Explanatory Notes: Revelation 10:1-11

The journey continues...
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10:1 And I saw another strong angel descending from the sky, having been wrapped in cloud. And the rainbow on his head and his face [were] as the sun, and his feet [were] as pillars of fire. 2. And [he was] having in his hand a little scroll that had been opened, and he placed his right foot on the sea and the left on the land.

As with the seven seals, we get an interlude between the sixth and seventh trumpets. In Revelation 7, we had a vision of all believers who had endured through the "great ordeal," this current age in which we await Christ's return. [1] So each intermission in Revelation has something to say to the church in this period of tribulation we are in between Christ being "snatched into heaven" (12:5) and the final judgment.

In three chapters, we will see a beast from the sea and a beast from the land. This apparently huge angel has one foot on sea and one on the land. The rainbow, cloud, and sun-face recall Ezekiel 1:26-28, where these are associated with a "theophany," an apparence of God to Ezekiel. 

But this angel is not said to be Christ, nor is Christ ever called an angel in the book of Revelation. [2] It's another reminder that while Revelation draws many ingredients from the Old Testament, it cooks its own recipes.

The scroll is also drawn from Ezekiel, in this case Ezekiel 2:9-10. Unlike the scroll in Revelation 5, this one is already opened. It is not likely the same scroll as Revelation 5, because this one is a little scroll. Some, like Robert Mounce, argue that its contents are given in the chapter that follows. [3]

3. And he cried with a great voice like a lion roars, and when he cried, the seven thunders spoke with their own voices. 4. And when the seven thunders spoke, I was about to write, and I heard a voice from the sky saying, "Seal up what the seven thunders spoke and do not write them."

It is a true puzzle why, in a book where Christ tells John to write down the vision, he is expressly told not to write down what these seven thunders say. It is a reminder that we do not have the authority to know everything. Some of the great interest in the book of Revelation is a thirst for secret knowledge, to know what others do not know. At the very least, this moment is a reminder that we do not get to know everything.

Some think the idea of seven thunders is modeled on Psalm 29, where the voice of Yahweh is mentioned seven times, at least once in thunder. However, this seems a stretch. It is often noted that the article specifies these as the seven thunders, suggesting that this is imagery that John's community already was acquainted with. 

In this regard, it is tempting to see a connection between John as a "son of thunder" (cf. Mark 3:17) and these thunders. Were these seven revelations associated with John that were too volatile to put in writing? But that is a purely speculative thought.

5. And the angel that I saw standing on the sea and on the land raised up his right hand to the sky. 6. And he swore by the One living forever and ever, who created the heaven and the things in it and the earth and the things in it and the sea and the things in it. [He swore] that delay [4] will be no longer.

Daniel 12 seems to stand in the background of this image. A man clothed in linen, standing on the bank of a river, lifts his right and left hands toward heaven and swears by the One who lives forever.

What he swears, however, is that there will be a period to wait consisting of "a time, times, and a half a time." This is of course language we will soon encounter in Revelation 12:14. So, while Daniel looks from the standpoint of the beginning of that period, Revelation 10:6 looks to the time at the end of that time.

Most scholars of course think Daniel had in mind the period of the Maccabean revolt from 167-164 BC. But Revelation, as usual, cooks its own recipe with the Old Testament ingredients. We will soon argue that this three-and-a-half year period represents this current age, the time between the snatching of Christ to heaven (Rev. 12:4) and his return in final judgment.

The delay of Christ's return has troubled believers since the time of the very first disciples. By any reckoning, 2000 years is quite a surprise. The easiest accommodation is to see the end of delay here as a comment on the end times rather than John's own day. That is, to locate the end of delay to the time when the period of the great ordeal is ending. Whether John himself would have anticipated such a long wait is another question.

The King James Version interpreted verse 6 philosophically, "time shall be no more." But this is not the way the book of Revelation generally uses the word chronos. [5] There will be activity in eternity, so even if it is not the same as our current earthly time, by definition the kingdom will at least have its own time.

The martyrs in Revelation 6:9-11 were wondering how long it would be until God would finally bring justice to the empire that put them to death. Habakkuk also asked the Lord "How long?" God answered that prophet that judgment would not be delayed (Hab. 2:3). That passage almost certainly stands in the background of this statement here as well.

7. But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, whenever he is about to sound the trumpet and the mystery of God was finished, as he announced the good news to his own servants, the prophets.

Perhaps here we get a hint of what the seven thunders said. The "mystery of God" is accomplished in the judgment. So in that sense, perhaps the whole book of Revelation is letting us in on the secret revelation that was not written down in that moment.

We are reminded that we are in an intermission between the sixth and seventh trumpet. I have left the aorist tense of "was finished" in place to point out the emphasis. It is what we might call a "proleptic" or "futuristic aorist," where a future event is announced with such certainty that it is rendered as an event that is already accomplished.

The accomplishment of justice is part of the good news, the gospel. John looks back to the Old Testament prophets and the coming restoration that they announced. We think especially of Isaiah 52:7, where the prophet announces the good news of Israel's salvation. The judgment of the wicked world is more than judgment. It is also the full arrival of the kingdom of God.

It is of course also possible that John has New Testament prophets in view as well. When Ephesians 2:20 talks about prophets as the foundation of the church, it almost certainly had New Testament prophets in view. There is a tendency to underestimate the role that such prophets played in the early church. However, in this instance, it is perhaps more likely that the prophets of the Old Testament were in view.

8. And the voice that I heard from the sky again speaking with me and saying, "Go. Take the scroll that has been opened in the hand of the angel standing on the sea and on the land." 9. And I went away to the angel saying to him to give to me the little scroll. And he says to me, "Take and eat it. And it will be bitter in your stomach, but in your mouth it will be sweet as honey." 

The obvious background for this imagery is Ezekiel 2-3, in which the prophet is told to eat a scroll that tastes sweet as honey. However, in Revelation's "cooking," the scroll then becomes bitter in his stomach. It is perhaps a reminder that the judgment of the world is bitter sweet. On the one hand, it is sweet for justice to be done. And yet, the devastation of the wicked should give us no pleasure.

The ordeal that the faithful must endure is also bitter. If Revelation 11 gives us the content of the scroll, then we can see that what the "two witnesses" must endure has its own share of bitterness.

John asks for the angel to give him the scroll, but the angel tells John to take it. Perhaps there is some emphasis here on the fact that we are active in our acceptance of our mission and the persecution that may accompany it. We do not merely endure it. We embrace and move forward in it.

10. And I took the little scroll from the hand of the angel and I ate it, and it was in my mouth as sweet honey and when I ate it, it was bitter in my stomach. 11. And they say to me, "It is necessary for you again to prophesy about many peoples and nations and tongues and kings." 

The fact that eating the scroll leads to the charge to continue to prophecy about many peoples and nations, tongues and kings suggests that the words that follow in Revelation 11 are in fact the content of the scroll. The taste of the scroll is exactly as the angel had predicted. 

The scope of the judgment goes beyond Rome. Just as the kingdom will see people from every "nation, tribe, people, and language" (Rev. 7:9), so many peoples and nations and languages will be judged for their wickedness. This verse adds "kings" to the list, clearly indicating that the judgment goes beyond Rome. [6]

[1] So also Mounce, Revelation, 199.

[2] Robert Mulholland disagrees, seeing the angel almost certainly as Christ. Revelation, 200.

[3] Mounce, Revelation, 210.

[4] Literally, "time will be no longer." But the sense is not the end of time in some philosophical sense. The point is that time has run out. There will be no more delay.

[5] Cf. 2:21, 6:11, and 20:3.

[6] Although Mounce takes this to anticipate the kings of Revelation 17:10-12. Revelation, 211.

Notes Along the Way 3.2 -- The Scholarly Atmosphere

Continued from the previous post
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10. I haven't said much lately about the New Testament Seminar. I mentioned that we went through
Florentino Garcia Martinez edition of the Dead Sea Scrolls the second year. Those were great learning experiences. It wasn't as intense as comp exams, but it helped us cover the bases.

While I was in Germany, they went through New Testament apocrypha. I tried to keep at least an eye on them while I was away, documents like the Infancy Gospel of Thomas and the Protoevangelium of James.

It was always a delight when Dunn was working on a commentary. He worked on two during my time there, one on 1 Corinthians and one on Colossians. Such valuable sessions. I would go on to write a commentary on 1 and 2 Corinthians for the Wesleyans, and that semester was so helpful to that end. 

For Colossians, I came to see the Colossian philosophy as a form of mystical Judaism rather than syncretistic Judaism. We explored 4QMMT. So helpful. Dunn's commentary on Colossians remains the best, in my opinion.

I prize a comment Stephen Barton once made to me. He said that I usually prefaced any comment or question I was about to make with something like "I probably don't know what I'm talking about" but then I would go on to say something valuable. I felt so out of my depth in that group. Stuckenbruck, Moberly.

There were also some funny moments. One Canadian presenter paraphraseed 1 Corinthians 11:13 as Paul saying that they needed to have conflicts so they could determine who was "top dog." Dunn got a big kick out of that. I'm not sure he could make heads or tails out of the comment.

11. By far the academic highlight of my time there was the Durham-Tubingen Colloquium on Paul and the Law. You can read the papers here. It was a festival of famous names. 

I met Martin Hengel. I was sitting at the end of a table during a meal when he came up passionately and interrupted whatever conversation was going on. "Luke could not have just used Matthew without a Q," he said. "It is inconceivable that he would smash the Sermon on the Mount and partition it throughout his Gospel."

Made sense to me. I think Friedrich Avemarie was at the table. A short conversation and I realized I had completely misinterpreted Otfried Hofius' approach to Hebrews in relation to Gnosticism. So much for my German.

I met Tom Wright. He had to leave a little early and I had the privilege of walking him to the train station. Richard Hays was there. Hermann Lichtenberger. Bruce Longenecker came back. I heard a rumor that the Germans only agreed to come if E. P. Sanders was not invited. He had apparently quite extensively smeered Joachim Jeremias character somewhere, questioning whether he could have accidentally gotten the rabbinic sources so wrong.

I may have misremembered that piece, so I welcome correction.

Dunn had hoped that the conference might result in some sort of consensus, but that was wishful thinking on his part. Those were the first decades of the "new perspective on Paul," and it was never likely that they would come to agreement. As I recall, Hans Hubner represented the old perspective. I think Cranfield came to one session.

All very helpful. For over a decade I would be the principal teacher of Paul's letters at IWU, and these experiences provided an incredibly strong foundation on which to build.

12. The spring and summer of 1996 were focused on finishing my dissertation. I had a stack of commentaries and monographs about a yard high by my computer. I would scour them as I made interpretive decisions.

Although I have developed firm positions on the meaning of Hebrews now, in those days I often didn't know what I thought on particular questions. I have described my process as one of deciding what I think about x. Then if I think something about x, it has implications for y. And as time went by, I weaved a tapestry that is my interpretation of Hebrews.

I had a 5 mile route mapped out that I ran to think (and also to train). I believe I would go down the Bailey across Prebends bridge and then take a left to South Rd. Then I would run up to where it met Darlington Road and out to Neville's Cross. From there it was back down to Crossgate and across Framwellgate Bridge. Mind you, it's been 30 years.

In the end, I was pretty happy with the results. I would later revise and get it published with Cambridge.

Loren Stuckenbruck was my internal examiner and Frances Young my external. After the first few minutes of my viva, I thought I was in trouble. "I'm going to have to do massive rewrites," I thought to myself.

Then Young let up. They said that they were actually very positive about the dissertation. There were also some side comments about Dunn not being particularly sophisticated at recent developments in hermeneutics. He was a classic historical-critical scholar, and my method section was dabbling in matters of poststructuralism and narrative criticism. 

Well, I passed with only some minor revisions. It was still more involved to get a dissertation printed back then. But my copies were submitted at Old Elvet, and I would graduate in December.

Explanatory Notes: Revelation 9:13-21

Revelation 1
Revelation 2
Revelation 3
Revelation 4
Revelation 5
Revelation 6
Revelation 7
Revelation 8
Revelation 9:1-12
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13. And the sixth angel sounded and I heard one voice from the horns [1] of the altar of gold that is before God, 14. saying to the sixth angel, the one having the trumpet, "Loose the four angels who have been bound at the great river Euphrates.

We have seen this altar before in 8:3-4. It is the Altar of Incense that represents the prayers of God's people, praying for justice. It is yet another hint that we are not seeing a sequence of events but a repetition of the same basic themes in different ways. The key concept with this image is that God cares about the oppression of his people and will bring justice to its perpetrators.

The sixth trumpet unlocks four angels who have been imprisoned at the Euphrates. The fact that they are bound suggests that they are fallen, evil angels (cf. 1 Enoch 10:4-6; 2 Pet. 2:4; Jude 6).

The Euphrates was generally seen as the final boundary between the Roman and Parthian empires. If the image of locusts with hair like women might have been an allusion to Parthian warriors, the possibility heightens here. Craig Keener suggests that the Parthians are certainly in view. [2]

Although the imagery may be built off the rumor that Nero would return from the east with the Parthian armies, we can take the image in a more timeless sense. The forces of evil work against each other. They defeat themselves from the inside, and therein is a type of judgment. It carries its judgment inside itself as it eats itself away from the inside.

15. And the four angels were loosed, who have been prepared for the hour and day and month and year in order to kill a third of humanity. 16. And the number of the armies of the horsemen [was] two hundred million. I heard the number of them. 

Judgment comes on God's time table. There is a time when we want justice, but God will bring justice when he deems it to be the right time. The number two hundred million would have been terrifying. Keener notes that it was more than the population of the whole Mediterranean world. [3] That terror is likely the point rather than the precise number.

Many commentators note that the significance of a third is that it is not total annihilation. [4] The remainder have a chance to repent. As we will see, they do not.

17. And so I saw the horses in the vision and the ones sitting on them having breastplates of fire and hyacinth and brimstone. And the heads of the horses as heads of lions and from their mouths go out fire and smoke and brimstone.

This is the only place in Revelation where John reminds us that the imagery we are hearing is from a vision. It would not violate the conventions of apocalypses if, in the book as a whole, we have a mixture of material from John's vision later shaped by his community. The mention here, though, ties this specific imagery to John himself.

We will see fire and brimstone later in Revelation with regard to the lake of fire. The combination evokes associations with Gehenna and the final judgment of the wicked. The picture of a monster breathing fire reminds us of Job 41:19-20. The image of lion-headed horses is also not unlike that of the locusts in Revelation 9:8.

18. From these three plagues was killed a third of humanity from the fire and the smoke and the brimstone that was going out from their mouths. 19. For the power of the horses is in their mouth and in their tails, for their tails are like serpents, having heads, and with them they do harm.

The three plagues would seem to be fire, smoke, and brimstone or sulfur. We remember that Sodom was destroyed by brimstone. [5] The figure of the tails being like serpents is even more intense than the locusts, which had tails like scorpions. The mouths kill. The tails do harm.

20. And the rest of humanity who were not killed by these plagues did not repent from the works of their hands such that they would not worship demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which neither are able to see nor to hear nor to walk. 21. And they did not repent from their murders nor from their sorceries nor from their sexual immorality nor from their stealings.

Despite the fact that a third of humanity have died, the remainder do not repent. Perhaps this was also true in the image of those in 6:15-17 where the kings of the earth flee and call on the rocks to fall on them but are not said to repent. But here it is said explicitly.

Revelation gives us a list of the sins that especially typify the world under judgment. The world worships demons and idols that are unable to see, hear, or walk. Some in that world may have had a more sophisticated sense of idols as objects possessed by gods, but the ordinary person probably couldn't tell the difference.

Murder, sexual immorality, stealing--these are all actions bringing God's judgment on the world. Sorcery was related to idolatry for it tried to manipulate the dark spiritual forces of the world.

But still there is no repentance. What a picture of the human heart! The hard heart may know it is wrong. It may know that there is no hope if it keeps going in the direction it is headed. It may know that the logical course of action is to turn around, ask forgiveness, and change its ways.

But it so often doesn't. It would rather be destroyed than concede. To its last breath it fights the truth and the right. Pharaoh is a picture of such hardness. If we fail to understand how a soul could choose never-ending torment over submission to God, this is the place to begin understanding.

[1] Later manuscripts seem to have inserted the word four in front of horns: "the four horns," although it is also possible that the word was dropped by mistake.

[2] Keener, Revelation 270.

[3] Keener, Revelation, 273.

[4] Leon Morris would be typical: "It is a very stern warning, but not the blotting out of sinful mankind" (Revelation, 132).

[5] So, Robert H. Mounce, The Book of Revelation, rev. (NICNT; Eerdmans, 1998), 197.

Notes Along the Way 3.1 -- The Final Year in England

continued from last time
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1. When I returned from Germany in the spring of 95, it was time to get down to business. My final year--and especially the spring of 1996--focused on finishing the dissertation. I scrambled to get it done, but the deadline was earlier than I thought. So I ended up graduating in December even though I finished in the summer. 

I had run during most of my time in England. In May of 1995, I tried my first marathon in Leeds. When I got to mile 18, I came over a hill only to see another hill. I'll just walk a little, says I. Just to the top of the next hill. Then I'll start running again.

Didn't happen. I ended up walking the last 8 miles. Each time I got a little orange aid at a station, I would try to run again, but it didn't last more than 10 feet each time.

The finish was all downhill--multiple miles. A dream. Under any normal circumstances, it would have been a piece of cake. But I didn't have the energy even to run downhill. When I got to the final few yards, I started to jog. There was a 70 year old man who had run a marathon the previous weekend in Belgium. He ran with me a few yards.

Then my leg clinched, and I had to walk again. "You can do it," he said. "You're almost there. Don't give up now" But my leg said no. There wasn't really anyone else around. I think it was something like 4 hours and 20 minutes.

2. The next year, April 1996, I was determined to finish the London marathon without stopping. I told myself the key was that I had to keep moving. I wasn't allowed to walk at all or I would never be able to start up again. Success! I think it was still something like 4 hours and 5 minutes. Rats.

Perhaps in July of that summer I ran the Newcastle half-marathon. I remember excessively enjoying a fish and chips afterward. I remember feeling very alone.

I had felt incredibly successful up to that point of my life. Doors had opened at every step of the way. I would increasingly feel like everyone was happy to take your money, but no one was willing to give you a job. Of course things are much worse now than they were even then.

I did a marathon in Corning back in 2022, the Wineglass Marathon. I did a fare amount of training but walked about half of it. Heal clinched badly. But I did finish. I'd like to run another sometime. But time does age a person.

3. There were several trips around Britain in that last year. In the winter at the beginning of 96, David Fox had access to a cottage on the west coast of Ireland. Maybe a family member owned it. Rachel Leonard came too and perhaps one other person like James Quirk. I don't remember where we went exactly, unfortunately. Was it just beyond Galway? Killadoon?

We took a ferry across from Wales to Dublin, I believe, then drove the rest of the way in his small car.

I think it must have been mostly straight across. We didn't take a lot of big roads, as I recall. At one point we had to stop for sheep to get out of the way. It was very cold. There was no going into the water as far as I was concerned.

One highlight of the spring of 1996 was that David set his head on fire. It was third term, I think, and we were having a bit of a cook out. Rachel was there. James Quirk. And also I believe David Morton from Cumbria (I can still hear him saying that with his accent). We were on the lawn behind Cranmer, as I recall.

The fire was not heating up fast enough, so he had the bright idea of pouring some gasoline on it. It flamed up immediately and set his head on fire. That's the problem with being a genius, you think you can get by with things. He did have the intelligence to put out the fire with his shirt.

Panic of course set in. What to do? I went to run some water but didn't know what temperature it should be (cold, by the way). But by the time I came back outside, they had called an ambulance and he was off to hospital.

4. Neil took some time to drive me around England, Wales, and Scotland as well. We went up all the way to John O'Groats at the tip of Scotland. My second brief pass through Inverness and first time to St. Andrews. Probably on another occasion, we went to Cambridge and had tea at the Orchard, one of Wittgenstein's favorite places. We may have also swung by Stratford on Avon.

I have a mug from Rievaulx Abbey in York where we stopped briefly. You really get to hate Henry VIII because of his dissolution of the monasteries. There were the ruins of a priory it was nice to walk to down the Wier a few miles. Abandoned train bridge on the way, as I recall.

At some point we drove a little through Wales. What magnificent mountains, just like on the way to the Isle of Skye. I don't think I've ever seen such majestic mountains anywhere else in my travels. But of course there are many places I have never been.

Before I left, I made a trip to look at the Roman ruins underneath York Minster. It probably shouldn't have been, but it was a bit surprising to me that the Romans had been in Britain. Conflict of stereotypes in my mind. One of the Department of Theology outings was to Hadrian's wall, which was built in 122 BC. I believe James and Elena McGrath had arrived by then. We had gone to Housesteads, I believe.

5. Before I left, I also did a little driving with my friend Todd Thompson. He had come to Sheffield to do graduate work in philosophy. That was tough going, because he only had his undergraduate degree from Central Wesleyan and his MDIV from Asbury Seminary--neither of which focused on philosophy.

But it was a delight to meet up. If Neil had taken me north and central, Todd and I went south. We made it as far south as Cheddar, I think. It would have been nice to get to Land's End, but it was going to be a very long drive with no real place to visit or see. So we headed west and drove by Stonehenge instead. I think it was closed by the time we got there, but we did see it from the road.

6. David Wright and his young family were in Birmingham, I think. He was the representative of the Missions department of The Wesleyan Church at the time. Most of the Wesleyan congregations in England are of Caribbean descent in London. I did a weekend visit, as I recall with them. 

I seem to recall having some conversations about postmodernism and whether there might be lessons for the church in it. Interestingly, I would have the identical discussion with Russ Gunsalus a couple years later in 1997, in New Brunswick, Canada at Bethany. My brother-in-law Dwayne Winterberg was teaching youth ministry there at the time.

In late 95, the Wrights were going to be leaving England--I think for Haiti. Kerry Kind asked me to come down to Birmingham to consider possibly continuing where they had left off. I was flattered that he had that much confidence in me, but I told him I needed to focus on finishing my dissertation. To be honest, I really didn't have any interest in it. I thought I was going to be this great scholar whose days with the Wesleyan Church were numbered. Ha!

I remember asking him if he had ever heard of the show Friends. He said he had and that he had heard it was basically a bunch of twenty somethings sleeping around. I quickly shifted gears. "It's about the only show that we get here," I said.

7. Alex Jensen became a residential tutor that third year. A French friend had returned from a year away in Japan, Alexandra Bayol. I think it was the dissertation, but that third year just seemed more somber and serious in my memory. You begin to realize you don't know what you'll be doing the next year.

In addition to Neil and I, a Canadian by the name of Scott was also a residential tutor but for John's students who lived off campus. He dated another friend, Elizabeth, whom I was in a play with. It was a medieval play with just the two of us. I remember having tea with her before I left England that final summer. We wagered who would become famous first. I assured her that I would be a novelist who knew Madonna within a couple years.

I had started a couple novels by then. My first foray into fiction writing was a piece I wrote as a high school senior, "The Light of the Withered Rose." It felt better than it was. For a long time I planned to make it into a novel. I used to tell a story to my nephews called The Vigilante. I started to write some of it down once upon a time.

The first real attempt was Domain of Consciousness. It was The Matrix before there was The Matrix. Its inspiration came from a short story I read in the 10th grade called "The Most Dangerous Game." But in my version, it was a virtual world. He kidnapped people and put them into a virtual world without them knowing it. Then he hunted them.

My final year in John's I started one called The Birth of a God. Standard superhero stuff with a dark twist. You get kidnapped. Someone uses you as a guinea pig for a transporter. You get powers. They kill your family. You go dark and broody.

I showed some of it to a student named Anne. Despite her high expectations, the look on her face said it wasn't very good. :-)

8. In those days, sometimes it felt like I often made the wrong decision when it was important. I skipped coming home the summer of 95 and missed a celebration for my parent's anniversary. It seems like they were doing an early celebration of their 50th, which would have been later in 1997. It was quite a reunion of my mother's family, and I should have been there.

Instead, I interviewed for a position at a Roman Catholic college in Southampton. I remember the interviewer making some snide remark about how it would be a first for them to hire a Protestant. I didn't get the job and the college closed abruptly the next year.

Meanwhile, over Christmas of 95 I came home when I could have interviewed at the Nazarene Theological College in Manchester, as I recall. I later found out I was a preferred candidate. I snubbed my nose at it. I didn't realize that it also involved teaching for the University of Manchester.

So I skipped going home for a losing proposition, and went home skipping a potentially winning one. My daughter reminds me that she would never have been born if I had stayed in England, and so made the right decision after all. 

9. I suppose this is as good a place as any to mention the advent of email. Probably at some point in my second year, St. John's got email. There was a computer lab, and we could go there and send emails. My mother was very happy. I had been an abysmal son when it came to writing letters home in college and seminary.

But I could email. She now had regular communication from me.

Explanatory Notes: Revelation 9:1-12

9:1 And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star from the sky having fallen to the land, and the key of the pit of the abyss was given to him. 2. And he opened the pit of the abyss and smoke went up from the pit like the smoke of a great furnace. And the sun and the air from the smoke of the pit was darkened.

Ancient Jews did not view the stars as balls of burning gas. These were heavenly beings, "watchers" even. Musings abound about the star over Bethlehem. Was it a comet, for example? But it is more likely that they thought it was an angel. 

And so, when the fifth angel sounds the trumpet, the star that has fallen to the land turns out to be a heavenly being. We get slightly mixed signals about whether this is a good or bad angel. On the one hand, he has been given a key, which suggests he might be good. Yet, he has fallen and thus could be a bad angel. Perhaps the majority see this as a good angel, although it fits better with verse 11 to see him as a fallen angel. [1]

When we get to the second vision in chapter 12, we will hear that Satan and his angels fall to earth. The passage is not talking about a fall of Satan before the time of Adam. It refers to the defeat of Satan in heaven after Christ's resurrection.

The fall here and the fall in Revelation 12 could thus refer to the same basic truth. Now that the Lamb has been slain, the seals of final judgment have been opened. And Satan's doom is sure, along with all those heavenly beings who have sided with him. 

It is perhaps another indicator that much of Revelation is a repetition of the same basic concepts in different ways.

3. And out of the smoke came out locusts on the land and authority was given to them as the scorpions of the earth have authority. 4. And it was said to them that they not harm the grass of the land, neither any green thing nor any tree except the people who do not have the seal of God on the foreheads.

The image of the locusts has given rise to speculation about helicopters, drones, and the like in the end times. However, the significance of the locusts likely has much more to do with the past than being an image of technology in the distant future. Once again, locusts were one of the plagues of Egypt. 

The point of the image is to parallel God's judgment on Rome (as we will see) with the judgment with which God visited on Egypt. 

A large number of interpreters on all sides would agree that the locusts symbolize something other than literal locusts. The question is how detailed the symbolism is and what they actually represent. Many dispensational futurists see them as a specific thing of the future, like a drone. The idealist says that it is the universal consequences of wickedness that is the point. Perhaps we might say that the point is not the individual items or moments within the apocalyptic sequence here but the overall "Gestalt" or impression of judgment that we should take away.

The locusts are not to harm the grass of the land. This is puzzling because all the grass was already destroyed in 8:7 with the opening of the first trumpet. This is a strong indicator that the sequence of events are not an actual progression in time. Rather, we are seeing the same images of judgment over and over.

In other words, the symbols should not be interpreted on a one to one or detailed level. It is rather the overall Gestalt of judgment we should pay attention to.

The seal of God on the foreheads of the righteous was already introduced in 7:2-3. Interestingly, few interpreters take this as a literal mark, although futurists regularly take the mark of the beast as a literal mark of some sort. However, to be consistent, we probably should not take these as literal or visible seals or marks.

5. And was given to them that they might not kill them but that they will be tormented five months. And their tormenting [was] as the tormenting of a scorpion whenever it should sting a person. 6. And in those days, people will seek death and they will not find it. And they will desire to die and death flees from them.

Five months may seem a curious amount of time if you aren't a farmer living in a place where they are a threat. But in Israel, five months was the time of the dry season, the time when locusts were a threat. Indeed, the life cycle of a locust is about five months. In the end, we do not know for certain the precise meaning of the five months. Many commentators simply see it as a "round number" without a specific meaning.

The idea of life's circumstances or suffering making death preferable to life appears a couple of places in the Old Testament. Certainly Job at one point preferred death to his suffering (Job 3:21), but thankfully God did not oblige him nor did he take his own life. In Jeremiah 8:3, the survivors of those who corrupted Israel would rather die than endure their current suffering. The theme can also be found in related apocalyptic literature. [2]

This is of course the stark prospect of eternal punishment. Death is infinitely preferable, literally. 

7. And the likenesses of the locusts were like to horses having been prepared for war and upon their heads as crowns like to gold and their faces as faces of humans. 8. And they were having hairs as the hairs of women and their teeth were as those of lions. 9. And they were having breastplates as breastplates of iron and the sound of their wings as the sound of chariots of many horses running into battle. 10. And they have tails like scorpions and stings. And in their tails [is] their power to harm mortals for five months.

What a vivid image! There are of course futurists who see this as John's attempt to describe things that were foreign to his world (again, like helicopters), and thus they would see a detailed metaphor here for literal entities of the end times.

Preterists might hear in this imagery metaphors for entities of John's day. For example, the Roman historian Suetonius described Parthian warriors as having long hair, as Revelation describes the locusts here. [3] The image of armies from the east is frequent enough in Revelation to wonder if the rumor that Nero would return with the Parthians to bring vengeance on Rome stands to some degree in the background of such imagery (cf. 9:14 subsequently).

The book of Joel provides key background for the locust imagery, although there it is at least possible that literal locusts were in view. The idealist would say that the locusts do not represent armies in any specific time or place but the certainty of judgment for those who oppress God's people.

Craig Keener notes that scorpion stings bring great pain but not usually death. [4] This perhaps adds to the imagery in verse 6 about desiring death but not getting it.

11. They have over them a king, the angel of the abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon and in the Greek, he has the name Apollyon.

This king would seem to be a demonic angel rather than a good angel such as Uriel (cf. 1 Enoch 20:2). He is possibly the same angel that fell in verse 1.

Revelation's attention to the names in different languages perhaps provides us with a useful window into the book's way of thinking about names (also in 16:16). At the end of Revelation 13, we will hear the number 666 as the number of a name, and it would fit if this number proves to be "gematria," the use of a correlation between letters and numbers to unlock key symbolism.

You'll note the similarity between the name of the Greek god Apollo and the word apollyon. The Greek tragedian Aeschylus in fact noted the relationship between Apollo and the verb to destroy. [5] Some scholars suggest that Revelation is deliberately mocking the god Apollo. 

In the same vein, the Emperor Domitian sometimes thought of himself as Apollo incarnate. [6] It is at least possible that the book of Revelation is mocking the emperor Domitian, perhaps another bit of evidence that the book reached its final form during his reign. 

12. The first woe has gone away. Behold, still two woes are coming after these things.

We have already seen that Revelation tends to group the first four of a series of sevens together, with the final three also going together. With the seven trumpets, the last three go together as three "woes."

Additionally, with the seven seals, the last three focused more on the spiritual realm than the earth. So also here, the first four trumpets released judgment on the earth, and the last three relate to the world of the spirit. But instead of looking to heavens, the last three trumpets look to the underworld and the world of the demonic. [7]

[1] For some of the different interpretations, see Leon Morris, Revelation (IVP Academic, 2009), 126.

[2] The Sibylline Oracles in particular: 2.307–8, 8.353, 13.118.

[3] Suetonius, Vespasian 10, pointed out by Craig Keener, The NIV Application Commentary: Revelation (Zondervan, 2000), 268 n.10. 

[4] Keener, Revelation, 268.

[5] Agamemnon 1082

[6] So, among others, G. B. Caird, A Commentary on the Revelation of St. John the Divine (Harper & Row, 1966), 120.

[7] J. P. M. Sweet, Revelation (Westminster, 1979), 162.

Family History of the USA 1: Jamestown 1

1. When I was a child, my grandmother passed on a tradition that had been passed down by her mother's family before her. The tradition was that we had an ancestor who had come over to America with Captain John Smith--yes, the one of Pocahontas fame. 

As with most traditions, there seems at least a kernel of truth in the story. My mother's mother's mother's mother's father's father's father's father's father's father seems to have settled in Jamestown in the early 1600s. That is my great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather (8th great grandfather).

In this day when you can connect to other people's genealogical quest, I was intrigued to find another person out there with a similar family tradition. "It is tradition among VA families that the first Shelburne, Thomas, came to Jamestown in 1607 and settled there." 

So we have a tradition I can trace to my great, great grandmother that her ancestor came over to Jamestown in 1607, and I have been able to connect it to the family traditions of others who claim the same thing about the same person.

So, did Thomas Shelburne come over with Captain John Smith in 1607? It would be nice to think so. It is at least possible. The problem is that his name does not appear on any manifest in those early years. The lists were not exhaustive, especially if Thomas were a young cabin boy who was there only to play a subservient role.

Still, we know of other boys. There was a boy named Milman who was the cabin boy of Captain Newport. And another boy named Helyard was cabin boy to Captain Waldo. Both boys would be dead within a year.

2. According to some memory, Thomas was Welsh. There was a Welshman named Captain Peter Wynne on board. No doubt we could write a novel where a naive young Thomas Shelburne somehow ended up at the last minute serving as Wynne's cabin boy at the age of twelve.

But there is no record of it. There is no record of Thomas in those dark years of Jamestown where so many died. We have many names from those early years, but Thomas' is not one of them.

So while I would like to think that he came over in 1607--maybe he slipped through the cracks--I have to consider another option as perhaps more likely. It seems more likely that he was born in Great Britain during the reign of King James (1603-25). He then emigrated at some point in the 1630s and married Elizabeth Augustine around 1640 in Jamestown.

3. My DNA supports an ancestry that is some 64% British. How a young Welshman found his way to Jamestown is lost to history. We do know that southern Wales faced significant flooding in 1607. If Thomas really was born in 1595 and came to America at the age of twelve, perhaps here was a possible cause.

The London of 1607 was the London of King James I. It was the London of Shakespeare. The King James Version was underway and would be published in 1611. London Bridge at the time not only had houses on it, but the heads of former enemies of kings on pikes. These were individuals like William Wallace of Scotland fame, as well as Thomas More and Thomas Cromwell, both of whom were put to death by Henry VIII.

4. In December of 1606, three ships set sail from Blackwall, at that time just outside of London to the east, on the north side of the River Thames. These were the Susan Constant, the Godspeed, and the Discovery. Christopher Newport captained the largest of the ships, the Susan Constant. Captain John Smith was also on board. John Ratcliffe captained the Discovery.

Captain John Smith was one of those personalities who did not do well as a subordinate. Maybe he was smarter than everyone else or maybe he wasn't. But he found himself repeatedly in trouble with his superiors. He was jailed on the voyage over for mutiny and scheduled to be hanged upon arrival. But when they arrived, instructions from Virginia Company were opened, and Smith was to be on the governing council.

Throughout his time he would repeatedly clash with the leadership of the colony. He probably also was a key player in keeping the colony alive, as opposed to the earlier attempt at Roanoke Island in 1587. When Governor John White returned to Roanoke Island in 1590, the colony was gone, leaving only the word "Croatoan." Many think the colony moved and, perhaps, blended into some of the surrounding native American groups.

On those first three ships to Jamestown, there were some 105 passengers and 39 crew, all men. Only 38 men were still alive when Captain Newport returned again from England with the "First Supply" in 1608.

5. The three ships made their "first landing" in what they called "Cape Henry" after the son of King James, April 26, 1607. Chaplain Robert Hunt offered a prayer and they set up a cross. He would be dead the next year. His remains have been found on the site of the first church in Jamestown, the first one to be buried in the new church--no coffin, only in a shroud.

On May 4, 1607. they settled on the spot up the "James River" that would become "Jamestown," both named after King James. They had the original triangular fort up and built by June 15.

The first women at Jamestown came on a Second Supply trip. The wife of Thomas Forrest and her maid, Anne Burras, made their way on that third installment. Anne would be the first of the English to marry in the New World--to John Laydon. And she would be the first to give birth in Jamestown, although the first English baby born was Virginia Dare in the Roanoke Colony. Born in 1587, her eventual fate is unknown.

6. Those first few years of the Jamestown settlement were brutal. Because of the poor conditions, someone died almost every day. The swampy water around the peninsula where they built their fort was arguably part of the problem. It was unsuitable for drinking. The immediately surrounding land was unsuitable for farming. Almost two thirds of the first group to arrive would be dead less than five months after their first landing.

They arrived in one of the worst droughts the region had seen in seven hundred years. They had run out of supplies and it was too late for planting. In part that was why the Native Americans had not used it. Facing drought themselves, the surrounding peoples had less to give than they might have in another decade.

Within days of settling on the peninsula, they would be attacked for a couple months by some of the surrounding tribes, although they were initially greeted by the Powhatan Nation. The interaction of the settlement with the Native Americans must have been puzzling. At times some were friendly enough and traded for food. At other times some attacked.

Most of those who came were not prone to work. They were gentlemen who had little practical knowledge and expected others to work for them. Captain John Smith insisted they work. He was a hard man for hard times. His motto was based on 2 Thessalonians 3:10: "He who does not work, shall not eat."

Many of us have heard the story of Pocahontas. While exploring the area, John Smith was abducted, while most of them with him were killed. According to the legend, as he was about to be killed, Pocahontas rushed over and put his head in her hands, putting her cheek against his, pleading for mercy from her father, Powhatan...

Notes Along the Way 2.4 -- A Semester in Germany

continued from previous post
_____________________
17. Professor Dunn arranged for me to spend two months of the spring in Tübingen, 1995. What a great privilege that was. He arranged for me to meet with Hermann Lichtenberger while I was there. Later in 2004 I would do a Fulbright sabbatical with Professor Lichtenberger as well. 

In the winter of 1994, my parents came to visit. It was my mother's first time in Europe and my father's first time back since WW2. We would visit most of the places where he had been stationed during the war. 

In England, that was Cheltenham. I can still hear my dad trying to say it with a British accent (and failing). He was in the Ordnance Corps and so helped administrate the supply lines (he ended the war as a Sergeant Major). Thankfully, that meant he was always a step or two behind where the front was.

My dad rented a car, as I recall. We have a picture of my mother in Paris realizing that she had put her jacket on top of her seat belt and then was a bit puzzled at first why she couldn't get up.

That means we must have taken a ferry across with the car. Cliffs of Dover across the channel to Calais. It was a trip I'd take a few times. When I actually went to Germany in January, though, I took the Chunnel, which had only recently opened, as I recall.

18. From Paris we took a train to Mannheim. Unfortunately, we didn't get to stop at Nancy, France, where my dad was stationed when the war ended. Again, his French (like his Spanish frankly) was atrocious. But I recognize that it's harder for me to learn languages now in my late 50s than when I was younger. 

He remembered saying things like, "We need boo-coo tires" (beaucoup). And I think "sin-nee-finee-en" was an attempt to say "Ça ne fait rien." Something like "doesn't matter."

The train from Paris went to Mannheim, where we took a taxi (I think) to visit the plant where he had been stationed just after the war. Not much to see there. 

I was especially struck by the fact that many buildings had one style for the first floor and another style for upper stories. Sometimes there was even one year engraved on the first floor and another year engraved for the upper floors. Quite striking to realize that the upper floors had been bombed to smithereens during the war.

From there we took the train to Stuttgart, then to Tübingen for my first time. I would stay there for two months in the spring of 1995.

We met Frau Ilse Michel, the wife of the Hebrews scholar Otto Michel. I was to stay in her Keller for a small amount. My only house responsibility would be to perform the obligatory Kehrwoche -- the sweeping of the front sidewalk on Saturdays.

19. From there we took a train to Munich, where we spent the night. The next morning we would visit Dachau. What thrilling experiences these were for my parents, and they were experiences my mother had never dreamed of having. I don't think my father had ever been to the east side of Germany either.

He wanted to see Bern, Switzerland. He had spent a memorable weekend there while stationed at Mannheim. So we took a train from Munich to Zurich. Unfortunately, there was a 25 mile stretch that ran through Austria. No stops, mind you, but it crossed the border. Suddenly, we found ourselves having to pay for the train fare through Austria. So much for all my planning.

From Bern up to Basel, back to Paris, back to England, and the trip was done.

20. It was an incredible time in Tübingen for two months. Frau Michel was delightful. I only wish my German had been better.

I had first started learning German with a record I checked out of the Broward County library in Fort Lauderdale while I was in seminary. I took Dr. O'Malley's German for Reading Knowledge. Then I tried to go back through Jannach in preparation for Tübingen.

But alas, speaking a language and reading it are quite different. Given my speaking ability when I went, I must have seemed to know no German at all. Everywhere I went I had my little pocket dictionaries, depending on the country.

Coming to Germany, I first went to Paris, where I spent a day doing my usual blitz of a new city (although I had briefly come through with my parents). Notre Dame. Arc de Triomphe. The Tour Eiffel. I stayed at a hotel in the shadow of Sacre Coeur (Regyn). It would become my usual.

My French was not super and of course eventually would be worse than my German. I remember once trying to book a reservation over the phone with the Hotel Regyn and every time I tried to speak French it came out German. He was much happier to speak with me in English.

21. Christoph Lorenz was great to reconnect with, and I met two of his friends, Reinhold Schmoltz and Gottfried Eberhardt. The rules were that they couldn't speak to me in English until my German completely failed. At the beginning, that was almost instantaneous. When I left, I felt like they knew more about my time in Tübingen than I did.

By the end of my stay, my German had improved significantly, although I was still nowhere near fluent. Lichtenberger inevitably had to speak to me in English during my meetings with him. I drafted a chapter of my dissertation while there on the dualism of Hebrews. I would say most of the scholars who have engaged with that chapter have disagreed with it, and I have even changed my mind on some of it. Let's say my understanding of ancient metaphysics was rather simplistic and stereotypical at the time.

However, despite its lack of popularity, I continue to believe that the New Testament has more metaphysical dualism that some might like to think (Joel Green, Tom Wright). A few years later, Dale Martin's book on The Corinthian Body was very helpful, I thought.

The Theologicum at Tübingen was superb, probably the most useful library I've ever used. Certainly the libraries at Notre Dame and Durham were quite well stocked, but the books I wanted were often checked out by other doctoral students. Perhaps the fact that I was especially keen on English books in Germany helped.

22. I think I've mentioned my conversation with Frau Michel about her sons. All three died during World War II. One was standing next to a propeller. I got the impression that Otto was a bit of a hard task master who was "always right." I wasn't sure if that was sarcasm or sincere.

The radio station I was able to get seemed like all US 50s music. I didn't know a lot of it. Am besten am Neckar. Neckar Radio.

I did a few trips with I think a 5 day train pass. There were of course the two days coming and going. I think I went to Munich and Vienna and back. Walked around the grounds of the former palace. I have never been impressed with the Baroque. Waved at Salzburg. 

I got up one morning and took the earliest 4:30 train to Berlin, then walked from the Fernsehturm all the way back to the Gedächtniskirche in time to catch the last train back. One day pass. 

That was only about 5 years after the Berlin Wall fell, so I was able to grab a piece of it. You could still see how much worse Eastern Berlin looked from West (go capitalism). The Reichstag in a unkempt field. Brandenburger Tor. Victory monument. Englischer Garten. It was quite a walk. It would be much different in 2004 when I visited again with my new family.

23. There was a small church fellowship that met in the building of the organization that had once been run by Loren Stuckenbruck's father. That is the fellowship where I worshipped during my time in Tubingen. We would visit the group again during my Fulbright in 2004. Although, on that stay, we primarily worshipped at the methodistische Gemeinde.

24. Reinhardt and my other German friends were quite hospitable. I ate with them regularly at one of the university cafeterias. We took a drive into the Schwarzwald (Black Forest) and down to the Bodensee. There were plenty of trips to have Currywurst and Bratwurst and Rotwurst. And the Döner Kebaps were superb. Many Döner Kebaps.

I left by way of Hamburg and a ferry to England along the North Sea. I tried to watch a Julia Roberts movie in French. I still don't know what it was about. The ship landed at Harwich, I think.

Frau Michel gave me a copy of Otto Michel's German commentary on Hebrews as a parting gift, for which I was very grateful.

Sermon Starters: Best and Worst of Times

Location: Silver Lake Wesleyan Camp

Text: Revelation 11:1-13 
Introduction

• The end times teaching of my childhood and 1990s: A Thief in the Night, Left Behind. These do not reflect what most Bible scholars actually think the Bible teaches exactly.
• I approach Revelation 11 with fear and trembling. But if I have it wrong, the message can be supported from elsewhere in Scripture. We preach from the whole Bible despite uncertainty of interpretation.

I. We are the temple.

• Is it the temple of John's day? Is it some end times rebuilt temple? Or does it symbolize something else?
• Most date Revelation to a time after John's temple. The idea of a future rebuilt temple is biblically dubious and theologically problematic (cf. Hebrews and Revelation 21:22).
• Clue in Revelation 12:6 -- The woman is the true Israel, the church. She has fled to the wilderness (cf. Mark 13:14) after her son (Jesus) was snatched away to God's throne. The 3.5 years in Revelation thus refers to the "church age."
• The temple is measured, protected. But the court outside is trampled by the Gentiles for 42 months, the church age.
• What does this mean? It means that we are the temple. Cf. 1 Cor. 3:16.
• A key to Revelation is that this current age is both the tribulation and the millennium, both at the same time, the best of times and the worst of times.
• We are marked, measured by God. But our courts are trampled by the world.
• When times are good, it's easy to forget that we are not of the world, that we are citizens of a heavenly country (Phil. 3:20). 
• Remember who you are. Illustration of time I was around people whose values overlapped significantly with me but still were of a different belief. I constantly reminded myself. "I don't really belong."
• That's how we ultimately are in the world. The world will trample, but we are marked by God.

II. We are the witnesses.

• Who are the witnesses? Two people from John's day? Two people from the end times? Or do they symbolize something else?
• 11:6 seems a fairly clear allusion to Elijah and Moses. Meanwhile, the mention of the two olive trees makes us think of Joshua and Zerubbabel (Zech. 4). Once again, we have tribulation and millennium.
• Moses and Elijah are the Law and Prophets, witnesses to the world. Joshua and Zerubbabel represent the rebuilt "temple" and the new covenant. For "3.5 days" they witness.
• Once again, this is the church in this current age. In other words, they are us.
• We are the witnesses. 1 Peter 3:15. Although this is often cited as a basis for argumentative apologetics, the context of 1 Peter is much more one of "exile" and persecution. We give witness when we are on trial (tribulation).
• The two witnesses face a double whammy. The beast (Rome) kills them in "the great city" (Jerusalem). Jerusalem is "Sodom and Gomorrah." What a twisted situation. Jerusalem should have been faithful but wasn't. Rome trampled on them.
• Reminds me of Jurassic World. They're being chased by one dinosaur. Then comes a T-Rex.
• It seems inevitable that the institutional church will fail us like Jerusalem failed God.

III. We are the vindicated

• The passage ends with the resurrection of the two witnesses after 3.5 days, after the tribulation, after the church age. So we will be vindicated. So there will be judgment.
• Vindication comes through the cross, not around it.
• Reminds me of Methods of Bible Study students who went through the whole course learning a painstaking method and then wrote a final paper that they could have written before the course. They went through the motions but more or less skipped the middle bit.
• Revenge is not the goal, although there are consequences in judgment on the world and "Jerusalem."
• It is a corporate vindication. There will be justice in the end. "Rome" will be judged.

Conclusion

• We are a "peculiar people" (T-shirts from my childhood youth group, 1 Pet. 2:9, KJV).
• Revelation 11 is about now. We are in a time when Christ has begun to reign. Yet we are in a time when we may face tribulation.
• Remember who you are.  We are a faithful witness. In this life we may be trampled on, but God wins in the end.