Tag: John

April 25, 2025 – Revelations 21-22 and Conclusion

April 25, 2025 /

We have turned a corner here. We past the rapture and now we are onto the reward. Gleaming cities of gold and jasper etc. I wonder if this is where the ‘pearly gates’ descriptor comes from? It is described as the new Jerusalem for a new earth prepared for those that are worthy.

First, God cast out Satan forever. Then He prepared a new city. The tree of life was available for the first time since Adam and Eve. John was explicitly told to proselytize that this is a new world order.

Among the couple of things that I found interesting is that there is talk about no temple in new Jeruasalem. There is no longer a need for priests to act as the mediary between God and the people. For the uninitiated, there was a curtain called a veil in the temple. The priest was the only one that could go behind the veil because supposedly that is where God was.

It was the promise of Jesus, also called the ‘New Covenant’ that was supposed to break that requirement. This was allegedly authorized at the last supper with the bread and wine (what we colloquially call communion to memorialize the event). I guess I don’t totally understand why this is coming up now when I believe it comes up earlier.

I don’t think that you get to pick your truth, even when it is conflicting. That being said I would like to know more about the origins of the Bible. What books were stricken and for what reasons? Since the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John have very similar accounts, your can reasonably assume corroborating facts are true. Revelations was controversial and it seems like for good reason.

Jesus told them to expect his return after crucifixion (remember doubting Thomas) but why this new development? Why a whole new purging of the earth and starting over? It does seem to contradict the whole premise of Christianity provides salvation with free will. The vengeful God was supposed to be replaced with the loving God post Jesus.

It would be very presumptuous of me to say that this book seems a little far fetched. But I am going to say it anyway. We can’t just ignore controversy because it is convenient. It seems pretty likely that John would have communication with God considering how close he was to Jesus. But just like the Fourth Turning, why hasn’t it happened yet? Surely a millennium has passed by now.

For all I know, it happened at or near 1000 AD. It is not as if recorded history was the best it could have been. What if it was the black plague in the 1300s? I don’t think Satan has actually been banished considering the state of the world. But, I would also expect humanity to be gone as well and we would all be living in New Jerusalem.

What that says to me is that there is something up with the interpretation. I don’t know exactly what that is aside from the calculation of time. If one thing is off, what about other aspects of the story? As a result, it is probably best to live as if the rapture could come anytime.

End Your Programming Routine: I always knew it but now I can concretely say what fascinates these doomsday groups. A strong faith and a strong fatalism combined with timing of the Julian calendar and who knows what will happen? This definitely wasn’t my favorite Bible foray, but it leads me to believe that I will do more because I have not read all of it myself. Next week is the introduction to “In the Gravest Extreme” by Massad Ayoob.

April 18, 2025 – Revelations 8-20

April 18, 2025 /

He has risen… again? At least that is what the prophecy of Revelations claims. Since Easter is this weekend, I want to be the first one to wish you a happy Easter. Unlike Christmas, this is a true Christian holiday. A day of salvation and redemption for all that seek it.

Today is actually Good Friday. This is the day of Jesus’s crucifixion. The day that he was nailed to the cross and hung to die. But it is also the day that mankind’s sin died as well. So while it is bittersweet for Jesus, that was his purpose on earth and a victory for eternal salvation.

From what I have gathered reading these chapters, this is the rapture. As soon as the seventh seal is broken, the action begins. One third of the plants, water, animals and sunlight. Then, god sends down the devil and locusts.

Something that I found kind of interesting when I was reading some commentary on Revelations came up. In Chapter 12, it says that Satan was thrown to the earth. What? I thought that he was already condemned to Hell? Yes, but no. Apparently, Satan has the ability to go back to Heaven in order to lobby for his case. Meaning that if he sees some soul go the opposite direction, he can appeal to God.

Remember, this is a vision of the Rapture. This has not really happened yet according to Biblical belief. So if that is really true, then that means that Satan currently has the ability to appeal for souls. Interesting.

Revelations 13 is a good one. This is the chapter that identifies 666 as the mark of the beast. I remember the first time I ever heard this concept back in the early 1990s. My scoutmaster affirmed that if we were ever to get some sort of tattoo that was the mark of the beast. Now, I am not totally sure about just any tattoo but I am a little bit conflicted.

You may have heard of people embedding RFID microchips into their skin so that they can just wave their hand over some sort of scanner to check-out in something like an Amazon store. I am not sure where we are with that experiment at this point but I think that this is coming much closer to the mark of the beast than a tattoo.

I will not make comparisons between Amazon and Satan. But, I do have to say that permanently forfeiting your sovereign humanity at the expense of convenience is starting to tip the scales. I don’t think that Amazon is pure evil but they are surely not benevolent either. RFID implants is definitely a step too far for me.

Much of today’s readings focus on what happens during tribulation, particularly when you have accepted the mark of the beast. Chapters 19 and 20 finish that and see Christ’s second coming. Satan and the False prophet are cast off the earth forever.

I think that there are two things that come to mind reading Revelations that are somewhat puzzling. The first goes back to Revelations 10. John is instructed to eat a scroll of judgement. This has two purposes. One is so that he can ‘ingest’ the real sins and the vision as it is revealed. The second goes hand in hand with not revealing the details of the vision. How is it that John is writing this book of the Bible if he promised God that he would not reveal the vision? That seems in direct violation to something the John holds so personally.

The second is God’s promise of judgement after a millennium. By our time measurement, we have seen at least two since the prophecy. This of course added extra significance to the Y2K hoopla. I have often pondered the Biblical accounting of time. This is particularly true with Noah living 900 years. He wasn’t the only one but he was remarkable at siring children at such an advanced age of 500.

I do believe that miracles are possible through God. I just wonder about some of the accounting. Further more, why? What is the purpose of Noah living 950 years? Did it really take that long to establish a flawed, human civilization? It almost seems like the early Bible was trying to fill in the gaps of known time versus known people because in the New Testament people seem to have more typical lifespans.

This is all to say that I have no idea of what measurement a Millennium really is. I tend to think that because this is New Testament text, it is more similar to our modern calendar. But then again, I don’t understand the rhyme or reason to the Christian calendar either. As a person that is pretty good with patterns and algorithms, how is it that Eater changes every year? You try to understand it so you can explain it to me.

End Your Programming Routine: I am sort of getting the gist of why this book is controversial. From the Jewish standpoint, they are waiting for the first coming and the Muslims have already had the second. The best policy is to be faithful just in case. It might not be the rapture but it might be a sudden car wreck which has the same result as a religious cleansing. Next week we will close the book on Revelations. “He has risen indeed.”

April 11, 2025 – Revelations 1-7

April 11, 2025 /

There is a bit of controversy surrounding the book of Revelations. It was allegedly written by John based on some visions that he had. It is the last book of the New Testament and follows a couple letters from John. Apparently, during the Counsel of Nicaea this book was on the chopping block as to whether it belongs or not. There is even controversy that Nicaea actually debated the bible. For simplicity sake, let’s just agree that the Bible is was adopted in its current form at that event just like a lot of other things they adopted.

Revelations is one of those books that is extremely galvanizing. It has often been a focus of Christian splinter groups (or cults) like the Branch Davidians as an example. The colloquial view of the book is that it predicts the second coming of Jesus Christ. As such, those who have been faithful will ascend directly to heaven while those who have not will be damned. At least this is what I have already heard and believed.

One might wonder about it’s placement in the bible. I actually think that it is genius. Scare the Christians into obedience. If you have just read all of this love your neighbor doctrine straight through and then you get obey or else. That seems like a strategic position.

I am certainly no bible scholar. I have read bits and pieces here and there. One time I set off to read it and got into Joshua of the Old Testament and then put it down. There were too many names for me and it is really hard to read the Bible like a novel. I have also read all of the Corinthians I and II as well as the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, John and Luke of the New Testament.

What drove me to want to read Revelations is that attraction of the Doomsday groups to this particular book. I cannot condone the Branch Davidians activity, but I recently watched an accounting of the FBI masacre and I really cannot condone that either. There is something like us tin foil hatters that have to stick together.

Here is a quick synopsis. Chapter 1 is John’s vision of Jesus. Chapters 2 and 3 are about what the churches are doing wrong and what they need to change. Chapters 4-7 are all about the elements in the vision.

Having never read this before, I am not sure what to really expect. One thing that I can say is that Chapters 4-7 read remarkedly like Dante’s Paradiso. Dare I say that maybe this was the template to what Dante used? It kind of makes sense how Dante would come up with the dancing and singing angels. It was all in John’s vision with Jesus.

If this were a sermon, I might start off talking about the the seven churches and the context of each in relation to John and maybe even history in general. Then I would talk about the animals, thrones seals and scrolls. But I wont. Partially because I don’t really know all of that and partially because I think this time we will read all the way through before disecting each little part. There are internet sites that can help with the symbology if you want that.

I have to leave you with something though. So we have some churches gone astray as well as scrolls that contain a list of sins that is getting checked out. It probably indicates that trouble is brewing or at the very least stuff is being accounted for. Better get ready because the rapture could come at any time. We will see what happens next week.

End Your Programming Routine: When I think of the theology, there is probably a reason why Revelations doesn’t get a lot of Sunday air time. I know the bible stories about Noah and starting over but is God going to really empty the earth? I thought that he created it for companionship? Would this be the end of the human experiment? It sure seems likely.

September 8, 2021 – The Book of John and Loving Like Jesus

September 8, 2021 /

It is hard for me to convey how difficult this time has been. It is not that I can’t do the job using words, but that I don’t want to get deeply into explaining the situation. It involves the feelings of loss and despair along with a history of conflict. But for context reasons I will provide an abstract summary below.

Let us just say that there is a significant person in my life that is struggling. There has been a history of conflict with this individual. As a result of the conflict, most people including children have distanced themselves to the point where they are unwilling to do much more than topical help. This person is at a point where help is necessary to function on a day to day basis.

To be 100% fair, this is not my burden to bear alone. In fact, I am a lessor party in this dynamic and it is more directly impacting my wife. The problem is that we are also having some issues related our differences. We have been seeing a counselor over the summertime to try and help. We know the problems, it is more about how to move beyond them.

In general, I am opposed to conflict. Intellectually I know that sometimes it is necessary, my issue is the frequency, intensity and root cause of the conflict. I understand that there is a give and take in a relationship. For the most part, I am ambivalent about a lot of things and then the problem is that I don’t have strong enough opinion leads conflict. For those reasons, I have been tempted to give up but for some reason God pulls me in.

This entire year, our church has been going through a series on the book of John. I didn’t give it much thought last fall when the series began. The truth is, sometimes I have a hard time with continuity because I would estimate that we attend 50% of Sundays. One time a month, we are at the church but teaching in the children’s area and missed the service altogether.

Not this year, with the sermons getting put onto podcast form, I can now listen at any point in the week. That has made me follow the progression more closely and it has also put more faith touchpoints in different parts of the week. Consequently, I have put more thought into the message and how it applies to my life.

If I am honest, there are times that I have not lived to the values that I aspire. Christians would label as ‘sin’ but I think a better descriptor would be ‘humanness’. It is not easy to engage in a situation that outside of your comfort level no matter how right it is supposed to be.

Let me cut to the chase, do you help someone significantly if you can’t stand to be around them and you are the only person willing to entertain the thought at this time? If I play devil’s advocate for just a second, the faith dichotomy comes to head. One end of the spectrum there is living like Jesus versus the god will provide belief.

My journey through this year has led me more to the former and living like Jesus. It is the reason that I made an attempt to resolve relationships with my brother in law. The thing that I did wrong was not trying to understand his perspective and stop having a relationship as a result. Despite doing that, I am under no illusion that there won’t be difficult times in our relationship in the future.

How else can you reconcile values versus action? By doing the difficult things because they are the right things to do is the only thing I know. Standing alone is difficult, it is thankless and it makes you question your decisions. But, I think that is the only way.

End Your Programming Routine: This situation is not all entirely my decision on how to proceed. So, I cannot say how it will ultimately play out. What I am trying to convey today is that regardless of the choice, the path is not easy. Additionally, I appreciate the opportunity to follow along in various forms of media to help me walk my walk. We can only get ‘better’ as humans by looking at our actions and striving to make corrections for the future.