen Jesus, or who had personally known the first disciples and the early evangelists of the good news.
What they had were the memories, the oral tradition being passed along, and the early writings. The New Testament as we know it today was not yet put together though all those materials would have been around somewhere.
Montanus saw himself as a new prophet. He proclaimed ecstatic, other-worldly visions. And in particularly he announced that the second coming of Christ was about to become a visible reality. He announced that the establishment of the heavenly Jerusalem was to take place, and it would happen in the town of Pepuza, a town known to the people of that region. He called upon the people to live disciplined, ascetically pure lives.
And Montanus found inspiration and support for his visions in the book of Revelation, the last book in our Bibles, the revelation as told by a certain John of Patmos.
As the Montanus movement began to be noticed and spread it drew the suspicious glances and more of the established Christian churches. Perhaps there was surely the natural dynamic of something new barging into the territory of the long established. But the Montanus movement was also taking a potential canonical book, John's Revelation, and in the eyes of the old guard, misusing it. This surely tempted people to turn against the book of Revelation itself, since it was proving itself to be so controversial, and so prone to errant interpretation. Better just to not have to deal with it at all.
Indeed, the book of Revelation has been very difficult for the church to deal with. Its status in the canon was not settled until the fourth century and throughout church history people have disparaged it. John Calvin wrote commentaries on every book in the Bible except Revelation. Martin Luther instructed the people of his time to avoid Revelation and felt that the book was sub-Christian. The Swiss reformer Ulrich Zwingli, who coached some of the early Anabaptists, delared Revelation to be ``no biblical book.''
So if you have found in your life that you have never been drawn by the book of Revelation, or if you think that the book is more trouble than it is worth, I suppose you can stand proudly, shoulder to shoulder, with some respected historical figures.
I really haven't thought about it too much at all in my own life. It wasn't much part of my childhood beyond a soothing sense that God has something good lined up for us when we pass to the other side. The wild and crazy parts of Revelation, the war-mongering and bloody parts of Revelation, they were never emphasized to me. I did early on develop a kind of cynicism about Revelation. Every now and then we would learn of some modern day Montanus, proclaiming that the end was very near, and this proclamation was rooted in Revelation. These were met in my home with a kind of weary, yet incredulous, shrug. So Revelation was just always there, this last book in the Bible, this book that is so incredibly hard to relate to. To be honest, it was a book I really didn't care to read very much and always, when I read in Revelation, it was very piecemeal, a few verses at a time. And in doing so I suppose I was party to giving thinking of what the book is about over to those who see it as containing a blue print for what is literally to come. I rejected, or ignored those opinions, but I haven't had a particularly thoughtful alternative way of thinking.
So really, during the next weeks, as we study the book of Revelation, that is what I want to do. I want to deliberately try to see if there are better ways of understanding Revelation. I think there are.
I want to say from the outset that I am leaning heavily on counsel I received from Ted Grimsrud. Ted used to be a pastor at the Eugene Mennonite church, then moved on to South Dakota, and now he and Kathy are at EMU. He teaches Bible there and has written a little book on Revelation. Months ago I called him up and he sent me a paper he had written recently on Revelation for some scholarly, academic gathering. He also recommended a few books which I have rounded up. In Anabaptist circles there have been a number of people who have done some thinking on Revelation. John Yeats from Messiah College wrote the commentary in the Believers Church series. Nelson Kraybill and Loren Johns from AMBS have done some writing on Revelation. I think J. Denny Weaver, now retired from Bluffton, has done some work with Revelation. I know that Duane Friesen at Bethel has worked with Revelation, leaning in significant part on Walter Wink's Engaging the Powers book. So these are the kinds of sources which shape my thinking.
As we read the book of Revelation, just like when we read any part of the Bible, it is important to try to grasp what might have motivated the book to be written in the first place; and also, to grasp what kind of literature this book is. Now I keep calling it ``the book of Revelation'' but actually Revelation is more of a letter, a letter written to churches in a particular time and place. (I'm sure I'll keep calling it a ``book'' however, simply because that is customary) Thinking about Revelation this way is very important, and it is not to say that Revelation can't speak in other ways. One writer puts it this way, that the Bible can meet us, that we can pick it up and read it and it can meet us. In that way the Bible is probably functioning as a source of comfort, of consolation, or inspiration. But that is different from understanding the Bible, from understanding the book of Revelation.
This is a letter, and it is an example of apocalyptic literature. Probably written towards the end of the first century, maybe around 90 AD, it was not an unusual literary genre. The very first in the book is apokalypsis, and apokalypsis is what we translate as ``revelation.''
A group of scholars from the Society of Biblical Literature got together and developed this definition of apocalypse. ``Apocalypse'' is a genre of revelatory literature with a narrative framework, in which a revelation is mediated by an otherworldly being to a human recipient, disclosing a transcendent reality which is both temporal, insofar as it envisages eschatological salvation, and spatial insofar as it involves another, supernatural world. (Boring, p. 37)
In his commentary Eugene Boring says that we understand apocalypse within a broader context. First there is the expansive biblical category of providence, that our lives and history itself are under the sovereignty of One who is looking out for everything. Within the broad framework of providence we can think of eschatology. This comes from a Greek word for ``end.'' Eschatology is more specific than providence. Not only is God guiding history but God is guiding history towards a particular end, to a final goal. It is like the bookend to Creation. God has to do with the beginning, the Alpha, and also the end, the Omega. And this is something joyful to be celebrated. Apocalyptic thought is tucked within eschatological thoughts of the ``end.'' God is guiding history towards a final goal ``which God himself will bring about in the near future, in a particular way that is already revealed.'' (Boring, p. 37)
At this point we modern readers have to get Left Behind kind of thoughts of planes crashing as people are raptured out of our heads. The issue for the early listeners was more a question concerning the faithfulness of God. In our trying circumstances, will God, can God, somehow be faithful?
The prophet John of Patmos, who proclaims his vision, was writing near the end of the reign of the Roman emperor Domitian. John fears that there may be a time of persecution coming. There were the obvious hints of an emperor cult developing. IN the mid 80s some of the people in Domitian's court took to calling him ``lord and master,'' an appellation he rather liked. Christians were suspect people, they talked of eating flesh and blood, which raised the spector of cannibalism. They were suspected of being unpatriotic, they gathered for worship on days which weren't public holidays. Christianity's appeal was primarily to the lower classes.
What John does is challenge the church to be faithful, and to flee from any temptation to become supporters of the economic and military might of the Roman empire. Ted Grimsrud points out that the very first words of John's revelation are ``The revelation (apokalypsis) of Jesus Christ.'' He says that right in these first words we get a big clue. The power of biblical apocalypse is the power of Jesus Christ. And what kind of power is that? It is the power that comes through suffering, compassionate, love. It is the power that comes with living as part of faithful communities practicing loving resistance to the violent forces of evil of their time.
Hearing Revelation 1-3
John of Patmos wrote this letter to seven churches in Asia, now Turkey. In chapters two and three he addresses the seven churches, naming each one, and calling out to the ``angel'' of each church. The angel fits the apocalyptic tradition whereby earthly realities have their counterparts in the heavenly realm. You hear a familiar formula in the word to each city. In each case there are words of affirmation and critique. There is this consistent call to ``listen,'' to pay attention. And there is, for those willing to listen, the apocalyptic assurance of conquering, or to say it another way, assurance of blessing.
John of Patmos is writing churches which are in a minority position in their communities. He fears terrible persecution to come, though it is not present yet. He was very concerned about religious acculturation. He excoriates the ``Nicolaitans,'' the ``Balaam,'' and ``Jezebel,'' who to his mind far too easily accommodate to the surrounding culture. Perhaps he is something of a conservative in the truest sense, holding fast, whereas others want to blend Christianity and cultural religion. To all that he says a resounding ``no.''
It is argued that Revelation is best listened too in big chunks, rather than just reading little pieces of it. So I'm going to read now the first three chapters of Revelation, which concludes with the word to the seven churches. And then I'm going to add an eighth, which is beginning attempt to see where the Revelation of John of Patmos might be taking us.
(Read Revelation 1-3)
….And to the angel of the church in Reedley write: These are the words of the One who knows what it is like to be without a home.
I know your works. You have labored long and hard and I see the effect of the years in your shoulders and in your hands. In the middle of your work you have looked for beauty and you have preserved with pride all you have received. You have opened your doors and welcomed new voices into your midst. But I have this against you. In the midst of your goodness you are blind to your poverty. You want to be generous but you expect a profit in return. You look to the left and to the right but you don't see what is right in front of you. You seek the narrow way but you slip easily onto the main road. Too easily, you try to please others and don't want to risk offending your friends.
Remember these things and repent, and seek to love as easily as a child, yet love with all the strength that comes through the experiences of each passing year. Remember that I stand here beside you, that I am with you, that I will never abandon you. Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches.
