Empires and Mangers

Monday, April 15, 2024

Children of the Dragon, Children of the Lamb: The Rotunda In Washington DC Looks A Lot Like Rome (Lessons From Smyrna)

As we enter another highly charged political year, I have been thinking how much the book of Revelation has to offer in terms of casting a discerning eye on how the forces of empires (symbolized by Rome/Babylon) challenge the faith and ethics of the Kingdom of God. To really understand the political broadside John offers in this apocalypse ("unveiling") will take some time. I found the journey to be worth it. I hope you do too.

Previous Post

http://empiresandmangers.blogspot.com/2024/04/children-of-dragon-children-of-lamb_12.html

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When John was recording his revelation, Smyrna had a reputation as the “Glory of Asia.” That was not always the case. The Lydians destroyed Smyrna in 600 BC; for four hundred years there was no “city,” just scattered villages in the area, yet records show people still talked about Smyrna as a place. The city was restored in 290 BC. Some ancient writers compared the city with the mythical phoenix, a symbol of resurrection. Others literally recorded Smyrna as a city that was dead and yet lived.[1]

Smyrna was famous for (among other things) fantastic architecture and town planning. You can still walk on spectacular streets that ran from one end of the city to the other. The most famous was called the Golden Street.[2] Apollonius referred to a “crown of porticoes,” a circle of beautiful public buildings that ringed the summit of Mount Pagos.[3] Smyrna was often depicted on coins as a seated woman, with a crown patterned after the buildings on the mountain[4] and a necklace representing the Golden Street.[5]

Because Rome had helped them so much in coming back to life, Smyrna proved to be incredibly loyal. At one point, the citizens literally stripped down and shipped their clothes to a desperate Roman army. When their request to build a temple to the Roman Emperor Tiberius was granted, Smyrna became a notable “temple-warden” of the imperial cult.

By the time of Domitian, emperor worship was mandatory. Burning incense and saying “Caesar is Lord” earned a certificate such as this one: “We, the representatives of the Emperor, Serenos and Hermas, have seen you sacrificing.” Then, you could go worship any god you wanted. This also gave you a “mark” that opened up the economy for you. If you did not do this, you were a disloyal citizen at best and a traitorous outlaw at worst.[6]

Children of the Dragon, Children of the Lamb: Bullied by Power and Seduced by Pleasure In Ephesus (Part Three)

Previous Post On The Church In Pergamum: http://empiresandmangers.blogspot.com/2024/04/children-of-dragon-children-of-lamb.html

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EPHESUS: Bullied by Power and Seduced by Pleasure

We are told to obey the prophecy of Revelation (1:3) – and how do you obey a prophecy? Well, prophecy in the Bible is usually (like, 85% of the time) a revelation of who God is, what God desires, and what God demands of us rather than a discussion of the future. So think of Revelation primarily (though not exclusively) as a handbook for Christian living in challenging times, with an ending to human history in which the supremacy of Christ is made clear.[1] Revelation is meant to strengthen our faith that God is with us now in our trials, and that He will one day end the groaning of a sin-soaked world and usher in a New Heaven and a New Earth.

I think we typically focus on the apocalyptic stuff in Revelation when we think of the book, but that’s not how it starts. It starts with personal letters to churches acknowledging their hardship, commending or correcting them as needed, and pointing them toward the goodness of what God offers them in His Kingdom. Then, John gives an artist’s illustration of all the dynamics referenced in the letter.

If you have seen or read A Monster Calls or I Kill Giants,[2] you know how this works. They are stories about grief. Part of the movie is ‘real world’ conflict, but the story quickly bumps into an imaginative fantasy world with giants and monsters in which the same story unfolds in a way that captures our imaginations along with our hearts.

So we are going to move through the letters, but I will try to bring in the artist’s illustrations as we go along.

Children of the Dragon, Children of the Lamb: The City Where Satan Has His Throne (Revelation 2:12-17)

Previous post: http://empiresandmangers.blogspot.com/2024/03/children-of-dragon-children-of-lamb.html

Children of the Dragon; Children of the Lamb: The Book of Revelation For Today (An Introduction)

“The bull which once ruled the Earth for 72 months has suffered a mighty fall. For at the end of 72 months, the great right horn of the bull, whose number is 20 and 3 (let the reader understand) departed, and so did the great left horn of the bull. Then the third horn of the bull, which was pierced in many places and dressed like a woman, likewise departed. Then all the beasts of the Earth, the Hornets and Timberwolves, came and devoured the flesh of the bull, and the glory of the mighty bull was laid low.”[2]

What is this about? Michael Jordan and the Bulls, of course, in the context of the NBA. It tells a true story about real events, but does so in an imaginative and symbolic way.

Close to the end of the 1st century, John received a vision that critiqued Emperor worship and foresaw the collapse of the Roman Empire. Like the Jordan example, the language is primarily symbolic[3] rather than scientific or logical.[4] Like the Jordan story, it tells the readers something important about reality. Here’s the CliffNotes version.

Provisionism: The Problem Of Divine Simplicity

Provisionism (Traditionalism) rejects the concept of Divine Simplicity, at least as formulated by Augustine. I highly recommend a book entitled The Hexagon Of Heresy, by James Gifford. It’s a deep dive, to be sure, but it explains how Augustine's incorporation of Plato's view of God impacted Western Christianity. Heads up: you need to like philosophy to appreciate this post.

Provisionism: God's Provision Of Salvation For All

Okay, Bible nerds, here we go.

In some ways, the plan of salvation as presented in the Bible is very simple:

“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.” (Acts 16:31)
“Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” (Hebrews 11:6)
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)
“If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.” (Romans 10:9-10)
“But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:12-13)
“In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.” (Ephesians 1:13-14)

But as the early church expanded in the centuries following the life of Jesus, a lot of conflicting perspectives on human nature, the nature and ripple effect of original sin, the definition of depravity, the nature of Jesus as the God/man and the efficacy of his crucifixion began to create the need for clarification.

As a result, the church had to address ‘doctrines of salvation’ (soteriology). It was a messy process. As church history unfolded, the church writ large occasionally gathered to address the implications of these attempts to explain God in a way that used the language and ideas of the audience. The controversy that followed looked like a pendulum swinging between doctrines that overemphasized either Jesus’ humanity or deity at the expense of the other, or perspectives on God that failed to account for the complexity of the Biblical revelation.

Bullies and Saints Part 4: What the Western Church Did Well in the Middle Ages

I really enjoyed John Dickson's Bullies And Saints: An Honest Look At The Good And Evil Of Christian History. There is much to learn from the record of bullies and saints in church history lest we repeat their failures or fail to replicate their successes.

I am doing a series of posts where I cut and paste from his book. Where I fill in words, you will see [brackets]. I use ellipses for all the places where I know there is a gap, but (because of how Kindle highlighting works) I am sure there are many places where I fail to note what's written between two sentences I put next to each other. If what I post feels disconnected or clunky as you read it, that's my editing, not his writing :)

The first installment was the most positive. The church's reputation prior to Constantine was pretty solid. But following Constantine's influence, leaders like Ambrose and then Augustine changed the tune the church had been singing. The changes may not strike you as jarring yet, but they are laying a foundation infused with a love of money and power on which others will build terrible things. The second installment covered the time from Julian to Augustine's City of God, a time with remarkably different - sometimes jarringly different - visions for how Christians should live in society. This leads us to part three.Much of the old work of the church was still going on. And there were plenty of genuine prophets popping up and accusing the church of being a pack of hypocrites. The third installment ended this way: "If, by the 500s, being Christian was indistinguishable from being Roman, by the 1000s being Christian was indistinguishable from being Frankish or Saxon. Europe and the church found themselves converted to each other’s ways."