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Speaker 1: The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that

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Speaker 1: deny God. As such, we need Thinking Christian to become

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Speaker 1: as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast.

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Speaker 2: I'm Dr. James Spencer.

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Speaker 1: Through calm, thoughtful, theological discussions, Thinking Christian highlights the ways

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Speaker 1: God is working in the world and questions the underlying social, cultural,

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Speaker 1: and political assumptions that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now,

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Speaker 1: on to today's episode of Thinking Christian.

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Speaker 2: Hey, everyone.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian.

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Speaker 2: I'm Dr. James Spencer. I'm joined today by Dr. Shane J. Wood.

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Speaker 1: He is the professor of New Testament and Christian origins

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Speaker 1: at Ozark Christian College.

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Speaker 2: I actually said that wrong.

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Speaker 1: He's the professor of New Testament and its origins at

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Speaker 1: Ozark Christian College.

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Speaker 2: Just reading too far ahead.

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Speaker 3: It's all right, man.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So, we're going to have, if you all don't know,

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Speaker 1: Shane's been on the show a couple times. One of those,

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Speaker 1: we talked about his book on Revelation called Thinning the Veil.

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Speaker 1: And that's encountering Jesus Christ in the book of Revelation.

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Speaker 1: And so, I want to have Shane back on as

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Speaker 1: part of this series that we're doing on Christians in Politics.

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Speaker 1: because Revelation has so much to do with the intersection

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Speaker 1: of Christian faith and governing authorities, economy, all those kinds

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Speaker 1: of things. And I just feel like there's some really

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Speaker 1: important patterns in the book that we could unearth.

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Speaker 2: So thanks for being back, bro. Really appreciate it. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Thanks for having me, man. You never know whenever you

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Speaker 3: go on a podcast, if you're ever welcome back. So

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Speaker 3: I appreciate you even. This is the third time.

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Speaker 2: It's yeah, it is.

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Speaker 3: That's right.

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Speaker 1: We'll get to five and then we'll do a whole

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Speaker 1: Saturday night live five timers thing.

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Speaker 2: It'll be great. I'll get you a smoking jacket. You'll

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Speaker 2: love it.

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Speaker 3: That's great.

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Speaker 1: Um, so, so my assumption, and I've read, I read

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Speaker 1: your book, obviously on revelation. I've read, uh, reading revelation

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Speaker 1: responsibly lately. Um, you know, I've been through Beals commentary, um,

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Speaker 1: taught through revelation, my church, um, There seems to be

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Speaker 1: some really interesting takes on what political implications.

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Speaker 2: You might tease out from Revelation.

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Speaker 1: Some of them with very Anabaptist roots, sort of like,

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Speaker 1: let's just stay out of this kind of vibe. Others

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Speaker 1: with a little bit more militants might be like, no,

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Speaker 1: let's just avoid the Antichrist.

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Speaker 2: Let's crush him under our heel. So I'm kind of

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Speaker 2: wondering what your.

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Speaker 1: Take is on this and how you think the revelation

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Speaker 1: might speak to sort of the heart of being Christian

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Speaker 1: in the world that is governed by these authorities that

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Speaker 1: are instituted by God.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, what I love about this conversation, not

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Speaker 3: just your guys' series on politics, but this one about

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Speaker 3: revelation is that this is the core question that revelation

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Speaker 3: begins with. You know, these these Christians in Asia Minor

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Speaker 3: are under the thumb or under the shadow of the

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Speaker 3: empire at a time when the emperor has kind of

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Speaker 3: just lost his mind. So Domitian at the end of

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Speaker 3: the first century is is spiraling. And he his primary

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Speaker 3: people that he's attacking is number one is the Roman elite, especially.

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Speaker 3: So senators are our number one targets that he is

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Speaker 3: killing mercilessly. And then number two is Jews of the

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Speaker 3: Roman Empire, of which Christians would have been considered a sect.

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Speaker 3: You know, you had the Pharisees, Sadducees, Herodians. And from

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Speaker 3: the Roman perspective and these other ones that follow this Christ,

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Speaker 3: you know, or as Tacitus says, this Crestus. So they're

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Speaker 3: being crushed uniquely, being caught really between if, you know,

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Speaker 3: if let's say, for example, the Roman Empire comes after

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Speaker 3: this Jewish community and the Jewish community, once in some

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Speaker 3: sense to protect themselves, they may grab a Christian and

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Speaker 3: put them in front of them. So Christians are being, um,

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Speaker 3: at the end of the first century that they're caught

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Speaker 3: in a world, a war of politics, um, which is

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Speaker 3: frankly like the Bible. Like this, one of the things

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Speaker 3: I'm just going to be honest, like there's one of

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Speaker 3: the things where I'm like, we don't have to wait

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Speaker 3: till revelation for the Bible to get political. Right.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 3: Like the, the entire Bible is trying to help us navigate, uh,

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Speaker 3: this world that is frankly, um, militantly warring against, I

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Speaker 3: would argue, warring against God himself, but ultimately outworking the

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Speaker 3: grammar of death that they've learned from their father of lies.

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Speaker 1: Well, that does raise a question I wanted to ask

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Speaker 1: you anyway that goes outside of Revelation. But one of

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Speaker 1: the things that I've been thinking about with regard to Paul,

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Speaker 1: So Paul has these really interesting little nuggets in first

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Speaker 1: Timothy six, one and Titus two, five, where he's talking

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Speaker 1: to bond servants in the first one. And he says, Hey,

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Speaker 1: act in this way so that the name of God

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Speaker 1: is not reviled. And the teachings of the church are

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Speaker 1: not reviled. And Titus two, five, he does very, something

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Speaker 1: very similar. It's a little bit different phrasing, but it's, uh,

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Speaker 1: to young women. You also have then Paul sort of

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Speaker 1: relocating the, um, the household code in places like Ephesians five,

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Speaker 1: he's relocating it. What I mean by that is he's

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Speaker 1: pulling it out from under the auspices of Roman authority

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Speaker 1: and pulling it back out under God's authority. So he's saying,

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Speaker 1: let's not, let's not reduce the structures to rubble. Let's

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Speaker 1: revise the structures based on this new authority. Right. And

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Speaker 1: so my question was really around my curiosity in this,

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Speaker 1: not being a Pauline scholar. is just sitting back and saying,

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Speaker 1: it seems to me that part of what Paul may

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Speaker 1: be trying to do is he's trying to avoid, A,

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Speaker 1: creating a greater offense within Rome other than the gospel, right?

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Speaker 1: So we're not going to tear down these institutional structures.

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Speaker 1: We're just going to act differently within them because we

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Speaker 1: are trying to live relatively peaceably within the Roman Empire.

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Speaker 1: But that ultimately, even as he's doing that, There's a recognition,

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Speaker 1: and we go to other texts in Paul to see this,

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Speaker 1: but because the world is bending away from God's order,

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Speaker 1: there's always going to be a friction between what Christians

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Speaker 1: are supposed to do and what the world wants them

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Speaker 1: to do. And that friction can sometimes create enough heat

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Speaker 1: that Christians are going to get burned. Does that reading

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Speaker 1: strike you as, is that viable?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I think what you're surfacing is there is a

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Speaker 3: clear tension within especially the New Testament text of obedience

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Speaker 3: and subversion. There really is both that's at stake, which

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Speaker 3: is why you're going to find scholars that really move

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Speaker 3: to the extremes of the spectrum. And they both will

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Speaker 3: have sufficient amount of text to justify their position. I think, though,

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Speaker 3: what you're bringing up and I think is what is

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Speaker 3: important is, but how do we hold the spectrum? How

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Speaker 3: do we allow both ends of the spectrum to exist

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Speaker 3: in a coherent way of understanding a Christian's relations to

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Speaker 3: political entities? Yeah, yeah. So what Paul is arguing, which

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Speaker 3: Revelation argues as well, but let's stick with Paul for

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Speaker 3: a minute. He's arguing that when Christ came, he remapped

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Speaker 3: the universe. The universe is now remapped around Christ himself

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Speaker 3: as the king over not just the kings of the earth,

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Speaker 3: which Revelation will argue that as well, but also the

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Speaker 3: cosmic order. However, that word order is key because if

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Speaker 3: Christ is the king, then the natural reaction would be,

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Speaker 3: then is it justifiable for us to move into some

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Speaker 3: sort of anarchic upheaval of the– of the Imperial entities.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 3: Um, what, what Paul basically says is he, first of all,

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Speaker 3: he says, um, if you think that the empire is

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Speaker 3: the actual enemy, uh, then, then you're missing the, the

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Speaker 3: bigger target. And John says this as well.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Uh, but like Rome is too small of a target

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Speaker 3: in both Paul and, uh, in, in revelation, which is

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Speaker 3: why Paul can say things like, you know, you know,

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Speaker 3: Oh no, like, Yeah, obey in as much as it

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Speaker 3: is up to you, Romans 12, keep peace with all

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Speaker 3: the governing authorities, like leading into Romans 13. However, in

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Speaker 3: as much as it is up to you, like what

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Speaker 3: Paul is not saying is, so just roll over and

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Speaker 3: rubber stamp anything they do, slapping the label of God

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Speaker 3: on it as if because they're a government, whatever their

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Speaker 3: actions are, it now dictates what is morally acceptable by

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Speaker 3: our God. That's right.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Paul never says that, and neither does Revelation. Instead, whenever

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Speaker 3: you remap the universe, it doesn't lead to disorder. It

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Speaker 3: doesn't lead to chaos because Genesis 1 is closer to

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Speaker 3: the manifestation of the nature of our God. He's a

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Speaker 3: God of order. From chaos, he brings structure. So even

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Speaker 3: more than keeping the institutions, what Paul is clarifying is

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Speaker 3: the institutions themselves are not what is evil. It's the

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Speaker 3: ones that are either populating it with the will of Satan.

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Speaker 3: or the demonic entities directly themselves. So you can restructure

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Speaker 3: current institutions as long as Christ is the center in

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Speaker 3: such a way that it both looks like and completely

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Speaker 3: is opposite of the institutions that the empires themselves are implementing.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 3: So whether we're talking bond servants or household codes or anything,

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Speaker 3: the key is when Christ is the center of the universe,

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Speaker 3: how does it bring a new order into Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: because I think that's right. I mean, 1 Corinthians 7

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Speaker 3: is another one.

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Speaker 1: Of those that I kind of nude along. and it's like,

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Speaker 1: you remain as you are called. And he has that

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Speaker 1: reference to the bond servants there. And Paul doesn't tell

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Speaker 1: the bond servants, Hey, you're a bond servant now and

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Speaker 1: you're a bond server forever. No, what he's saying is, listen,

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Speaker 1: you don't have to not be a bond servant to

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Speaker 1: serve Jesus Christ because You can, you can serve where

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Speaker 1: you're called. Now, if you have an opportunity to get free,

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Speaker 1: go ahead and do that.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: But don't think that you have to change your situation

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Speaker 1: in order to do what God is calling you to

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Speaker 1: do is sort of a general idea.

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Speaker 3: That is correct. Our politics is not contextual. It transcends

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Speaker 3: all contexts. Right. Absolutely.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Okay.

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Speaker 1: So when we, When we jump into Revelation a bit

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Speaker 1: and we're trying to think through, you know, how do

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Speaker 1: we hold these different pieces together, this obedience and subversion?

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Speaker 1: What we're starting to run to an awful lot in

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Speaker 1: Revelation is subversion has its consequences. These are going to

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Speaker 1: be pretty negative consequences. So as we obey the Lord,

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Speaker 1: we are going to feel negative consequences from that obedience.

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Speaker 1: And that leads then to what we see in the

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Speaker 1: seven churches is compromise, different reactions to these negative consequences.

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Speaker 1: Ephesus seems to pull back. Laodicea seems to lean in.

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Speaker 1: And then you have Smyrna and Philadelphia that seem.

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Speaker 2: To do it well.

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Speaker 1: But those two churches are not without negative consequences for

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Speaker 1: doing it well. So how do you see some of

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Speaker 1: that working itself out there?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so when Revelation remaps the universe around Christ, part of–

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Speaker 3: so you look at– like you brought up Smyrna.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Smyrna has been remarkably obedient, and this is their gift.

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Speaker 3: It's going to get worse. Yeah. Like physical persecution is coming.

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Speaker 3: You're welcome.

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Speaker 2: Keep it up.

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Speaker 3: Right. Which if you think about that, that almost feels

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Speaker 3: like a punishment for being good. But really what ought

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Speaker 3: to be surfaced is, but we have a certain metric

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Speaker 3: by which we are measuring what is a positive response

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Speaker 3: to my obedience. So whenever you remap the universe around

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Speaker 3: Jesus Christ, who is a crucified king, now all of

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Speaker 3: a sudden our definitions begin to shift. So what is

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Speaker 3: victory or what is reigning in an empire? What is suffering?

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Speaker 3: What is like all of these definitions that an empire

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Speaker 3: really is governed by?

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Speaker 2: Yes.

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Speaker 3: Like we have definitions of what it means to win.

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Speaker 3: You know, even in even in modern America today, what

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Speaker 3: does it mean to win a war? No one would

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Speaker 3: say when you all are killed. It's like, no, no, no, no.

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Speaker 3: The definition would be whenever you kill enough of the

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Speaker 3: enemy to get your the result that you were after. Well,

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Speaker 3: the reason why that is, is because we have a

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Speaker 3: narrative that has given us definitions that allows us to

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Speaker 3: measure what it is that we're doing positively or negatively

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Speaker 3: and assess the outcome. Well, in Revelation, whenever the crucified

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Speaker 3: king is the center of the universe, Smyrna, he's not

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Speaker 3: looking at them saying, because you've done good, I'm going

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Speaker 3: to now hit you.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 3: He actually says you have been victorious and your victory

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Speaker 3: parade will continue.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: So, so it's, it's invite revelation is inviting the Christians

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Speaker 3: to see the world clearly by piercing all of the, the, um,

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Speaker 3: the definitions that frankly are just, they're backwards in Christ's economy.

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Speaker 3: But the fact that, that Christ is reigning and that

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Speaker 3: we are reigning alongside of him, especially when we are, um,

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Speaker 3: transformed or, um, expressions of his actual being on earth,

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Speaker 3: his will, whenever Revelation guides us into those categories, it

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Speaker 3: is also offering a way in which the empire won't

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Speaker 3: be able to understand what we are doing, or at

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Speaker 3: least they'll be conflicted by what we're doing. So a

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Speaker 3: quick historical example, you're talking about 20 years after Revelation's written, 112,

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Speaker 3: Pliny the Younger, governor of Bithynia, which is just north

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Speaker 3: of Asia Minor where Revelation's written. He's writing to Trajan

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Speaker 3: in Epistles 96. He's going, okay, the economy has been

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Speaker 3: absolutely ransacked in Bithynia, and he's been charged to go

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Speaker 3: figure it out. He's like, this is what I found.

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Speaker 3: The reason why is because all of their temples have

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Speaker 3: been abandoned because, and I'm using his word now, because

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Speaker 3: of this contagion known as Christianity. Because Christianity has spread.

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Speaker 3: Now all of the temples are intricately interwoven. We see

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Speaker 3: this in Acts 19. They're intricately interwoven with the economy,

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Speaker 3: which directly impacts politics. So he's like, so I'm trying

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Speaker 3: to figure out how to snuff this disease out. And

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Speaker 3: this is, he goes, so I've grabbed some of the

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Speaker 3: key leaders. He actually mentions he grabs to torture deaconesses.

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Speaker 3: He says to figure out what it is that this,

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Speaker 3: he goes, and all I found was just some silly

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Speaker 3: superstition and a commitment to to obey all of our laws.

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Speaker 3: And he gets confused. He's like, he's like, so I'm

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Speaker 3: kind of confused as like why I'm going after them.

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Speaker 3: He goes, so this is what I did. He's like,

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Speaker 3: I brought him in and I'm like, so even when

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Speaker 3: I told them, he goes, even when I outlawed their worship,

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Speaker 3: they obeyed. And he goes, so I brought him in

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Speaker 3: and I'm torturing him. And I'm like, all right, you either, uh,

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Speaker 3: come up here, you invoke the gods, you curse Christ

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Speaker 3: and you, uh, you worship an image of Trajan of

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Speaker 3: the emperor, or I will kill you. And he goes,

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Speaker 3: and when they all said, well, I'm not worshiping any

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Speaker 3: of that, he goes, I went ahead and killed them

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Speaker 3: because I figured, in his words, that that level of

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Speaker 3: obstinacy deserved to be punished. But the whole letter is

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Speaker 3: him going, so what? Why am I going after Christians?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 3: I mean, clearly there's something here. There's a stubbornness that

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Speaker 3: I have to deal with, but it's a stubbornness to

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Speaker 3: be better citizens than our citizens. Funny thing is, his

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Speaker 3: Trajan response is, Yeah. Don't, don't allow like, you know,

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Speaker 3: anonymous lists to be published naming Christians. But yeah, it

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Speaker 3: seems like you're doing good. Like he doesn't even answer

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Speaker 3: the question, but that's the, that's the situation that Christians

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Speaker 3: are putting the empire in. They are obeying the commands.

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Speaker 3: Even when the command is you either do this or

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Speaker 3: I'll kill you. They'll say, I will obey it by

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Speaker 3: being killed because when we die, we win. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: It's, That is the interesting part.

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Speaker 1: I mean, in working out the kingdom of God in

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Speaker 1: the world, part of working it out has to be

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Speaker 1: just radical obedience, regardless of consequence. And so that's what

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Speaker 1: it is that they're doing. And I think Revelation does

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Speaker 1: define it like that. I find it fascinating that that

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Speaker 1: that illustration you give, though, I don't know whether you're

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Speaker 1: familiar with Kevin Flatt's stuff on sacred social order. He

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Speaker 1: wrote a book, Secularization, Social Order and World History. And

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Speaker 1: he takes a guy's philosopher named Philip Reif, argued that

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Speaker 1: culture transliterates a sacred order into a social order.

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Speaker 2: Okay. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And so basically what you have in, and I think

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Speaker 1: I'm getting this right from Flatt's book, he says, you know,

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Speaker 1: in Rome, what you're seeing is a transition from a

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Speaker 1: Roman sacred order. But it's not like, you know, everybody

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Speaker 1: just stops worshiping the pagan gods. He's like slowly, but

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Speaker 1: surely Christianity comes to be the sacred order and these

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Speaker 1: pagan gods are then put away, but there has to

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Speaker 1: be a replacement for that sacred order. And, and part of,

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Speaker 1: he thinks part of the tension between the Christians and

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Speaker 1: the Romans is that the Christians refuse to, uh, acknowledge

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Speaker 1: Rome's sacred order.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So even in keeping this sort of social order, as

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Speaker 1: much as they're trying to be good citizens, They're refusing

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Speaker 1: that this being good citizens is aligned with the deeper

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Speaker 1: transcendental sacred truth that Romans would have held in high

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Speaker 1: esteem and really viewed as making their society function.

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Speaker 2: So it's sort of fascinating. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. Rome's entire dominance is according to even Dionysius of Halicarnassus,

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Speaker 3: which is a Greek writing about the Romans. He says,

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Speaker 3: if you want to understand Rome's rise, you have to

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Speaker 3: understand their piety, their worship, like for Rome, worshiping their

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Speaker 3: deities correctly. That's why calendar systems were so important in Rome,

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Speaker 3: because this is one of the things I always find

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Speaker 3: funny with this. Some of my Christian friends will get

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Speaker 3: really upset that we're losing Merry Christmas for Happy Holidays.

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Speaker 3: And I'm like, you know holidays literally means holy days,

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Speaker 3: like days that are set aside in Okay, it's all right. Whatever.

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Speaker 3: But there were holidays because that day, it's the place

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Speaker 3: in time where the deity and humanity can intersect.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: And Rome believed that was ordained by that particular deity

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Speaker 3: for that particular day where the festival then would be

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Speaker 3: in their honor.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 3: So even calendar systems for Rome was wrapped up in

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Speaker 3: their piety. It's why when Augustus died, comes to power.

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Speaker 3: He brags in his Rescistae Divi Augusti, which he wrote himself,

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Speaker 3: bronze tablets that go around the mausoleum where he is buried.

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Speaker 3: He brags that whenever he came in, he restored every

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Speaker 3: temple that had fallen into disrepair, 82 of them, and

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Speaker 3: even built several others on top of it. If we

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Speaker 3: don't understand that for Rome, worship was a national security issue,

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Speaker 3: you'll never understand Rome. And frankly, you'll never truly understand

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Speaker 3: empires as a whole. So one of the things I

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Speaker 3: teach here at Ozark is a class on the history

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Speaker 3: of Roman Empire. And I actually– I organize the entire

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Speaker 3: class around seven imperial principles where I say every empire

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Speaker 3: must have. And one of the things I say is

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Speaker 3: a unifying religious system. Every empire has to have this

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Speaker 3: because we're beings that crave worship. And if an empire

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Speaker 3: doesn't satiate that craving, then we will not look to

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Speaker 3: the empire to satisfy our needs. So even your most

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Speaker 3: secular of governments still have ritual systems within it and

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Speaker 3: worship intonations. They have to. I mean, Rome was great

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Speaker 3: at it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting you say that.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I've done a fair amount of research on

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Speaker 1: American civil religion at this point. And there's a line

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Speaker 1: in Robert Bella's work. He's a sociologist, and he talks

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Speaker 1: about how American civil religion was never anti-clerical. or he

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Speaker 1: says militantly secular. It borrowed selectively from religious language so

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Speaker 1: that American civil religion could be framed in ways that

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Speaker 1: the normal everyday religious person wouldn't notice the difference. And

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Speaker 1: that they can then accomplish through this American civil religion

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Speaker 1: an allegiance to the state that would probably have come

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Speaker 1: at a much harder, would probably have required a much

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Speaker 1: harder road had they not used American civil religion. Now,

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Speaker 1: I'm giving it a more utilitarian spin than I think

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Speaker 1: he would. But the general idea is that a lot

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Speaker 1: of times, even in our context today, you see the

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Speaker 1: conversation around Christian nation, you see the conversations around Christian nationalism,

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Speaker 1: you see all these sort of alignments and you're like,

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Speaker 1: but American civil religion isn't exactly that. Like we're applying

385
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Speaker 1: that to it. But American civil religion is something far

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Speaker 1: more general and generic that has borrowed very selectively from

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Speaker 1: the biblical corpus, from Christian ideas of the past or

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Speaker 1: what have you. And we really need to make sure

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Speaker 1: that we understand that we're still distinct from it. And

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Speaker 1: it just feels like to me that we've merged a

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Speaker 1: little too closely and are in danger of being, I

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Speaker 1: don't know, that's the wrong way to put it. I

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Speaker 1: think we're leaning toward– we're doing more leaning in in

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Speaker 1: those respects. We're more like Laodicea where we're saying this

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Speaker 1: could be really good for us. We should lean into

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Speaker 1: this because now we can be prosperous and we kind

397
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Speaker 1: of like this as opposed to really staying in the

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Speaker 1: pocket saying.

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Speaker 2: No, that's not who we are. That's not what we do.

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Speaker 1: We're just going to suffer like Smyrna and win.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. No, you're right. And there's actually two things I

402
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Speaker 3: would like to say. First of all, I want to

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Speaker 3: back up and in agreement, add to your language of

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Speaker 3: the grammar of civil religion. And then I want to

405
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Speaker 3: get to your point about how Christians feel that or

406
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Speaker 3: where we're at as Christians today and how Revelation plays

407
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Speaker 3: into this. It's not even just the grammar that they've

408
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Speaker 3: selectively used. It's also the visualization, the iconography. It's like

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Speaker 3: as a Roman historian, whenever I whenever I went to Washington, D.C.

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Speaker 3: for the very first time, which was 2021. So is

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Speaker 3: that no one was there? Like, I mean, it was

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Speaker 3: it was a total ghost town because of, you know,

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Speaker 3: still some of the covid leftovers, stuff like that. So

414
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Speaker 3: but I remember walking in to the Lincoln Memorial and

415
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Speaker 3: I immediately went, this is this is a pagan temple.

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Speaker 3: Like you have you have the side porticoes. You have

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Speaker 3: the center place in the seated on the throne where

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Speaker 3: the deity would have been. I'm like, this is exactly

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Speaker 3: what Artemis' temple would have been like in Ephesus. And

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Speaker 3: it kind of took me– I was like, oh, wow.

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Speaker 3: And I'm looking around going, architecturally, there's something more being

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Speaker 3: communicated to me here than merely, wow, this is a

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Speaker 3: really big, cool place. The second thing that I thought was, oh–

424
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Speaker 3: why it is not incidental or lost on me that,

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Speaker 3: you know, the dome and the Capitol building is this,

426
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Speaker 3: is this depiction that, that the name of it is

427
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Speaker 3: actually called the apotheosis of George Washington, which means the

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Speaker 3: becoming of a God of George Washington. And I'm looking

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Speaker 3: at it going, I've seen this depiction throughout hits, like,

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Speaker 3: you know, the history of art where Yahweh would be

431
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Speaker 3: kind of in a revelation for a moment. it's George Washington. So,

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Speaker 3: so what I'm not, what I'm not doing is accusing

433
00:24:54,640 --> 00:24:57,840
Speaker 3: anybody of anything. What I am doing is I'm saying this, um,

434
00:24:58,140 --> 00:25:05,010
Speaker 3: to suggest that visualization or grammar doesn't ultimately guide us. A,

435
00:25:05,480 --> 00:25:08,500
Speaker 3: that's just, even in churches, we don't believe that, which

436
00:25:08,560 --> 00:25:11,320
Speaker 3: is why every Sunday we, we have similar mantras that

437
00:25:11,340 --> 00:25:13,679
Speaker 3: we always say, you know, especially if you're the one

438
00:25:13,700 --> 00:25:15,639
Speaker 3: that's supposed to be greeting all the guests and you

439
00:25:15,680 --> 00:25:18,600
Speaker 3: got to mention there's a guest, there's a gift outside.

440
00:25:18,640 --> 00:25:20,660
Speaker 3: If you just go to the, they're the welcome tent

441
00:25:20,780 --> 00:25:25,600
Speaker 3: and grammar matters. And then what people see matters. And

442
00:25:25,660 --> 00:25:30,580
Speaker 3: so we meticulously orchestrate the entire, uh, procession, the entire

443
00:25:30,960 --> 00:25:33,480
Speaker 3: ritual of the Sunday morning, whether we have light and

444
00:25:33,700 --> 00:25:36,300
Speaker 3: smoke or whether we have, but you know, where the

445
00:25:36,340 --> 00:25:39,040
Speaker 3: crosses are or if there's even crosses at all in

446
00:25:39,680 --> 00:25:44,159
Speaker 3: the sanctuary, this visual and this, um, sorry, there's a

447
00:25:44,200 --> 00:25:50,119
Speaker 3: bug on my microphone. Uh, This visual and this grammar

448
00:25:50,780 --> 00:25:55,940
Speaker 3: ultimately is guiding allegiances. That's the whole point. And empires

449
00:25:56,090 --> 00:26:01,870
Speaker 3: that persist do this best. So whenever Christians then, even today,

450
00:26:02,670 --> 00:26:04,129
Speaker 3: that's where a lot of the times I'll stop and

451
00:26:04,150 --> 00:26:06,550
Speaker 3: ask myself the question. I was actually talking with a guy,

452
00:26:07,850 --> 00:26:11,760
Speaker 3: a pastor up in St. Joseph's, Missouri named Brian Zond.

453
00:26:11,910 --> 00:26:14,800
Speaker 3: This was a year ago. I just had happened to

454
00:26:15,760 --> 00:26:17,360
Speaker 3: be talking with him and I just said, okay, you've

455
00:26:17,380 --> 00:26:20,540
Speaker 3: been doing this for 40 years. So how have we

456
00:26:20,580 --> 00:26:22,180
Speaker 3: gotten to where we are? And I'm not even, I'm

457
00:26:22,220 --> 00:26:24,530
Speaker 3: not even assessing where we are. I'm just saying, how

458
00:26:24,550 --> 00:26:25,450
Speaker 3: have we gotten here?

459
00:26:25,910 --> 00:26:26,130
Speaker 2: Yeah.

460
00:26:26,730 --> 00:26:30,429
Speaker 3: And his response was, I have no idea. I have

461
00:26:30,490 --> 00:26:30,890
Speaker 3: no idea.

462
00:26:31,630 --> 00:26:31,810
Speaker 2: Yeah.

463
00:26:31,990 --> 00:26:34,909
Speaker 3: And my thought was, well, yeah, because it's that subtle.

464
00:26:36,350 --> 00:26:39,399
Speaker 3: Like you, you just speak the grammar so much. That's right.

465
00:26:39,460 --> 00:26:42,100
Speaker 3: And you, you are saturated in the visualization so much

466
00:26:42,140 --> 00:26:45,100
Speaker 3: that you don't even know what is dictating your allegiances.

467
00:26:45,490 --> 00:26:48,369
Speaker 3: And that's what has fallen. That's why in Revelation 2

468
00:26:48,369 --> 00:26:51,490
Speaker 3: and 3, there is sternness and tenderness all at the

469
00:26:51,510 --> 00:26:53,850
Speaker 3: same time that Jesus is speaking to these churches. Right.

470
00:26:53,869 --> 00:26:56,830
Speaker 3: Because a lot of the times they're compromised. There are

471
00:26:56,970 --> 00:27:00,470
Speaker 3: little choices along the way. But a lot of the

472
00:27:00,520 --> 00:27:04,040
Speaker 3: times it is just this incremental. You stop and look

473
00:27:04,080 --> 00:27:06,220
Speaker 3: and you say, how have I gotten so far away

474
00:27:06,260 --> 00:27:07,220
Speaker 3: from whence I began?

475
00:27:07,240 --> 00:27:07,310
Speaker 2: Yep.

476
00:27:08,380 --> 00:27:10,659
Speaker 3: And that's where I see where we're at today. I

477
00:27:10,700 --> 00:27:12,380
Speaker 3: don't even know a lot of the times if we

478
00:27:12,460 --> 00:27:16,480
Speaker 3: stopped and reflected. where are we at today? And is

479
00:27:16,540 --> 00:27:20,240
Speaker 3: this where Christ was intending for us to reside? I

480
00:27:20,260 --> 00:27:22,700
Speaker 3: don't even know if we would know why where we're

481
00:27:22,760 --> 00:27:26,760
Speaker 3: at is dangerous or B, how we've even gotten here.

482
00:27:27,820 --> 00:27:30,699
Speaker 3: And my response is, well, that's because it's worked. The

483
00:27:30,740 --> 00:27:34,280
Speaker 3: grammar and the visualization has worked. It's never usually a

484
00:27:34,520 --> 00:27:37,680
Speaker 3: big conversion. It's usually a slow descent.

485
00:27:38,440 --> 00:27:40,820
Speaker 2: Yeah. I tend to agree.

486
00:27:40,880 --> 00:27:44,030
Speaker 1: I mean, when I look back at this in US history,

487
00:27:44,109 --> 00:27:48,969
Speaker 1: you see um, the use of the Exodus in ways

488
00:27:49,050 --> 00:27:53,639
Speaker 1: reminiscent of what we would, uh, arguably speak against in

489
00:27:53,680 --> 00:27:54,700
Speaker 1: liberation theologies.

490
00:27:55,180 --> 00:27:55,380
Speaker 2: Sure.

491
00:27:55,680 --> 00:27:58,460
Speaker 1: You know, um, God has freed us from the tyranny

492
00:27:58,500 --> 00:28:00,540
Speaker 1: of great Britain. We are the new Israel. Now we

493
00:28:00,560 --> 00:28:02,939
Speaker 1: can live on our terms. Um, you know, you just

494
00:28:02,960 --> 00:28:06,100
Speaker 1: sort of cut off the law there and move forward. Um,

495
00:28:06,740 --> 00:28:12,940
Speaker 1: you know, um, you, you see, um, You know, you

496
00:28:13,000 --> 00:28:16,290
Speaker 1: see faith leaders sort of coming in and not doing

497
00:28:16,330 --> 00:28:21,930
Speaker 1: a particularly well-nuanced job of articulating that, yes, these governing

498
00:28:21,990 --> 00:28:24,930
Speaker 1: authorities have been instituted by God, and so we should

499
00:28:24,990 --> 00:28:28,730
Speaker 1: respect them. But also we need to speak correctively and

500
00:28:28,770 --> 00:28:33,320
Speaker 1: prophetically within this environment. Um, and, and it just feels

501
00:28:33,359 --> 00:28:35,180
Speaker 1: like it sort of rolls off the tongue. You see

502
00:28:35,220 --> 00:28:38,390
Speaker 1: the application of various Bible verses. You mentioned Washington, DC.

503
00:28:38,450 --> 00:28:40,270
Speaker 1: I know there are tours that go around and look

504
00:28:40,290 --> 00:28:44,850
Speaker 1: at all the different carved Bible verses in these different places. Um, and,

505
00:28:45,010 --> 00:28:46,310
Speaker 1: and you just kind of sit back and you're like, well,

506
00:28:46,330 --> 00:28:50,500
Speaker 1: that could mean one of two things at least, um,

507
00:28:50,740 --> 00:28:54,040
Speaker 1: you know, you're interpreting it really positively, but we could

508
00:28:54,080 --> 00:28:55,160
Speaker 1: also go a different route.

509
00:28:55,900 --> 00:28:56,080
Speaker 2: Right.

510
00:28:56,300 --> 00:28:56,640
Speaker 3: That's right.

511
00:28:56,940 --> 00:29:00,060
Speaker 1: Um, you know, the use of second Chronicle seven 14

512
00:29:00,060 --> 00:29:03,080
Speaker 1: and numerous speeches, you know, if my people were repent

513
00:29:03,140 --> 00:29:07,220
Speaker 1: and turn and, you know, um, Psalm 33, 14 gets

514
00:29:07,240 --> 00:29:09,980
Speaker 1: sucked into that, you know, um, a nation who's God

515
00:29:10,040 --> 00:29:13,420
Speaker 1: is the Lord that all that kind of stuff. So,

516
00:29:13,840 --> 00:29:16,680
Speaker 1: you know, we see all these little subtle pieces that

517
00:29:16,720 --> 00:29:20,440
Speaker 1: are sort of drawing us in and, um, and, and,

518
00:29:20,740 --> 00:29:23,310
Speaker 1: and making it very difficult, I think, for us to

519
00:29:24,150 --> 00:29:28,380
Speaker 1: distinguish what is and what isn't, um, You know, there's

520
00:29:28,540 --> 00:29:31,720
Speaker 1: a there's a sense in which we are very much

521
00:29:31,780 --> 00:29:36,390
Speaker 1: assimilated into a political notion that may not be a

522
00:29:36,410 --> 00:29:37,590
Speaker 1: political notion of Christ.

523
00:29:38,230 --> 00:29:39,290
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.

524
00:29:39,350 --> 00:29:42,720
Speaker 3: I mean, that's where. I, you know, these same leaders that, again,

525
00:29:42,760 --> 00:29:46,020
Speaker 3: like you even said, like when we're quoting these verses,

526
00:29:46,100 --> 00:29:49,000
Speaker 3: it could be positive. It depends on how it's being used.

527
00:29:49,140 --> 00:29:49,479
Speaker 2: Very much.

528
00:29:49,500 --> 00:29:52,400
Speaker 3: But I will say I'm going, why don't we, why

529
00:29:52,480 --> 00:29:55,660
Speaker 3: do we select the verses that we select to carve? Like,

530
00:29:55,720 --> 00:29:59,620
Speaker 3: why aren't we selecting verses? revelation 18, two and three,

531
00:29:59,650 --> 00:30:01,240
Speaker 3: when it says, come out of her, my people.

532
00:30:01,880 --> 00:30:03,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

533
00:30:04,200 --> 00:30:05,560
Speaker 3: Like that's in the Bible too.

534
00:30:05,580 --> 00:30:05,680
Speaker 2: Right.

535
00:30:05,960 --> 00:30:09,320
Speaker 3: You know, so right. Well, and that's like, I always,

536
00:30:09,340 --> 00:30:11,260
Speaker 3: you know, I kind of like, you know, jokingly quip

537
00:30:11,280 --> 00:30:13,440
Speaker 3: whenever I'm at, you know, churches where I'm like, I've

538
00:30:13,520 --> 00:30:16,880
Speaker 3: never once been in my Matthew class at Ozark and

539
00:30:17,040 --> 00:30:19,560
Speaker 3: ask the question. Never once have I had anybody raise

540
00:30:19,600 --> 00:30:22,000
Speaker 3: their hand whenever I said, how many of you have

541
00:30:22,060 --> 00:30:24,530
Speaker 3: highlighted in your Bible, sell everything and give it to

542
00:30:24,550 --> 00:30:24,880
Speaker 3: the poor.

543
00:30:24,900 --> 00:30:26,250
Speaker 2: Yeah.

544
00:30:27,200 --> 00:30:28,700
Speaker 3: No one wants to highlight that one.

545
00:30:29,040 --> 00:30:29,260
Speaker 2: No.

546
00:30:29,300 --> 00:30:32,370
Speaker 3: Because we love to carve the Bible into pieces and

547
00:30:32,410 --> 00:30:33,150
Speaker 3: make it serve us.

548
00:30:33,570 --> 00:30:33,790
Speaker 1: Yeah.

549
00:30:34,150 --> 00:30:37,310
Speaker 3: And that's where my pushback when it comes to, first

550
00:30:37,350 --> 00:30:39,870
Speaker 3: of all, it depends on who I'm talking to. My

551
00:30:39,930 --> 00:30:43,210
Speaker 3: first pushback is always like, if you think that the

552
00:30:43,260 --> 00:30:47,280
Speaker 3: Bible or the gospel is not political, you're not reading

553
00:30:47,320 --> 00:30:47,960
Speaker 3: the New Testament.

554
00:30:48,220 --> 00:30:48,720
Speaker 2: That's right.

555
00:30:49,360 --> 00:30:54,560
Speaker 3: Jesus was crucified on a cross because Romans reserved the

556
00:30:54,580 --> 00:30:59,590
Speaker 3: cross for political revolutionaries. So on some level, whenever Pilate

557
00:30:59,610 --> 00:31:02,610
Speaker 3: asked Jesus the question, are you a king? Even though

558
00:31:02,650 --> 00:31:04,280
Speaker 3: Jesus says, well, my kingdom is not of this world,

559
00:31:04,340 --> 00:31:08,400
Speaker 3: Pilate still saw his answer as legitimate enough where he

560
00:31:08,440 --> 00:31:12,100
Speaker 3: could use this execution tool and he wouldn't be violating

561
00:31:12,140 --> 00:31:15,520
Speaker 3: a Roman law. It would actually make sense. The second

562
00:31:15,540 --> 00:31:18,070
Speaker 3: thing I always push back on, though, is I'm going like–

563
00:31:18,750 --> 00:31:21,709
Speaker 3: but to be– to suggest that it is political is

564
00:31:21,910 --> 00:31:24,230
Speaker 3: not to implement it in the same way that we

565
00:31:24,250 --> 00:31:27,400
Speaker 3: typically do. That's right. We then typically think, well, if

566
00:31:27,420 --> 00:31:29,500
Speaker 3: the Bible is political, then how can I get my

567
00:31:30,100 --> 00:31:33,060
Speaker 3: particular Christian ethic legislated?

568
00:31:34,000 --> 00:31:34,220
Speaker 2: Right.

569
00:31:34,320 --> 00:31:38,390
Speaker 3: And my response back is like, the Bible never asks us.

570
00:31:38,490 --> 00:31:42,210
Speaker 3: I'm not saying don't do that. I'm saying, please tell

571
00:31:42,250 --> 00:31:45,750
Speaker 3: me your goal is bigger. Yes. Please tell me that

572
00:31:45,790 --> 00:31:47,850
Speaker 3: you know that the enemy is bigger than that.

573
00:31:48,090 --> 00:31:49,550
Speaker 2: Right. Yeah. Yeah.

574
00:31:50,130 --> 00:31:51,890
Speaker 1: No, the way I usually phrase it is if we're

575
00:31:51,910 --> 00:31:56,070
Speaker 1: going to participate politically, our political participation needs to emerge

576
00:31:56,110 --> 00:31:57,110
Speaker 1: from our discipleship.

577
00:31:57,590 --> 00:31:57,930
Speaker 3: That's right.

578
00:31:58,230 --> 00:31:59,990
Speaker 2: And so the way I read.

579
00:31:59,850 --> 00:32:02,990
Speaker 1: Matthew 28 there in the Great Commission is what we

580
00:32:03,030 --> 00:32:07,100
Speaker 1: usually see. It begins with Christ's authority. This is a

581
00:32:07,180 --> 00:32:10,620
Speaker 1: political statement. Jesus is now in charge. However we want

582
00:32:10,640 --> 00:32:12,600
Speaker 1: to read authority, it's going to be hard to get

583
00:32:12,620 --> 00:32:14,800
Speaker 1: it away from. Christ is now in charge.

584
00:32:15,100 --> 00:32:15,440
Speaker 3: That's right.

585
00:32:16,070 --> 00:32:17,630
Speaker 1: And so what do you do now that Christ is

586
00:32:17,690 --> 00:32:18,080
Speaker 1: in charge?

587
00:32:18,120 --> 00:32:21,720
Speaker 2: Well, you go and make disciples. Yeah. What does that mean?

588
00:32:21,780 --> 00:32:24,800
Speaker 1: Well, you get people to commit their entire lives to

589
00:32:24,980 --> 00:32:28,660
Speaker 1: the triune God and, you know, put themselves through this

590
00:32:28,940 --> 00:32:32,330
Speaker 1: ordeal event in baptism. And then you teach them to

591
00:32:32,450 --> 00:32:34,310
Speaker 1: obey everything that Christ commanded.

592
00:32:34,850 --> 00:32:35,010
Speaker 3: Yeah.

593
00:32:35,710 --> 00:32:37,350
Speaker 2: That is political.

594
00:32:38,030 --> 00:32:43,160
Speaker 1: And I mean— Because you're learning to live under Christ's authority,

595
00:32:43,240 --> 00:32:46,080
Speaker 1: to your point, now that that map is re-centered on Christ.

596
00:32:46,620 --> 00:32:49,740
Speaker 1: Discipleship now is learning to read that map.

597
00:32:50,300 --> 00:32:50,680
Speaker 3: That's right.

598
00:32:51,180 --> 00:32:52,290
Speaker 2: And follow that map.

599
00:32:52,650 --> 00:32:53,070
Speaker 3: That's right.

600
00:32:53,830 --> 00:32:56,570
Speaker 1: And so you do see a lot of this, I think,

601
00:32:58,170 --> 00:33:00,470
Speaker 1: people have tended to, and I think this is part

602
00:33:00,490 --> 00:33:03,440
Speaker 1: of our American context, but I would sort of argue

603
00:33:03,480 --> 00:33:06,180
Speaker 1: that maybe we see some of this in Revelation as well.

604
00:33:06,770 --> 00:33:11,530
Speaker 1: there was a tendency on some level to pull faith private.

605
00:33:12,830 --> 00:33:16,270
Speaker 1: In other words, Christ has to be the master of

606
00:33:16,330 --> 00:33:20,070
Speaker 1: my universe, but not necessarily the universe. And so this

607
00:33:20,150 --> 00:33:24,580
Speaker 1: is where I can start to compromise. I can say, well, yeah,

608
00:33:24,620 --> 00:33:26,580
Speaker 1: but it doesn't really seem like Christ's authority is working

609
00:33:26,620 --> 00:33:28,560
Speaker 1: itself out too well over here, so I can make

610
00:33:28,580 --> 00:33:32,260
Speaker 1: a different choice. I don't know that that's an appropriate reading,

611
00:33:32,280 --> 00:33:34,180
Speaker 1: but it seems to me that that's a dynamic that

612
00:33:34,220 --> 00:33:37,300
Speaker 1: we struggle with throughout scripture.

613
00:33:37,440 --> 00:33:40,310
Speaker 3: Oh yeah yeah and uh because it reminds me of

614
00:33:40,350 --> 00:33:42,650
Speaker 3: the way in which i i remember as an undergrad

615
00:33:42,990 --> 00:33:47,290
Speaker 3: being uh told that with a straight face that people

616
00:33:47,350 --> 00:33:51,820
Speaker 3: believed that the sermon on the mount applied to individuals

617
00:33:51,860 --> 00:33:55,400
Speaker 3: but it didn't actually apply to anything on a nate

618
00:33:55,500 --> 00:33:58,300
Speaker 3: on a national level okay and i'm sitting there going

619
00:33:58,580 --> 00:34:00,000
Speaker 3: okay now wait a minute but what is a nation

620
00:34:00,070 --> 00:34:03,920
Speaker 3: made of Right. Individuals. OK, so I don't understand how

621
00:34:03,960 --> 00:34:07,540
Speaker 3: there's not national together somehow. Yeah, I'm like, I don't

622
00:34:07,560 --> 00:34:10,640
Speaker 3: understand that. So then I at one point because in

623
00:34:10,820 --> 00:34:13,770
Speaker 3: the professor wasn't making the argument, he was exposing us

624
00:34:13,790 --> 00:34:15,790
Speaker 3: to the argument. But I raised my hand and I said,

625
00:34:16,230 --> 00:34:18,730
Speaker 3: so you're telling me if I just wear a different

626
00:34:18,810 --> 00:34:20,969
Speaker 3: name tag, I have a different set of ethics that

627
00:34:21,030 --> 00:34:25,029
Speaker 3: I can obey. And because that's that's I mean, that's

628
00:34:25,090 --> 00:34:27,489
Speaker 3: basically what they're being said is like, well, no, because

629
00:34:27,550 --> 00:34:30,270
Speaker 3: my because I have a different name plate. I have

630
00:34:30,290 --> 00:34:33,489
Speaker 3: a different– because this says senator. That's right. I now

631
00:34:33,590 --> 00:34:36,569
Speaker 3: don't have to do turn the other cheek.

632
00:34:37,140 --> 00:34:37,319
Speaker 2: Yeah.

633
00:34:37,390 --> 00:34:40,160
Speaker 3: And I'm like, well, no, no, no. Okay. Now, I'm

634
00:34:40,200 --> 00:34:44,200
Speaker 3: not asking all of my senators to actually obey the

635
00:34:44,600 --> 00:34:48,439
Speaker 3: Christian ethic. Correct. But I am asking all Christians, even

636
00:34:48,520 --> 00:34:51,750
Speaker 3: Christian senators, to obey the Sermon on the Mount because

637
00:34:51,790 --> 00:34:52,489
Speaker 3: Christ is king.

638
00:34:53,150 --> 00:34:53,350
Speaker 2: Yeah.

639
00:34:53,890 --> 00:34:56,250
Speaker 3: And that is actually the whole– so you bring up

640
00:34:56,270 --> 00:34:59,319
Speaker 3: the end of Matthew, and my first thought was– Okay,

641
00:34:59,340 --> 00:35:01,620
Speaker 3: so the definition of the word politics is also what

642
00:35:01,640 --> 00:35:05,550
Speaker 3: gets people confused is we think politics– like politics comes

643
00:35:05,610 --> 00:35:08,970
Speaker 3: from the Greek word connected to polis or cities.

644
00:35:09,010 --> 00:35:09,470
Speaker 2: Polis, yeah.

645
00:35:09,750 --> 00:35:14,430
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it is these principles that organize, that bring

646
00:35:14,510 --> 00:35:17,450
Speaker 3: structure to a group of people that are living in

647
00:35:17,510 --> 00:35:23,549
Speaker 3: a similar location. And so polis– well, I mean that–

648
00:35:23,610 --> 00:35:29,180
Speaker 3: the Old Testament– so Matthew begins retelling– the narrative of

649
00:35:29,280 --> 00:35:33,090
Speaker 3: Israel just through Jesus. So, you know, you have, you know,

650
00:35:33,140 --> 00:35:36,049
Speaker 3: especially Matthew chapter two, where all of the children under

651
00:35:36,070 --> 00:35:37,529
Speaker 3: the age of two are being killed, which is how

652
00:35:37,610 --> 00:35:38,450
Speaker 3: Exodus begins.

653
00:35:38,770 --> 00:35:38,989
Speaker 2: Right.

654
00:35:39,070 --> 00:35:41,650
Speaker 3: And then, you know, Jesus in chapter three, well, well,

655
00:35:41,690 --> 00:35:44,360
Speaker 3: he's actually protected, you know, by being taken to the

656
00:35:44,410 --> 00:35:46,120
Speaker 3: heart of Egypt, just like Moses was.

657
00:35:46,480 --> 00:35:46,640
Speaker 2: Yep.

658
00:35:46,840 --> 00:35:49,719
Speaker 3: He then experiences his own passing through the red sea

659
00:35:49,760 --> 00:35:53,160
Speaker 3: in chapter three, then goes directly into the wilderness of

660
00:35:53,200 --> 00:35:57,010
Speaker 3: chapter four, The last temptation of which Satan gives Jesus

661
00:35:57,090 --> 00:35:58,830
Speaker 3: is to bow down and worship me, and then I'll

662
00:35:58,850 --> 00:36:01,090
Speaker 3: give you all of the kingdoms of the world. And

663
00:36:01,110 --> 00:36:03,770
Speaker 3: then in chapter 5, Jesus, just like the nation of Israel,

664
00:36:04,010 --> 00:36:07,989
Speaker 3: he gives his own law. The Sermon on the Mount, Sinai.

665
00:36:08,890 --> 00:36:11,700
Speaker 3: Why that's interesting is because Exodus is the story of

666
00:36:11,739 --> 00:36:12,910
Speaker 3: the forming of a nation.

667
00:36:13,300 --> 00:36:13,530
Speaker 2: Yes.

668
00:36:14,120 --> 00:36:18,759
Speaker 3: It's the formation of a people around an allegiance and

669
00:36:18,800 --> 00:36:21,819
Speaker 3: an ethic that regardless of where they go, wilderness or

670
00:36:21,860 --> 00:36:24,670
Speaker 3: promised land, which that's why it's interesting that in Matthew

671
00:36:24,670 --> 00:36:27,810
Speaker 3: 8 and 9, there's 12 successive miracle accounts, one for

672
00:36:27,969 --> 00:36:31,730
Speaker 3: each of the tribes that are established in Canaan. But

673
00:36:31,790 --> 00:36:34,870
Speaker 3: it begins this retelling, and it ends with your Great

674
00:36:34,910 --> 00:36:37,610
Speaker 3: Commission because it is establishing that Jesus is king of

675
00:36:37,630 --> 00:36:41,950
Speaker 3: the kingdom. And that is exactly how Revelation begins. Like,

676
00:36:41,989 --> 00:36:45,120
Speaker 3: Revelation has the same assumption, which is why Jesus in

677
00:36:45,160 --> 00:36:49,020
Speaker 3: Revelation 1-5 is referred to as the faithful witness, the

678
00:36:49,080 --> 00:36:51,200
Speaker 3: firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings

679
00:36:51,239 --> 00:36:51,719
Speaker 3: of the earth.

680
00:36:52,200 --> 00:36:52,399
Speaker 1: Right.

681
00:36:53,820 --> 00:36:57,740
Speaker 3: So if we are his kingdom, if we are pledging

682
00:36:57,780 --> 00:37:04,040
Speaker 3: allegiance to this king, we cannot bypass, regardless of our occupation,

683
00:37:04,100 --> 00:37:08,989
Speaker 3: we cannot bypass Christ's commands. That is actually the issue

684
00:37:09,030 --> 00:37:13,609
Speaker 3: that prompted Revelation to be written. It does not matter

685
00:37:13,630 --> 00:37:14,710
Speaker 3: what the consequences are.

686
00:37:15,410 --> 00:37:15,609
Speaker 2: Yeah.

687
00:37:15,810 --> 00:37:19,049
Speaker 3: Even if Rome has a sword to your throat. I mean,

688
00:37:19,070 --> 00:37:22,400
Speaker 3: this is Revelation 13.10. If anyone comes to take you

689
00:37:22,440 --> 00:37:24,180
Speaker 3: away as a prisoner of war, as a prisoner of war,

690
00:37:24,200 --> 00:37:25,920
Speaker 3: you go off. If anybody comes to kill you with

691
00:37:25,940 --> 00:37:28,200
Speaker 3: the sword, by the sword, you will be killed. This

692
00:37:28,560 --> 00:37:30,620
Speaker 3: calls for patient endurance on the part of the saints.

693
00:37:31,820 --> 00:37:36,730
Speaker 3: It doesn't matter the consequence. Your allegiance and your call

694
00:37:37,130 --> 00:37:38,830
Speaker 3: is absolutely clear in Christ.

695
00:37:39,290 --> 00:37:40,290
Speaker 2: Yeah.

696
00:37:40,550 --> 00:37:47,490
Speaker 1: And because we're not simply serving a king who came

697
00:37:47,590 --> 00:37:50,940
Speaker 1: to the throne through suffering, We're also serving a King

698
00:37:51,060 --> 00:37:54,259
Speaker 1: who after that suffering was ascended and glorified.

699
00:37:54,280 --> 00:37:55,060
Speaker 2: That's right.

700
00:37:56,160 --> 00:37:58,299
Speaker 1: The only person to have done that, right? The only

701
00:37:58,360 --> 00:38:03,450
Speaker 1: life to have ended in resurrection, ascension and glorification. We're

702
00:38:03,550 --> 00:38:05,090
Speaker 1: pretty sure it's a good idea.

703
00:38:04,830 --> 00:38:05,350
Speaker 3: To follow him.

704
00:38:06,070 --> 00:38:08,210
Speaker 1: Like this is a guy that you might want to follow.

705
00:38:08,469 --> 00:38:10,930
Speaker 1: And in his example is going to lead us to

706
00:38:10,969 --> 00:38:13,430
Speaker 1: good places. Maybe not right at this moment. I'm sure

707
00:38:13,450 --> 00:38:16,529
Speaker 1: Jesus wasn't hanging on the cross. Like this is awesome. Um,

708
00:38:17,570 --> 00:38:20,010
Speaker 1: And in the same way, we don't, we don't enjoy

709
00:38:20,050 --> 00:38:23,430
Speaker 1: the suffering either. We just know that this is how

710
00:38:23,469 --> 00:38:23,950
Speaker 1: we win.

711
00:38:23,969 --> 00:38:24,930
Speaker 3: That's right.

712
00:38:25,370 --> 00:38:28,779
Speaker 1: This is the way the kingdom of God fights its battles.

713
00:38:28,910 --> 00:38:31,359
Speaker 1: It fights it with the blood of the saints through

714
00:38:31,380 --> 00:38:35,340
Speaker 1: their obedience. Let me ask you this question. Cause I

715
00:38:35,360 --> 00:38:37,940
Speaker 1: think in, you know, when I look at Romans 13,

716
00:38:37,940 --> 00:38:40,020
Speaker 1: I get a certain reading of this. And then when

717
00:38:40,040 --> 00:38:44,660
Speaker 1: I read through revelation, I think it's reaffirmed, but I

718
00:38:44,700 --> 00:38:48,219
Speaker 1: get the general idea that, um, in as far as

719
00:38:48,280 --> 00:38:51,600
Speaker 1: we can maintain peace with the governing authorities, yes, that's

720
00:38:51,620 --> 00:38:55,340
Speaker 1: a big part on us. But when I think about, okay,

721
00:38:55,440 --> 00:38:58,719
Speaker 1: when do we not maintain peace? Part of that is

722
00:38:59,489 --> 00:39:03,169
Speaker 1: we're just obeying and at some point obedience is going

723
00:39:03,210 --> 00:39:06,029
Speaker 1: to run aground. It's going to create friction with the

724
00:39:06,170 --> 00:39:09,210
Speaker 1: governing authorities. But then there's this other side of it

725
00:39:09,630 --> 00:39:12,570
Speaker 1: that I usually illustrate in Germany, but.

726
00:39:13,230 --> 00:39:14,830
Speaker 2: I'll say it just like this. It's like.

727
00:39:16,410 --> 00:39:16,609
Speaker 3: The.

728
00:39:17,270 --> 00:39:23,560
Speaker 1: Governing authorities are given an authority. Oftentimes what ends up happening, though,

729
00:39:23,680 --> 00:39:27,570
Speaker 1: is they want to expand the scope of that authority

730
00:39:27,630 --> 00:39:28,969
Speaker 1: beyond what God has given them.

731
00:39:30,310 --> 00:39:32,750
Speaker 2: And so as they expand that scope.

732
00:39:33,650 --> 00:39:38,700
Speaker 1: There's a much higher possibility that they're going to be

733
00:39:38,780 --> 00:39:42,480
Speaker 1: doing things that we shouldn't agree with. Now, the reason

734
00:39:42,760 --> 00:39:48,239
Speaker 1: I do that in Germany is because Germany, when we

735
00:39:48,260 --> 00:39:51,890
Speaker 1: do our tours and we're in Nuremberg, Um, there's usually a,

736
00:39:51,960 --> 00:39:54,960
Speaker 1: a tour we take and it walks through red, red

737
00:39:55,000 --> 00:39:55,600
Speaker 1: light district.

738
00:39:56,200 --> 00:39:56,399
Speaker 2: Wow.

739
00:39:56,420 --> 00:39:59,910
Speaker 1: Like, and so in Germany, prostitution is legal. And so

740
00:39:59,989 --> 00:40:02,310
Speaker 1: every major town has brothels and those kinds of things.

741
00:40:04,810 --> 00:40:07,590
Speaker 1: And we'll inevitably get into these conversations about how horrible

742
00:40:07,650 --> 00:40:08,069
Speaker 1: this is.

743
00:40:08,969 --> 00:40:09,209
Speaker 2: Right.

744
00:40:09,370 --> 00:40:12,609
Speaker 1: And so you have interesting conversations about law and, you know, law,

745
00:40:12,650 --> 00:40:17,149
Speaker 1: not necessarily gesturing toward the ideal, but managing and restraining evil.

746
00:40:18,290 --> 00:40:19,810
Speaker 1: But then I also like to flip it on its

747
00:40:19,830 --> 00:40:23,529
Speaker 1: head and say, well, but it also doesn't mean that

748
00:40:23,570 --> 00:40:26,270
Speaker 1: just because it's legal here means it's okay to do.

749
00:40:26,290 --> 00:40:27,089
Speaker 3: That's right.

750
00:40:27,670 --> 00:40:32,320
Speaker 1: Like there is this stretching of authority that happens partly

751
00:40:32,400 --> 00:40:35,960
Speaker 1: because of the limitations of government, like the limitations of

752
00:40:35,980 --> 00:40:38,500
Speaker 1: people running government. They just don't know how to handle

753
00:40:38,620 --> 00:40:42,400
Speaker 1: all of this evil. And part of it probably because

754
00:40:44,180 --> 00:40:47,700
Speaker 1: it is bending away from God's order. There's a natural

755
00:40:47,760 --> 00:40:52,819
Speaker 1: tendency toward it. Just in that description, does that seem

756
00:40:52,840 --> 00:40:56,129
Speaker 1: to fit what's happening in Revelation, where you have this

757
00:40:56,170 --> 00:41:00,130
Speaker 1: sort of hubris developing, but it's not necessarily a direct

758
00:41:00,210 --> 00:41:02,630
Speaker 1: assault on God, but it's a.

759
00:41:04,890 --> 00:41:07,770
Speaker 2: More oozing out the sides.

760
00:41:08,830 --> 00:41:12,549
Speaker 1: As these governments sort of begin to realize that they

761
00:41:12,630 --> 00:41:18,380
Speaker 1: can't hold it all together unless they get more more control,

762
00:41:18,440 --> 00:41:19,160
Speaker 1: more authority.

763
00:41:20,100 --> 00:41:27,150
Speaker 3: Yeah. No, that's an interesting question. The problem is, where

764
00:41:27,410 --> 00:41:34,490
Speaker 3: I hesitate is that the characterization of that with Rome

765
00:41:34,510 --> 00:41:37,190
Speaker 3: is very emperor-specific.

766
00:41:37,910 --> 00:41:38,250
Speaker 2: Gotcha.

767
00:41:38,270 --> 00:41:40,680
Speaker 3: I was sitting there thinking, well, yeah, under Augustus, the

768
00:41:45,820 --> 00:41:48,620
Speaker 3: the emphasis was very different. He was always constantly trying

769
00:41:48,680 --> 00:41:51,239
Speaker 3: to deflect on her because, because that was actually the

770
00:41:51,280 --> 00:41:54,680
Speaker 3: way of accumulating power. Okay. So he's always like, Oh no,

771
00:41:54,739 --> 00:41:56,640
Speaker 3: you can't call me God. Now you can call me

772
00:41:56,700 --> 00:41:59,240
Speaker 3: son of a God, I guess, because my dad, Julius

773
00:41:59,260 --> 00:42:02,440
Speaker 3: Caesar was, but don't call me, you know, he's always

774
00:42:02,460 --> 00:42:05,500
Speaker 3: trying to play this, but then you have people like Nero.

775
00:42:05,520 --> 00:42:06,980
Speaker 3: This is one of the things I always find interesting

776
00:42:07,000 --> 00:42:11,060
Speaker 3: with Romans 13. Yeah. It's, it's written under Nero who

777
00:42:11,140 --> 00:42:14,469
Speaker 3: eventually is the one that crucifies Peter upside down and

778
00:42:14,530 --> 00:42:17,319
Speaker 3: beheads Paul. The other thing I find interesting about Romans

779
00:42:17,320 --> 00:42:19,850
Speaker 3: 13 is I'm going– and with that type of level

780
00:42:19,890 --> 00:42:23,930
Speaker 3: of hubris in Nero and in therefore his governmental structure,

781
00:42:23,950 --> 00:42:29,610
Speaker 3: I don't think he would really appreciate being repeatedly referred

782
00:42:29,660 --> 00:42:30,800
Speaker 3: to as God's servant.

783
00:42:31,980 --> 00:42:32,219
Speaker 2: Right.

784
00:42:33,380 --> 00:42:35,420
Speaker 3: I don't think Nero is like, yeah, I love Romans 13.

785
00:42:35,420 --> 00:42:36,160
Speaker 3: I think he's.

786
00:42:36,060 --> 00:42:37,520
Speaker 2: Going– Nero is a deacon.

787
00:42:37,980 --> 00:42:41,650
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's like– Who do you think I'm a servant of? No,

788
00:42:41,690 --> 00:42:44,629
Speaker 3: your God's a servant of my gods because that's why

789
00:42:44,730 --> 00:42:48,030
Speaker 3: I'm on the throne. There's this fascinating way that Romans

790
00:42:48,030 --> 00:42:50,489
Speaker 3: 13 is used that I don't think Rome would have

791
00:42:50,510 --> 00:42:54,410
Speaker 3: really appreciated. Probably not. The same thing with Revelation, though.

792
00:42:54,930 --> 00:42:59,290
Speaker 3: With Domitian, you're dealing with a very insecure emperor who is,

793
00:42:59,370 --> 00:43:02,069
Speaker 3: for the first half of his empire, almost bankrupted the

794
00:43:02,110 --> 00:43:06,160
Speaker 3: entire empire trying to curry favor with everyone. So he

795
00:43:06,219 --> 00:43:12,239
Speaker 3: triples the salary for the soldiers because he has no

796
00:43:12,320 --> 00:43:17,570
Speaker 3: military prowess to command their legions. So then what he

797
00:43:17,610 --> 00:43:19,790
Speaker 3: does is he throws all these parties. He's bankrupt. And

798
00:43:19,810 --> 00:43:24,790
Speaker 3: then finally, a Saturninus, a general in around 88, 89,

799
00:43:24,790 --> 00:43:30,110
Speaker 3: brings a legion to kill him. And it so rattles Domitian.

800
00:43:30,739 --> 00:43:33,540
Speaker 3: That then begins what a lot of Roman scholars refer

801
00:43:33,560 --> 00:43:35,759
Speaker 3: to as his reign of terror over the last half,

802
00:43:35,800 --> 00:43:38,540
Speaker 3: and that's when Revelation is written. So what you have

803
00:43:38,560 --> 00:43:41,660
Speaker 3: in the situation of Revelation and these Christians is they

804
00:43:41,719 --> 00:43:45,240
Speaker 3: are a vulnerable group within an empire that is already

805
00:43:45,360 --> 00:43:49,330
Speaker 3: somewhat ambivalent to them. They've already been blamed 30 years

806
00:43:49,390 --> 00:43:55,299
Speaker 3: earlier for burning Rome by Nero. So they've been targeted off.

807
00:43:55,420 --> 00:43:57,620
Speaker 3: Some of their leaders have been executed. Actually, every one

808
00:43:57,660 --> 00:43:59,879
Speaker 3: of them has been except for John at this point.

809
00:44:00,000 --> 00:44:02,839
Speaker 3: And he's exiled on the island of Patmos. And now

810
00:44:02,920 --> 00:44:03,950
Speaker 3: things are getting worse.

811
00:44:05,050 --> 00:44:05,350
Speaker 1: Why?

812
00:44:05,630 --> 00:44:09,330
Speaker 3: Not just because the emperor is targeting Christians, although he

813
00:44:09,390 --> 00:44:13,770
Speaker 3: does kill Clemens and Domitilla, who were the they were

814
00:44:13,930 --> 00:44:16,430
Speaker 3: they were elite. They're actually their children were going to

815
00:44:16,469 --> 00:44:19,779
Speaker 3: be the heirs of the throne because Domitian didn't have children.

816
00:44:20,160 --> 00:44:23,969
Speaker 3: He kills them for, quote, Jewish ways of living. I mean,

817
00:44:23,989 --> 00:44:25,870
Speaker 3: if you go to Rome today, you actually have the

818
00:44:25,910 --> 00:44:31,850
Speaker 3: Christian catacombs as the Domitilla Christian catacombs, likely after her.

819
00:44:32,370 --> 00:44:36,750
Speaker 3: So Christians were being caught up, but Christians weren't really

820
00:44:36,810 --> 00:44:40,150
Speaker 3: the target. That's the thing. Christians were being caught up

821
00:44:40,190 --> 00:44:42,910
Speaker 3: in this tension. But it wasn't like Domitian's like, if

822
00:44:42,989 --> 00:44:47,090
Speaker 3: I kill the Christians, everything's fine. Domitian is spiraling.

823
00:44:47,290 --> 00:44:48,210
Speaker 2: He's just, yeah.

824
00:44:48,750 --> 00:44:52,370
Speaker 3: And because of that. And what typically happens is whenever

825
00:44:52,410 --> 00:44:57,810
Speaker 3: the very elite of any governmental structure becomes increasingly unstable,

826
00:44:58,489 --> 00:45:03,370
Speaker 3: every person that is trying to– that is frankly parasitic

827
00:45:04,070 --> 00:45:08,150
Speaker 3: in their relationship to that king, they will start to

828
00:45:08,250 --> 00:45:11,930
Speaker 3: act in very similar ways in their own sectors. And

829
00:45:11,969 --> 00:45:16,430
Speaker 3: so it bleeds down. The character of the emperor very

830
00:45:16,530 --> 00:45:20,969
Speaker 3: much dictates– how the government is either oozing or contracting.

831
00:45:20,989 --> 00:45:23,950
Speaker 3: But usually it's a reflection of that. That's good.

832
00:45:24,350 --> 00:45:27,750
Speaker 1: That's helpful. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. Like

833
00:45:27,790 --> 00:45:29,730
Speaker 1: it doesn't just happen one way. It's going to be

834
00:45:29,750 --> 00:45:34,609
Speaker 1: a set of contextual factors because I even think back

835
00:45:34,630 --> 00:45:37,830
Speaker 1: to Pharaoh in Egypt, right? I've made this point numerous

836
00:45:37,850 --> 00:45:40,760
Speaker 1: times when I teach through Exodus. It's like you sort

837
00:45:40,800 --> 00:45:43,839
Speaker 1: of have to sympathize with the Pharaoh who knew not Joseph, right?

838
00:45:44,739 --> 00:45:48,200
Speaker 1: Because all he's seeing is a foreign group multiplying within

839
00:45:48,239 --> 00:45:50,350
Speaker 1: his nation. And he's going, what do I do with

840
00:45:50,390 --> 00:45:53,969
Speaker 1: this problem? And so he does what he does. We

841
00:45:54,010 --> 00:45:59,089
Speaker 1: don't have to agree with what he did and go, oh, yeah,

842
00:45:59,130 --> 00:46:03,589
Speaker 1: that makes perfect sense. But the logic of going, this

843
00:46:03,650 --> 00:46:05,529
Speaker 1: is going to be a problem if I don't take

844
00:46:05,570 --> 00:46:10,899
Speaker 1: care of it does make perfect sense. And he does

845
00:46:10,960 --> 00:46:14,529
Speaker 1: it out of ignorance. He does not know Joseph. So

846
00:46:14,590 --> 00:46:16,669
Speaker 1: he doesn't understand that this is a blessing. He doesn't

847
00:46:16,690 --> 00:46:19,330
Speaker 1: understand what the Israelites can do for his country. Now,

848
00:46:19,410 --> 00:46:23,129
Speaker 1: as he goes on, there's obviously recalcitrance and he's much

849
00:46:23,170 --> 00:46:27,279
Speaker 1: more stubborn. He refuses to look at what God is

850
00:46:27,320 --> 00:46:31,240
Speaker 1: telling him. He refuses to accept God's authority over him.

851
00:46:32,800 --> 00:46:35,450
Speaker 1: But in that first section, that's not what's at play.

852
00:46:35,910 --> 00:46:36,850
Speaker 2: He's ignorant.

853
00:46:36,870 --> 00:46:39,109
Speaker 1: He doesn't understand what's happening, but he sees a real

854
00:46:39,190 --> 00:46:41,370
Speaker 1: threat and begins to respond to it.

855
00:46:41,930 --> 00:46:43,390
Speaker 2: And I think we have to give our.

856
00:46:43,350 --> 00:46:49,500
Speaker 1: Leaders some level of grace there to recognize that even

857
00:46:49,620 --> 00:46:53,120
Speaker 1: as they're trying to do good or good by the nation,

858
00:46:54,440 --> 00:46:59,230
Speaker 1: they're working in a partial understanding of the good. And again,

859
00:46:59,290 --> 00:47:02,770
Speaker 1: the Christian job is to come alongside and say, listen,

860
00:47:02,810 --> 00:47:07,800
Speaker 1: you haven't, You've recognized something that's important. You haven't recognized

861
00:47:07,860 --> 00:47:08,180
Speaker 1: it all.

862
00:47:08,719 --> 00:47:09,200
Speaker 3: That's right. Right.

863
00:47:09,219 --> 00:47:13,280
Speaker 1: I liken it to the Ethiopian eunuch who's reading Isaiah

864
00:47:13,340 --> 00:47:15,640
Speaker 1: and Philip comes along and what does he say? He says,

865
00:47:16,060 --> 00:47:17,680
Speaker 1: how would I know what I'm reading unless I have

866
00:47:17,719 --> 00:47:21,239
Speaker 1: someone to guide me? I think sometimes we forget that

867
00:47:21,260 --> 00:47:22,020
Speaker 1: we're the guides.

868
00:47:22,640 --> 00:47:22,799
Speaker 2: Yeah.

869
00:47:23,160 --> 00:47:25,420
Speaker 1: That these good and bad things you're seeing in the world,

870
00:47:25,480 --> 00:47:30,660
Speaker 1: we're supposed to be guiding leaders toward Christ, toward the kingdom,

871
00:47:31,640 --> 00:47:33,510
Speaker 1: not helping them decipher political moves.

872
00:47:34,830 --> 00:47:40,380
Speaker 3: Especially the prophetic tradition. You're right. But I'm like, that's literally–

873
00:47:40,469 --> 00:47:42,710
Speaker 3: so even what you just described, my initial thought was

874
00:47:42,750 --> 00:47:48,360
Speaker 3: John the Baptist. Yeah. He gave Herod an opportunity. That's right. Yeah,

875
00:47:48,489 --> 00:47:53,300
Speaker 3: he did confront him. But a prophet doesn't confront solely

876
00:47:53,400 --> 00:47:57,419
Speaker 3: out of anger. It's actually a torturous confrontation where it says,

877
00:47:58,000 --> 00:48:00,380
Speaker 3: I'm telling you, this is going to end bad for everyone,

878
00:48:00,600 --> 00:48:03,200
Speaker 3: especially you, if you do not repent.

879
00:48:03,680 --> 00:48:03,940
Speaker 2: That's right.

880
00:48:04,000 --> 00:48:09,239
Speaker 3: And when he confronts Herod, Herod has an opportunity, but

881
00:48:09,320 --> 00:48:12,560
Speaker 3: Herod denies it because he's trying to still curry favor

882
00:48:12,600 --> 00:48:16,020
Speaker 3: of the people instead of God and beheads John the Baptist.

883
00:48:16,550 --> 00:48:16,740
Speaker 2: Yeah.

884
00:48:16,840 --> 00:48:19,350
Speaker 3: So the same thing with Revelation. Like, Revelation is a

885
00:48:19,390 --> 00:48:20,190
Speaker 3: prophetic book.

886
00:48:20,750 --> 00:48:21,190
Speaker 2: Yeah.

887
00:48:21,250 --> 00:48:22,650
Speaker 3: But I will say this, though. I want to make

888
00:48:22,670 --> 00:48:24,230
Speaker 3: sure that I get this in here before we end

889
00:48:24,250 --> 00:48:25,670
Speaker 3: because I know we're coming close to the end.

890
00:48:25,690 --> 00:48:26,890
Speaker 2: Yeah, we are. Yep.

891
00:48:27,690 --> 00:48:35,120
Speaker 3: But Revelation really– Revelation does depict Rome's destruction. That's not necessarily, though,

892
00:48:35,200 --> 00:48:39,969
Speaker 3: this anti-Roman– although, I mean, Roman would not say it

893
00:48:40,010 --> 00:48:40,830
Speaker 3: was pro-Roman.

894
00:48:41,770 --> 00:48:41,989
Speaker 2: Right.

895
00:48:42,430 --> 00:48:45,549
Speaker 3: But in depicting the end of Rome, Revelation is– in

896
00:48:45,590 --> 00:48:48,650
Speaker 3: calling Rome Babylon, Revelation is saying this. Rome will go

897
00:48:48,989 --> 00:48:51,310
Speaker 3: the same way that every empire before Rome goes.

898
00:48:51,670 --> 00:48:51,870
Speaker 2: Yeah.

899
00:48:52,230 --> 00:48:54,370
Speaker 3: Like the end is secure no matter what Rome says.

900
00:48:54,450 --> 00:48:57,610
Speaker 3: Rome thinks they're eternal. Every empire thought they were eternal.

901
00:48:57,969 --> 00:49:02,330
Speaker 3: Egypt did. Babylon did. Rome is going to fall. That

902
00:49:02,350 --> 00:49:06,170
Speaker 3: is clear. The question, though, is this. I think in

903
00:49:06,210 --> 00:49:10,020
Speaker 3: Revelation it says, but how do you respond to a

904
00:49:10,080 --> 00:49:12,520
Speaker 3: war if you don't even know who the true enemy is?

905
00:49:13,420 --> 00:49:16,489
Speaker 3: Because Christians– I know Rome is killing you. I know

906
00:49:16,530 --> 00:49:18,910
Speaker 3: they're making your life hell, but if you think Rome

907
00:49:18,950 --> 00:49:21,560
Speaker 3: is the enemy then you've not looked back beyond the veil.

908
00:49:21,580 --> 00:49:25,460
Speaker 3: Part of the reason why the suffering is how we

909
00:49:25,520 --> 00:49:30,180
Speaker 3: win is because the true target is the dragon. I mean,

910
00:49:30,219 --> 00:49:34,000
Speaker 3: in Revelation 12, 11 says, you conquer the dragon by

911
00:49:34,020 --> 00:49:36,200
Speaker 3: the blood of the lamb and by the testimony of

912
00:49:36,219 --> 00:49:39,180
Speaker 3: the saints that would not shrink from death. Our ethic

913
00:49:39,260 --> 00:49:43,170
Speaker 3: then is The reason why there's this collision is because

914
00:49:43,370 --> 00:49:47,460
Speaker 3: our ethic governed by our king is targeting the greater

915
00:49:47,540 --> 00:49:50,200
Speaker 3: enemy that you can't kill with a sword. Or as

916
00:49:50,239 --> 00:49:52,279
Speaker 3: Paul would say it, our war is not with flesh

917
00:49:52,320 --> 00:49:55,899
Speaker 3: and blood. And therefore the weapons of flesh and blood

918
00:49:56,040 --> 00:49:56,820
Speaker 3: won't be effective.

919
00:49:57,700 --> 00:49:58,780
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's been interesting.

920
00:49:58,800 --> 00:50:01,580
Speaker 1: I mean, that comment, I think we often sleep on

921
00:50:01,739 --> 00:50:04,600
Speaker 1: Acts 17, 26 and 27. We get kind of caught

922
00:50:04,680 --> 00:50:08,330
Speaker 1: up in the Athenians and their unknown God. But in

923
00:50:08,390 --> 00:50:11,469
Speaker 1: Acts 26 and 27, Paul says something very interesting about

924
00:50:11,510 --> 00:50:15,480
Speaker 1: God establishing nations within a certain set of boundaries and

925
00:50:15,520 --> 00:50:20,840
Speaker 1: for a particular time so that they may seek God,

926
00:50:21,660 --> 00:50:24,100
Speaker 1: feel about for him, like grope around in the dark

927
00:50:24,180 --> 00:50:28,299
Speaker 1: for him and perhaps find him. And as we think

928
00:50:28,340 --> 00:50:32,339
Speaker 1: about that, it's just this is what the nations are, right?

929
00:50:32,390 --> 00:50:36,560
Speaker 1: This is part of why God establishes them. it seems

930
00:50:36,780 --> 00:50:40,180
Speaker 1: evident then that they are not the enemy, that these

931
00:50:40,320 --> 00:50:45,800
Speaker 1: are good things that are easily corruptible, durable, but not eternal,

932
00:50:45,820 --> 00:50:52,160
Speaker 1: that give people within them the opportunity to respond to God,

933
00:50:52,200 --> 00:50:56,540
Speaker 1: to find God, if they have, I would argue, if

934
00:50:56,580 --> 00:50:57,759
Speaker 1: they have a guide to do so.

935
00:50:58,719 --> 00:51:02,700
Speaker 3: And so, yeah, go ahead. I would even say that

936
00:51:03,140 --> 00:51:07,150
Speaker 3: from my revelation Christian perspective, I think that the highest

937
00:51:07,570 --> 00:51:10,319
Speaker 3: politicians of any empire would be the most pitied, not

938
00:51:10,360 --> 00:51:14,140
Speaker 3: the most revered. Yeah. Genuinely. And I think we just

939
00:51:14,160 --> 00:51:16,680
Speaker 3: have it backwards. But that's what I see with the

940
00:51:16,920 --> 00:51:20,820
Speaker 3: testimony of our early church. Yeah. They didn't look at

941
00:51:20,860 --> 00:51:23,859
Speaker 3: the emperor as something even to be scared of. They

942
00:51:23,900 --> 00:51:28,140
Speaker 3: looked at him as genuinely someone to be the most pitied.

943
00:51:28,719 --> 00:51:29,879
Speaker 2: Yeah.

944
00:51:30,020 --> 00:51:35,710
Speaker 3: And it would be wonderful if we recovered that today. Yeah, yeah.

945
00:51:36,010 --> 00:51:38,350
Speaker 3: And I think it would clarify a lot. I do

946
00:51:38,410 --> 00:51:42,089
Speaker 3: think back to– and I know that this quote is

947
00:51:42,130 --> 00:51:45,050
Speaker 3: a little bit out of context, but it's not– I

948
00:51:45,070 --> 00:51:47,650
Speaker 3: don't think it's inappropriate. I do think back to the

949
00:51:47,710 --> 00:51:49,850
Speaker 3: wisdom of Martin Luther when he was asked if you

950
00:51:49,870 --> 00:51:51,609
Speaker 3: want to be king. He said, why would I step

951
00:51:51,660 --> 00:51:55,600
Speaker 3: down to be a king from being a preacher? Yeah.

952
00:51:55,840 --> 00:51:59,739
Speaker 3: There's a different economy. With which we're dealing with. And

953
00:51:59,860 --> 00:52:03,080
Speaker 3: I do. I pity. I pray for our leaders. I

954
00:52:03,260 --> 00:52:05,460
Speaker 3: do not justify what they do. And I believe they

955
00:52:05,480 --> 00:52:06,420
Speaker 3: will be held accountable.

956
00:52:06,860 --> 00:52:07,540
Speaker 2: Yeah.

957
00:52:08,000 --> 00:52:10,800
Speaker 3: But I pray for them out of pity because they

958
00:52:11,030 --> 00:52:13,930
Speaker 3: even have believed that they are the world's greatest men.

959
00:52:14,690 --> 00:52:17,110
Speaker 3: But in reality, I'm going like, no, like there's a

960
00:52:17,150 --> 00:52:21,969
Speaker 3: different metric here. Yeah. And I hurt for you. I

961
00:52:22,050 --> 00:52:24,750
Speaker 3: hurt for you. Yeah. Because of the situations that you're in,

962
00:52:24,770 --> 00:52:28,230
Speaker 3: the decisions you have to make. And frankly, the system

963
00:52:28,270 --> 00:52:30,870
Speaker 3: that has actually given you a measurement that's just not real.

964
00:52:31,750 --> 00:52:33,870
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's good, man.

965
00:52:34,590 --> 00:52:36,469
Speaker 1: It'd be nice if we could cultivate a little bit

966
00:52:36,489 --> 00:52:41,500
Speaker 1: more compassion for our leaders and take the pressure off

967
00:52:41,580 --> 00:52:47,339
Speaker 1: them by pulling the responsibility that we have to convey the.

968
00:52:47,260 --> 00:52:53,390
Speaker 2: Gospel well back onto ourselves. Yeah. Great stuff, bro.

969
00:52:54,360 --> 00:52:57,549
Speaker 1: Really appreciate you being back on. We're out of time,

970
00:52:57,620 --> 00:53:00,230
Speaker 1: but this has been a fantastic conversation.

971
00:53:00,250 --> 00:53:00,930
Speaker 2: So thanks a lot.

972
00:53:01,290 --> 00:53:02,770
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me, buddy. Appreciate it.

973
00:53:03,130 --> 00:53:06,250
Speaker 2: Absolutely. All right, everybody. Well, I hope you enjoyed this.

974
00:53:07,070 --> 00:53:09,230
Speaker 1: Join us back on Thinking Christian next time. And we'll

975
00:53:09,270 --> 00:53:11,989
Speaker 1: continue talking a little bit about politics and America and

976
00:53:12,010 --> 00:53:14,580
Speaker 1: all that kind of fun stuff. And hopefully give some

977
00:53:14,620 --> 00:53:17,560
Speaker 1: guidance that you can use as you're moving into the

978
00:53:17,600 --> 00:53:18,340
Speaker 1: midterm elections.

979
00:53:18,700 --> 00:53:19,320
Speaker 2: Take care, everybody.

980
00:53:19,960 --> 00:53:21,439
Speaker 1: Just want to take a second to thank the team

981
00:53:21,500 --> 00:53:23,880
Speaker 1: at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the

982
00:53:23,920 --> 00:53:27,530
Speaker 1: Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio.com, you'll find

983
00:53:27,610 --> 00:53:30,969
Speaker 1: dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network. They've got

984
00:53:31,010 --> 00:53:33,830
Speaker 1: shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more.