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Part II: Every Tribe, Language, People, and Nation: Revelation and Flying Buttons
If anyone happens to see the elephant standing on my chest, please ask it to step off. Could be asthma. Could be anxiety. Maybe both. At the grocery store two days ago I couldn’t believe my eyes—a crowded store with minimal social distancing or use of face masks. The governor lifted the lockdown because he wanted to boost the economy—not because the coronavirus evaporated. I want things to go back to normal, too. Or do I? The Great Realisation, a video poem circulating YouTube and Facebook, outlines the way of the world prior to COVID-19. With the catchphrase, “Hindsight’s 2020,” a father reads his son a bedtime story describing…
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Work in Heaven?
As Labor Day approaches, most Americans anticipate a well-deserved day off work. For many of us, the daily grind has become just that––a complete grind––and we regularly count down the days to weekends, holidays, vacations, and even retirement (5,406 days for me). But what if work isn’t supposed to be a grind? And what if our work doesn’t end with our time on earth? Have you ever considered what the Bible reveals about work in heaven? We know that the Bible represents one continuous story from Genesis through Revelation, and God’s story starts in a Garden (Gen 1–2) and ends in a City (Rev 21–22). This Garden to the City…
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Treasure Hunting in God’s Word
Many people believe that teaching the Old Testament to children is unnecessary or not as important as the New Testament. The truth of the matter is that “the New Testament is concealed in the Old Testament and the Old Testament is revealed in the New Testament.” When we are reading the Old Testament we will find many foreshadowing of things to come as well as promises that will be fulfilled in the New Testament. Look at the story in Genesis when God asks Abraham to sacrifice his promised son on Mount Moriah. This is a clear example of how the New Testament reveals the Old Testament. If you compare Genesis…
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Good Counsel for Crazy Times
Imagine a world in which a volatile leader stands as head over a powerful empire. His name is Domitian, and he’s the emperor of Rome. And the word “totalitarian-leaning” accurately describes his government. Firmly at the center of a cult of personality, he fancies himself the “new Augustus,” a self-appointed role that carries with it religious, military, and cultural propaganda. (Eventually, his court officials will assassinate him.) In short, the world is a complete mess from the top down. In such a context, Jesus appears to the elder John in a vision. And Jesus tells him to write what he sees in what we now know as the Book of…
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A False god to Bring You Comfort in “The Shack” (“The Shack” Review, part 2)
“True worship must worship God as He exists, not as we wish Him to be. The essence of idolatry is the making of images of God. An image is a shadow, a false representation. We may not bow before a statue or a figure, but if we make an image of god in our mind that is not in accord with God’s revelation of himself, then we are not worshipping in truth….” writes James R. White. “If we love Him and worship Him as He deserves, we will not dare to ‘edit’ Him to fit our desires.”[1] “Watch out for false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing” (Matthew…
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“The Shack”, a Review, part 1
“Brazen and insolent, they are not afraid to insult the glorious ones…” (2 Peter 2:10).[1] “Mack turned and faced him, shaking his head. ‘Am I supposed to believe that God is a big black woman with a questionable sense of humor?’ Jesus laughed, ‘She’s a riot!’” – Excerpt from The Shack, by William Paul Young.[2] The long-awaited movie version of the novel The Shack, by William Paul Young, is finally released. According to the book’s front cover, The Shack has sold over 20 million copies worldwide. Wikipedia lists it as a “Christian novel”, and one that has made the New York Times best seller list. Well known people, including Christian…
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The Island Wilderness
Leadership is broken because leaders are unbroken Wilderness Wanderings Series: Learning to Live the Zigzag Life He must have been too hot to touch, that ancient elder of Ephesus, or the Roman authorities probably would have taken him in much sooner than they did… Maybe they were concerned that, since he was so beloved, there would have been a strong reaction in Ephesus, the number two city in the Roman Empire, if they took him into custody. Ephesus was a place where they did not want any unrest. Whatever their reasoning, by the time they exiled him he was in his nineties, perhaps frail and declining in health. His…
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Malaysian Mystery
Around the globe the mystery of the missing Boeing 777, Flight 370 has the world collectively holding their breath. Satellites and ships are searching. Bits of data and information keep surfacing and speculation is rampant. Was this a simple but tragic accident or was the plane hijacked and flown to an undisclosed location? Mystery intrigues us, catches our attention. Someone described humans as “meaning makers.” We seek to make sense of things that happen to in our world. Likely because we live 2000 plus years removed from Jesus incarnation and resurrection, His revelation of the world’s most significant mystery doesn’t garner the same attention as this missing plane. Yet, the…
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Letters from Jesus
Two summers ago I joined a group on a Journeys of Paul tour so I could do some research in Ephesus, and our itinerary included the sites of Revelation’s seven churches (Rev. 1–3). A congregation at each of these sites received a message from Jesus. And while two thousand years separate us from the original audiences, Jesus’ words then are still completely relevant. Ephesus: Love Lost. The Ephesians lost their first love. And like them we may grow lazy spiritually or maybe even jaded. The solution? Twice Jesus says to “repent” and, (the big surprise) do the works we once did. Return to our works? Aren’t we supposed to eschew…
