Keith Drury and IWU's Department of Religion (3)

Celebrating Keith Drury (1)
Keith Drury the Churchman (2)

In 1997 I interviewed for a teaching job at Indiana Wesleyan. I think Keith had only been in the Department of Religion for a year when I interviewed. 

He always warned new faculty coming from the church how much more material is involved in teaching a college class than in giving seminars in the church. I seem to remember him warning Charlie Alcock when he came on how much more material it took to fill out a three-hour class than the kind of stuff he had presented going around to churches. I forget the exact amount, but it was something like he had used up all his existing material for a class in the first month.

2. I interviewed for a New Testament teaching position. Bud Bence (then chair) expressed well the philosophy of the Department of Religion (DoR) at that time. They aimed to hire "thoroughbreds" who could teach more than one subject. Also, there was a clear emphasis on the church -- experience pastoring was considered a premium to teach in a department whose main purpose was to train ministers for the Wesleyan Church.

I don't remember many of the questions there at the Hostess House. There was concern I would be too academically oriented rather than church oriented. There was concern I would cause some blow-up by being too liberal (Bud had been burned as VPAA at Houghton over a professor -- a tussle that involved general officials, the general board, and believe it or not Harold Lindsell). 

I was single at the time, and Keith delicately asked (in so many words) whether I was gay. I don't think I found any of these questions too surprising. I think I even chuckled at that last question.

One of Keith's last questions had to do with the fact that the DoR was a bunch of white guys. He asked that, given the current makeup of the department, if there were an equally qualified female professor being interviewed alongside me, who would I hire. And there was! They did hire her, but I was delighted to be hired anyway to teach philosophy for a year. That way, Bud could find out whether I was going to blow up the place or not. :-)

3. I think a lot of people would consider the next decade or so to be the golden age of the DoR at IWU. I think that had everything to do with Keith Drury. He set the tone. Yes, there were some very dynamic professors involved. In those days, I compared a good professor lineup to a zoo with lots of fascinating animals for the students to see. Keith shaped the direction, and he helped establish the boundaries.

I've often reflected on why those were such incredible years. I wish Keith had written a Tuesday Column on the recipe (maybe he has somewhere). IWU was at its peak under Barnes, so there was that. It was growing like crazy. It had money like crazy. It was building like crazy. There was something palpable when you stepped on campus. It was a taste of excitement. There was an energy. Many experienced it as a sense of God's presence on the campus.

Here's an attempt to express some of the values the DoR had in those days. We tacitly agreed on them, but Keith stood at the heart of them, I would say. And, to some extent, he policed them. He could whack someone verbally if they began to step in the wrong direction, so to speak. He had a way of establishing one of those invisible fences that gives the dog a little zap if it tries to cross the boundary.

• It's all about the students. Your job as a professor is not about you. The university does not exist for you. It is not here to facilitate your career as an academic or to help you get to your next job or to help you publish your research. IWU is a teaching institution, not a research institution. Research is nice. Some do it in the summer. But you had better work to be a good teacher for the students during the year.
• IWU belongs to the Wesleyan Church. Neither the faculty nor the Board of Trustees nor the administration decide what IWU believes. The Wesleyan Church does. Want to debate women in ministry? Go somewhere else. Want to debate issues of sexuality? Go somewhere else. The Discipline and the general conference of the Wesleyan Church holds the title deed to your property, and that's that. The General Board of TWC could fire the entire Board of Trustees of IWU if it saw fit.
• You're training them for ministry. Prioritize your teaching based on what will be most useful for a pastor. Keith always said that a New Testament Survey class should aim to equip a nursing major to lead a Bible study. That was the persona he gave me. Do you need to teach them about Q? No. Do they need to know the life and teachings of Jesus? Yes.
• You're here to serve the church. Every once in a while, an issue would rise in the church over something. Maybe someone claimed to find the bones of Jesus. Keith might give a nudge. "You're up, Ken. This is what we keep you around for."
• The church gets to decide what's good for the church. No doubt the church can be wrong, but it doesn't matter. They'll only listen to you if you're on their frequency. Otherwise, you're just some lunatic talking to yourself at an institution bleeding students. We always shook our heads at the fools who thought they could logically convince the church (or the board) that it was wrong with a very nicely written position paper.
• It isn't just about truth. Truth isn't what wins all the time. In fact, it loses regularly. Power is what wins, and the power often comes from constituencies and from boards of trustees. Respect the snake or it just might bite you.
• Get out there. Don't stay in your cave talking to yourselves. Be out there preaching and teaching on weekends in churches. If they don't want you, that's a warning sign for you.
• We enjoy having lunch with each other. I realize there can be legitimate pushback on this point, but I think it is still more correct than not. The department should enjoy hanging out together. The synergy of good relationships in the department is contagious for the students. We had Friday lunches together. One of the unspoken hiring questions was whether we would enjoy going to lunch with this person, the "lunch" test.
• The cocurricular is important too. To be honest, in the 2000s, Keith probably was more interested in getting the students to study rather than do youth camp on campus. He famously thought that the number one problem with students was a lack of sleep. Todd Voss was part of IWU's success at that time by running a super co-curricular program. But I think Keith would agree with me that the co-curricular is an essential component to a thriving college.

Those are just a few of the values that I think made the DoR such a great success in the 2000s, and Keith was the primary force steering them, in my opinion.

4. I think Keith regularly gave President Barnes advice as well. Keith once told me that he didn't think he would be up to the challenge of being a college president. Of course, that was hogwash. He would have made a spectacular college president. But he took his hat off to Barnes' abilities at the job.

One of the reasons I gelled so well with Keith was his sense that form should follow function. Form for its own sake is great in art. But in ministry and business it's self-defeating.

Apparently, President Barnes had this committee known as the PACE committee. On it were all the innovators in the university. It completely ignored the official structure of jobs at the university. You might have a subordinate on the committee and their boss not there. You might have an insightful faculty member but not their department head or dean. 

But it consisted of the most entrepreneurial elements of the university, a kind of steering committee. And Keith was probably the most insightful voice there.

The Higher Learning Commission and countless others always mocked IWU's structure, which had the online and adult people doing one thing and the residential campus doing another. But this was growing things where they would grow. I have long said that if Barnes had put the online and adult programs under the control of the residential faculty, they would have killed them within a couple years.

This was also the genius and spirit of Keith. And frankly, this is the way God designed the universe. Things grow where they grow, and they don't grow where they don't grow. Many humans say, "No, no, no, you have to grow here." But the plant doesn't care. The plant says, "I think I'll die if you plant me where you want to." People who design structures so that the org chart looks pretty and symmetrical -- rather than it being functional given the people you have -- these are not Keith-level thinkers.

5. Keith had retired by the time the most recent talk about tenure at IWU took place in the late 2010s. Barnes had done away with it before I arrived on the scene. I'm pretty sure my thoughts were the same thoughts Keith would have had (I probably emailed him about it). "This is a non-starter. All this fuss is a waste of time. The board will never approve it." My next Keith thought was, "David Wright has to know this. I wonder if he's letting them have this conversation to feel good about themselves and, after all, it keeps them out of trouble." But, perhaps with a wry grin, "It's never going to happen." :-)

6. One danger of such organizational and human savviness is the development of a kind of culture of cleverness. I don't think Keith had this. But perhaps I and one or two others got a little too cocky on the street smarts we absorbed from Keith. It's not the right attitude, but I'll confess I did develop some of this.

Steve Horst, Russ Gunsalus, and I used to have our philosophy classes watch a clip on Socrates from an old movie called Barefoot in Athens. There's a line about Socrates in the movie from one of his accusers that always makes me laugh. "Socrates taught a devilish ingenuity in logic which worked on men like a magic... the worst men of three generations." I always laugh when I think of that line and think of Keith. Of course not that he trained the worst of us or taught leaders to be manipulative. No, but he did teach leaders how to strategize, a power that can be used for good or ill. He understood how people and the world actually works, regardless of what we might say or think about ourselves... regardless of how we think it should work or want it to work.

I'm sure he wasn't always right, but he was always strategic. You get the best you can get with the choices you have with a view to the long-term plan. Plan for sure, but your plans will inevitably have to be changed along the way. Don't plan too long, or you'll miss your window. He used to say that most mission statements were outdated by the time they were finished. They tended more to be a reflection of where you'd been than where you would go, which God and circumstances would ultimately decide.

Keith's genius with people sometimes reminded me of the scene in The Matrix when the prophet tells Neo not to worry about the vase. He turns around and knocks the vase over, breaking it. But he wouldn't have broken it if she hadn't have said anything. Sometimes Keith said or did what he felt like needed to be said or done to get you where you needed to be or to go. Some might call this dishonest, but I bet God does this. God knows what we need to hear to get us where we need to go.

Tim Kirkpatrick was telling about how Keith told him he wasn't an A student and so he should just try to be better than a C student. In retrospect, Tim thinks Keith was just saying what he needed to hear to inspire him to become an A student. Some might call it dishonest. I think God probably does this with us because it is the direction we are moving in that is important.  

Words are "vectors." They have a direction. Two people can say the same thing and one be loving and the other be hateful. Most of us point our words in certain directions without thinking about it. We sting or we build up instinctively. 

People like Keith are on a whole different level. They are aware and usually intentional about trying to move you with their words. For Keith, his words were always trying to move you towards God and virtue. For others, such pointing can be very selfish and dangerous. Some of the scariest people are those who wield the weapon of rhetoric with great prowess and are thinking three chess moves ahead of you. 

7. I would say I paid little attention to a lot of these things in my first years at IWU. I had fun and, in a happy go lucky way, didn't take things as seriously as I should. When I went for full professor, I turned in a plain manila folder with a rubber band around it. 

For some context, it's hard for professors these days to realize how little assessment, how little paperwork, how little structure there was to things 20 years ago that today are amazingly specified. When others took over for me at the seminary, they wondered where all the additional paperwork was. It just hadn't been required even as recently as 2008.

I probably published more at IWU in those days than anyone else on campus, and I did it with publishers like Cambridge and in the flagship journals of my discipline. Only Michael Boivin and I were doing things like Fulbrights in other countries. I knew I easily met the criteria for rank promotion.

Keith very patiently came to me from the committee. "Ken, we know you've published a lot. But being a full professor is a big deal. You could at least present your materials in a more professional way." So I bought some more folders and some tabs and prettied it up. Even five years later they would have made me wait a year. I know he was being incredibly kind to me.

I'm sure I frustrated him on occasion. There were days I felt like he may actually have kept his door closed so he wouldn't chew me out on some stupid thing I had done. I often appeared in his doorway as did countless students. He was very, very patient with me.

8. I saw an opportunity to write a New Testament Survey for the adult and online program, and I seized it. I wrote it, like Keith, for ordinary people. From what I heard, the students loved it. Eventually, there would be those who thought it wasn't academic enough. This is the disconnect I write often about.

Keith generously read every word of the manuscript. I didn't deserve that. My wife Angie doesn't even do that. He was forthright and helpful. "Drip, drip, drip" -- you've said this ten times Ken. Is it really that important? He steered me away from the kinds of things that could cause me problems, although I was already sensitive about those things.  

8. Everyone in the DoR no doubt has their own stories of Keith. I remember a story about him and Steve Lennox traveling together and Lennox being very frugal in his approach to things. Apparently, Keith might intentionally drop some of his change at a gas station knowing that Steve would pick it up.

Keith led students to Turkey a couple of times, as I recall. He let the students plan it all. He wouldn't help them. They had to figure things out. I think they even left one person behind at Istanbul because he didn't get to the meeting point when he was supposed to. I would go to Turkey with Keith in 2013 with Ross Hoffman and David Ward. Those were great memories too.

We had a general plan, but Keith didn't like to plan out those sorts of trips, much to Ross Hoffman's discomfort. It was his style not to have reservations at a hotel. You just found one when it was time to find one. 

The thing is, Keith was smart enough to do that. He knew he could figure it out on the spot. I remember in the middle of Turkey he just got in the car with someone who was going to show us a hotel to stay at. We followed them. I thought, what in the world is he doing, getting into a stranger's car in the middle of Turkey.

Enough for now. Maybe one more post on the founding of Wesley Seminary.

Celebrating Keith Drury 2

Reflections #1

I've read some of the memories of Keith by people like Dan LeRoy. I hope they'll continue to share. They knew Keith in phase 1 of his ministry, much of which was at Wesleyan HQ. He pastored and served in the general department of youth up until he was almost a general superintendent. More than anyone else, he created a youth program that would raise up a generation of ministers and leaders in the church. 

I only met Keith in 1997 when, in a sense, he was in his "retirement." He once said that he had his turn first with his career and then Sharon took her turn. He taught at IWU while she got her doctorate and had her own career as a leadership professor and administrative leader in IWU's College of Adult and Professional Studies.

1. Ironically, I shared a post on Facebook about him about a week ago without naming him. In college at Allentown (later United Wesleyan), he apparently did not always give his courses his all. My hunch is that he found many of the classes impractical and probably less than well-taught. I could be wrong.

Tangent: It was always funny that he and I both had Herbert Dongell as a teacher. I had Dongell for Greek at SWU. Dongell was an old-school teacher. There was lots of memorization, and falling asleep was not tolerated. I liked Dongell and learned Greek fine with his style, but he was definitely old school. (I think he overlooked my sleepiness a time or two.)

So when Keith applied for seminary, Asbury apparently didn't admit him because of his grades. His roommate got in. As the story goes, the next year, someone at Asbury asked whatever happened to him. His roommate indicated that he had gotten into Princeton, where he did well.

There's something important about this story to me. To me, it smacks of a certain arrogance that is often present in the academy at the same time that its own values can be misguided. Don't get me wrong. I am an academic at heart. But some get preoccupied with form when they are in fact blind to substance at the same time.  

I have a guess as to who it was at Asbury that snubbed Keith. I liked that prof too. But he made some snide remark about Keith to me once that suggested they had tussled with each other at some point. God can use us all. We are all made differently, and God can use us all.

I remember Keith saying (and remember that my memories are often a little off) that he was not told he was smart until he went to Princeton. I don't know what his IQ was -- it was certainly very high -- but he apparently wasn't informed of this until he was there. Eric Romer put a Strategetics audio clip of Keith on FB about the potential of an acorn. Keith was that acorn.

2. Keith to me is the embodiment of the best of the Pilgrim Holiness Church. Over the years, I've watched him joke with Bob Black or Bud Bence about whether the Pilgrims or the Wesleyan Methodists were better. (And he had his share of similar playful dialogs with Nazarenes like James Petticrew.)

My takeaway from those sparrings is that the Pilgrims were entrepreneurial. The Wesleyans were organized and a bit bureaucratic. In other words, the Wesleyan Methodists were Methodists, and the Pilgrims were revivalists. The Wesleyan Methodists were slow and steady; the Pilgrims were charismatic without the tongues.  

My sense is that David Keith was Keith's mentor at HQ. And I think David Keith gave Keith a lot of leeway to run with things. The PACE conventions, Ezekiel's Wheels, Isaiah 6, TAWG (Time Alone with God) -- Keith was the mastermind behind all of them. 

Many will remember Keith's Tuesday columns, which were one of the most effective discipleship tools when the internet first came out. When I first came to IWU, it was Keith that got me learning a little HTML and setting up my own (must less known) webpages. This very blog probably wouldn't have existed without Keith's influence. 

Just about a week ago I had a brief email conversation with Keith about Lulu.com, which is where he and I first self-published books. This was before CreateSpace or Amazon's Kindle Direct. Keith was always there first, and I just followed his innovation around.

By the way, I was always in awe of Keith's email correspondence. He must have spent hours every day just mentoring and giving advice to people via email. This didn't end when he retired.

Tangent: He was so creative as a teacher. I once told him he was the only Christian education teacher I had ever known who could actually teach. I mentioned in the last post about the allowance in his syllabi that you could get out of an absence by getting someone else to go in your place. He had students self-publishing their curricula as final projects when that option became available.

Tangent 2: He always published books that were useful. I remember that some "real" worship voices questioned using his Wonder of Worship book as a textbook. I mumbled to myself, "You idiot. This book is far more useful to pastors than whatever book you want to use."

Holiness for Ordinary People is simple and straightforward, yet it did more to keep the doctrine of holiness going than any other book I know in the last century. Scholars like me write for a particular audience -- and it isn't the majority audience. Our books usually have a negligible impact on anything.

His presentation, "The Holiness Movement is Dead" sent a shockwave through the holiness movement. It was a major wake-up call that got things stirring again at least for a little while.

The Call of a Lifetime tried to buck the trend of everyone saying that everyone's a minister. Even Keith couldn't win that battle, although he held the day at IWU for a while.

The Story of the Wesleyan Church. This book that Keith and Bob Black wrote is something people will actually read. The previous work was boring as heck, a kind of torture to have to read. Keith and Bob's book is interesting and so much more likely to give a sense of identity to a denomination.

His writing practice was so disciplined and methodical. He would crank a draft of a chapter out, misspellings galore (if you know his emails, he couldn't care less about spelling and such in such contexts -- he typed using the hunt-and-peck method). 

Then he had several edit phases. There was the "clean up" read through, for example. I don't remember all of them but one that stood out to me was the "quotable" read through. I think he wanted something like one quote on every page or so. You might call it the "tweetable" edit.

Five more stories and I'll start my day.

3. Keith was extremely well-organized. And for years he taught the part of leadership that was on parliamentary law. He emphasized that this seemingly boring part of leadership could be extremely important in key moments.

One example was the vote in 1976 in Wichita, Kansas (I didn't double check). My family wasn't sure whether it was a good idea to merge with the Free Methodists because we thought they were too liberal. But my dad was a delegate and it came to a vote... or so we thought.

O.D. Emory (who ordained me) used a parliamentary trick to prevent the merger. When the recommendation to merge was made from the task force, he made the motion that the body receive the recommendation. Keith told me he turned to the person next to him and said, "Did he say, 'receive.'" The appropriate word would have been to "adopt" the motion. Receiving a motion just means you are more or less thanking the committee for their work.

Emory said something like, "All in favor of receiving this recommendation stand and give a hearty applause for the hard work of this committee." Everyone stood and clapped. I thought we had merged.

But of course, nothing happened. Clever Pilgrim.

4. A second story I heard is one summer the generals sent Keith to be the HQ representative for District Conference in West Virginia. Apparently, he was the only general official at that time who had a wedding ring. I got a little sense that they wanted to nudge the conference a little.

Keith said that as he moved his hand preaching, it was like a group of people watching a tennis match. They weren't paying any attention to his sermon, just his ring. He said it was such an obvious distraction that he actually stopped and said, "Is this a problem?" and he took the ring off. He said there was an audible sigh of relief when he did so. And from that point on in the sermon, they were completely receptive to his message.

I think this is a very meaningful story. Some people rebelled against the conservatism of their youth. Perhaps even some of the generals at that time delighted in the thought of making that district squirm. God knows. But Keith was about the message, about the mission, and about the substance. "If eating meat or wearing a wedding ring causes an obstacle, then I will not eat meat or wear a wedding ring ever again."

5. I remember him being very disappointed with a general official who wouldn't even talk to the New York Pilgrims after they reached out to the Wesleyans to try to make peace. The New York Pilgrims didn't go with the merger but reached out to apologize several decades later. The general they reached out to refused to have anything to do with them.

I remember someone else of some importance who got ordained so that he could get a break on his taxes. It effectively ended their friendship. 

For all his pragmatism, Keith had strong moral principles that I believe reflected the core values of Jesus and Scripture. The church at large often can't tell the difference between biblical values and the Christian culture they're swimming in. We can see in hindsight, but it is very difficult at the time.

Keith could tell the difference. Yet he could play Nathan the prophet so well. He could present things in a way that got through David's self-defenses. 

6. Keith was a phenomenal speaker. When we had the inaugural consecration service for the seminary, he preached it. His title -- very typical -- was "From Great to Good," riffing off Jim Collins' book title.

A story was once told about two preachers at a camp meeting who preached the same day. One was a well-known large church pastor in North Carolina. The other was an extremely famous book writer and public figure. The second arrived just in time for the afternoon service and so didn't know what the first had preached in the morning service. 

And, as it turns out, he preached pretty much the same sermon.

A mischievous former IWU student went up to them both after the service and asked, "So, whose was it?" The first got red in the face. The second didn't know what he was talking about it. After a quick explanation to the second preacher, "So, whose was it?" 

Then they both sheepishly admitted: "Keith Drury's."

7. A final story for today. In the 90s, the internet came out. Keith Drury recommended that they take all their Sunday School curriculum and put it out for free on the web. Can you imagine the impact Wesleyan thinking would have had on the world, being some of the first of such material available for free out there?

"But then we won't make money on it." He lost. I used to say he had Cassandra syndrome. Because she would not return the love of the god Apollo, he cursed her to always prophesy correctly but for no one to ever believe her.

The Passing of Keith Drury

We received word yesterday that Keith Drury had passed on Sunday. Apparently, he began feeling and perhaps acting a little strangely at church Sunday morning. It appears he had a stroke that led to a brain bleed. 

It would be hard to quantify the impact of this man. In some ways, he was like a second father to me. But to say that is not to say anything different from what countless others might say of him. He invested in so many people over the years. The memories that are flooding on Facebook have a predictable cadence. There are countless pictures of him hiking with students and countless comments about how he said just the right thing at the right time for someone.  

He was eminently quotable. As I started to write this post, I thought, "There are people who can write faster than me, and there are people who can write better than me, but there aren't many who write as well as me and as fast as me." Or something like that. I often mess up the details.

One Facebook story yesterday that stood out to me was a pastor's kid who came to IWU as a psychology major. But he was wondering if God was calling him to ministry. One of Keith's syllabus antics was that you could have someone attend class for you. This PK subbed in for his roommate, I think. The class tugged him more in the ministry direction.

So Keith had a quote -- "Often a pastor's kid needs to take a vacation from ministry when they come to college, but eventually they find their way back." Or something like that.

2. If I were to sum up Keith in one word, it would be phronesis. This is the Greek word for practical wisdom. I have never known anyone who had more wisdom than Keith Drury. If he had lived in ancient Israel, God might have used him to write a book of Proverbs. 

I wasn't of the age to know his course in Strategetics, but I am so happy that he invested in Eric Romer to preserve it. I felt like he planted his legacy in countless people. I doubt that anything of his wisdom is lost. It's all out there somewhere. I wouldn't be surprised if in forty years the Wesleyan Archives release a time capsule of memoirs that he has planted there on a fifty-year release schedule.

I know that some people think I have some book smarts, but I think of how stupid I must have presented myself at anything practical over the years. As no doubt with all of us, he patiently listened (most of the time) and then Socratically led us to the right path. How many good decisions or ideas I had over the years actually came from his subtle redirection? I bet this is true of countless ones of us.

3. I am prone to share too much, so I ask forgiveness if I do. I like to preserve the memories I can, and I have a forum here to preserve them that others may not have. Others will be able to perfect and fill in details. Keith came from Pennsylvania, as I recall. The Pilgrim Church in Pennsylvania was very conservative. The Alleghany district, for example, didn't go with the merger of the Wesleyan Church because they thought it was a move toward liberalism (maybe even a one world religion -- some of the ideas back then were crazy, as are some of ours today... we just can't see it yet).

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Interlude

So let me give a Drury interruption again (there may be many). He used to talk about how worship comes in cycles. The children go back to choruses and think they're doing something new when their grandparents were singing choruses in the 40s. The parents thought their parents were unsophisticated and so sang hymns. Then their children think they know more and shift to choruses again. The children always think they know more and that they are coming up with something new, but often history is just bouncing back and forth. The children swing one way; their children swing back to what their parents did.

He didn't believe we were getting better and better. It was more like we were bouncing back and forth. The children make fun of their parents for being legalistic and narrow-minded on x. Then their children grow up and do the same thing on different issues. In this most recent flare-up over race, one of Keith Drury's students (Andy Merritt, as I recall) came up with a very Drurian quote: "If you want to know what you would have done during the Civil Rights movement, you're doing it now."

With regard to the holiness movement, he used to say that the impact of ultraconservatism of that sort usually left evidence on a person even after they have long abandoned its specifics. With Jim Barnes, he thought it was in a certain way of dressing and presenting himself. With Larry Mitchell, he thought it was a kind of "anti-rule" approach to life. He wasn't sure how it had impacted me but my parents weren't narrowminded in their approach to life even though they lived what to most would be a strict life. If anything its impact on me has been more a deep sense of perpetual failure, but perhaps that is my personality.

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4. I think Keith didn't have as smooth a relationship with his mother, but as far as I remember he was a dutiful son. I knew his older brother Elmer briefly at SWU. He was the advancement officer (Elmer's son Scott would later become advancement officer for SWU too). In the late 80s, I was in a mixed quartet that traveled to Florida for the college, and Elmer took us there. But he died suddenly of a heart attack not long after, as I recall. Keith helped his family get their affairs in order. Again, forgive me if I am sharing too much.

The memory I remember hearing of Keith's dad was very interesting to me. He was district superintendent in Pennsylvania in the days when going to movies was an absolute no-no. His father knew it was an unnecessary rule and at least on one occasion drove some distance to take Keith to see a movie. In other words, his father may have followed strict rules most of the time, but he wasn't legalistic about them.

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Interlude

Keith used to say that if you put the unimportant rules in the same place in the Discipline as the important rules, then you undermine the importance of the truly important ones. So if you put "don't have sex outside of marriage" in the same place as "don't dance and don't go to movies," you trivialize the rules about sex by the rules about dancing.

It is truly dumbfounding how much rearrangement and strategizing in the Discipline has taken place in order to maneuver around rules like "don't dance." They actually created a special section of the Discipline called "Special Directions" to try to insulate the truly important from the culturally passing.

It is [insert stronger word than puzzling] to me that the Wesleyan Church might actually disintegrate over the issue of drinking. The Methodists devolved over homosexuality, but it would be perfectly Wesleyan for us to split because of drinking, something that is obviously not prohibited in Scripture. I don't drink. But really. As Drury said, we are just playing out the struggles of our parents and grandparents with a different issue. "In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity."

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 5. You can see that Keith was a pragmatist. I would define Keith's kind of pragmatist (as mine) as someone who has a set of essentials but understands that a lot of the rules are more or less made up by our cultures and subcultures. Far more than the idealists think, the end often does justify the means, just not on the essentials. Keith understood people. And Keith understood what was important. Within those parameters, there was a lot of lee-way to get things where they need to go.

I would say that most leaders -- at least the successful ones -- fall into this philosophy. The church doesn't like it when they find out how much politics there often is on a general level, but this seems to be the way things are. The idealists (I don't want to say the godly) end up either breaking everything or failing miserably. Frankly, I'm not sure how well I am equipped to play these games, and that's probably why I'm not a leader.

Man, the memories are flooding in and my typing can't keep up. Keith used to say that he wasn't sure you could stay holy and become a senior leader even in the church. He mused once that the holiest people are probably the quiet people in the pew who don't do much. [By the way, his comments never had a permanent quality. They were always just musings he felt free to change his opinion on. In fact, he might change positions just to keep you on your toes.]

He famously turned down being general superintendent in 1988. The reason was to be a father to his sons, and I have no reason to doubt him. But he was also aware of the corrupting impact that being in senior leadership could have.

He used to say that he could rarely go up against someone like Earle Wilson and win. Earle was just too savvy at maneuvering. I'm not saying, by the way, that all general superintendents or college presidents have been warped. I'm just saying that the world of power, even in the church, has an impact on you that isn't always positive. It's because of fallen human nature and the difficulty of doing even good in the world without breaking some eggs.

When I became the Dean of the School of Ministry, David Drury made a positive comment to me about the possibility of getting good things done in organizations without political maneuvering and sneakiness. I felt like it was a comment on his father's generation. However, I view my efforts to get good things done during that time as a failure. Perhaps I wasn't sneaky enough. My initiatives were given to another... where they have died to a degree I could have never imagined.

I need to work now. To be continued...

I saw a great white throne.

My goal is to hit publish on this book later today (Saturday). 

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After the Millennium, Satan is released one last time (Rev. 20:7). This is rather puzzling. Rome was defeated 1000 years earlier. Christ has been reigning for 1000 years. Why is Satan being released again? This is where, by the way, the book of Revelation fits in the picture of Magog from Ezekiel (Rev. 20:8).

Speculative thoughts begin to go through my head. What if the beginnings of the book of Revelation were during the crisis of the Jewish War? We have seen reason to think the nucleus of Revelation in the days just after Nero (e.g., Rev. 17:10-11). But what if the book did not reach its current form until the time when it is traditionally dated, during the reign of Domitian?

This is very speculative, but we actually might see some basis for the postmillennial interpretation. John of Patmos certainly hoped for the destruction of Rome, but Rome survived. In fact, Rome won. Now we must look for some time in the future when the decisive earthly battle is won. In this sense, the Millennium creates a space for the 2000 years that have passed with us still waiting for Christ's return. Christ already reigns from heaven, but we still await his kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven.

Taking Revelation as a whole, Christians throughout the centuries have rightly favored the amillennial position. The final form of Revelation pushes us to see these figures and images in terms of the ongoing struggle between Christ and the forces of evil. But each of the positions has an element of truth in it. The premillennialists are right that the full reign of Christ on earth has not begun yet. The postmillennialists may capture some of the early struggle to make sense of the destruction of Jerusalem and the still continued victories of Rome after tribulation.

But in the end, taking Revelation as a whole, the struggle between good and evil continues. The names and empires change, but the fight and tribulation continue.

The Judgment

2. After the brief intermission with Satan's final kick, Revelation 20:11-15 gives us a picture of the final judgment. This time all the dead are raised (Rev. 20:12-13). In the first resurrection in Revelation, only those who had been martyred for their faith are raised. Now, everyone rises -- the good, the bad, and everything in between. The sea gives up its dead. Death and Hades give up their dead.

Both great and small are resurrected. In our modern egalitarian world, we could easily miss the significance of this statement. The small who serve the Lord might have wondered if they were good enough to be counted. They are. The smallest who served the Lord will be resurrected for eternal life. We could say for the unnoticeable person with an evil heart. Their heart against God was noticed too. Everyone will be part.

Even the sea gives up its dead (20:13). Perhaps someone might think God cannot retrieve them. God is very good at what he does. If our body can be located, God will start resurrecting there. But even if our bodies have been parsed to the winds, he will reconstitute us.

Everyone is judged according to what they did during their lives. John does not use the language of "justification by faith." Nevertheless, Jesus the Lamb of God is clearly the only path to God. Those who have not taken the mark of the beast have instead the name of God on their foreheads (22:5). Again, this is probably not a visible mark or tattoo. The mark, whether it be of the beast or of God, is a spiritual designation. God sees it, so to speak.

We Protestants should not gloss over the fact that this judgment looks at our deeds. Interestingly, we find this sense in Paul's writings as well (2 Cor. 5:10). We may find our place in the kingdom of God based on our faith, but our works are also part of the equation. Those who recanted their faith during the great tribulation were not accepted into the new Jerusalem. Rather, they have the mark of the beast on them. Their deeds have disqualified them at the same time that their deeds reflect their hearts.

However, the ultimate qualifier or disqualifier is whether their names were in the Book of Life (20:15; 21:27). Although it may be somewhat foreign to our thinking, there is some biblical basis for thinking that there can be varied rewards even to those who are saved (e.g., Luke 19:12-27; 1 Cor. 3:12-15). Could there be varying punishments for those whose names are not in the Book of Life, as in Dante's Inferno? This passage could be taken to imply that. 

3. Matthew 25:31-46 give us another picture of final judgment. A throne is involved there as well. Jesus, the Son of Humanity, sits on a throne and judges all the peoples of the earth (25:32). He divides them into two groups, the sheep and the goats.

It is interesting that the dividing characteristic in Matthew is neither a confession of faith nor one's name being in the Book of Life. The criterion is how one has treated others.
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Then the King will say to those on his right hand, "Come, those who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom that has been prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me [something] to eat. I was thirsty, and you gave me drink. I was a foreigner, and you brought me in. Naked, and you clothed me. I was sick, and you visited me. I was in prison, and you came to me.

Matthew 25:34-36
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It is natural for us to assume that faith is assumed in this equation, especially given the rest of the New Testament. But we should also sit with this passage a little before we go there. The only distinguishing criterion in the passage is one's disposition toward those in need. 

Lake of Fire

4. The Bible uses different images for the final destinies of both the saved and the damned...

They gathered at Armaggedon.

The book of Revelation is an "apocalypse." An apocalypse is not really a genre we have today. Nevertheless, several different Jewish apocalypses have survived from around the time of Christ. A typical Jewish apocalypse is a little like a historical novel. The author pretends to be a famous person from the past prophesying about the present. 

For example, let's say I wrote a short story where John Wesley from the 1700s had a vision about the Methodist church of today. It would really be me writing about the present day. But in my apocalypse, Wesley would be telling about a vision he had. (I might also not get in trouble for what I am saying because, after all, John Wesley is saying it.)

Now, the book of Revelation doesn't have that element of a Jewish apocalypse. Most think that it really was John of Patmos behind the book. It is also possible that John was relating some part of an actual vision he had. But, given the genre, it would not be lying if he did not see all of the book of Revelation in a vision. He could simply have been inspired to follow the normal template for an apocalypse.

In a Jewish apocalypse, an otherworldly figure comes to visit the prophet in question. In the case of Revelation, it is Jesus himself who comes to John. The heavenly visitor then gives a "revelation" to the prophet. It is a revelation both about what is going on in heaven that the audience can't see yet and also about what is soon going to take place on earth. Often, an apocalypse was written during a time of crisis. The revelation brings a word of assurance that God is going to prevail in the end, even if things don't look so good at the moment.

By its very nature, an apocalypse is full of symbolism and figurative language. That is one of the challenges of interpreting a book like Revelation. Amid all of its symbolism, what are we meant to take as straightforward, and what is more like a kaleidoscope -- possibly the same event seen from different perspectives. For example, we probably should not take Revelation as a straightforward linear progression over time, with chapter 11 happening right after chapter 10. 

To get a handle on the book, it might be helpful to take a look at how its imagery progresses. What is the outline of Revelation, and how do its parts fit together?

2. Revelation begins with John on the island of Patmos, and he receives a visit from Jesus on the Lord's Day. Revelation 1 sets us up for the rest of the book. Jesus is coming back soon (1:7), and he is going to tell John "what is about to happen after these things" (1:19).

The next two chapters (Rev. 2-3) are then letters to seven real churches with real situations in Asia Minor. He goes clockwise: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea. More than any audience today or at any other time in history, this revelation is for them. 

Chapters 4-5 are then in the throne room of heaven. Revelation 4 gives proper worship to God the Father in the throne room. Revelation 5 then turns to the Lamb, Jesus, who is the only one worthy to open the scroll that will unfold the final judgment.

The Lamb now breaks the seven seals of the scroll. And after he opens the seventh seal, we get seven trumpets (Rev. 6-11). This probably is not a linear sequence but an apocalyptic picture. The point is that God's judgment is going to be bad, and you don't want to be on the receiving end of it. 

During both the sixth seal and the sixth trumpet, there is an intermission to the sequence. In Revelation 7 we get a picture of the martyred in heaven -- 144,000 from Israel along with a group from every nation, tribe, people, and language (7:14). Revelation 11 gives a second intermission where two witnesses are mentioned. The temple seems to be still standing, and we have already suggested that imagery of the Jewish War may stand somewhat in the background of this chapter.

3. A second vision begins at 11:19. This is not a continuation of a storyline but another version of the same one. This vision chiefly covers Revelation 12-19. In it, we get a clearer picture of the historical context of Revelation. Revelation 17 in particular gives us a key to the identity of the beast and who the enemy is. As we saw in chapter 6, the beast is modeled on Nero, the number of whose name is 666 (Rev. 13:18).

The kingdom that is the enemy of God's people is Babylon, which is a cipher for Rome. Rome is Babylon because, just as Babylon destroyed Jerusalem and its temple, so Rome would destroy Jerusalem and its temple. Revelation 18 looks to the judgment and fall of Rome. Although this did not happen in the first century, Rome becomes symbolic of the defeat of God's enemies that will take place once and for all in the judgment.

We get more clearly who John has in mind as the oppressor of God's people. It is Rome -- or Babylon -- that is "drunk on the blood of God's holy people" (17:6). The prostitute in Revelation 17 is Rome, "the great city that rules over the kings of the earth" (17:18). While John pictures the judgment of Rome, we should expand the image to the final judgment of all who have opposed God throughout history.

Revelation 14 gives us a picture of the 144,000 again. This is not a different 144,000 but another picture of the same group who did not give in under Roman persecution. This time around, they do not seem to be restricted to those saved from Israel. They represent all the saved, a symbolic number.   

To finish the outline of Revelation, there is a third vision from 19:11 to 22:5. This vision reiterates the defeat of the beast again (19:20). However, this final vision pushes to the final judgment and the reign of Christ on earth. Revelation ends with both the conclusion of the vision in the new Jerusalem (22:6-17) and the conclusion of the letters to the churches (22:18-21).

4. Again, we probably should not take the book of Revelation as a sequence of events. Its symbols repeat the same basic elements over and over again. In John's day, the point was that Rome had become the archenemy of the church, and the emperors of Rome had become antichrists, although Revelation never uses that term. The church was experiencing intense persecution and martyrdom by Rome, which was drunk on the blood of the saints. 

The empire had come to expect emperor worship. The very coinage of Rome implied the worship of the emperor, making it difficult for Christians even to participate in the normal economy without feeling like idolators, like they had taken the mark of the beast. These images may very well have parallels in the end times, but it seems impossible for us to know how they will play out. All we know is that the imagery is built extensively from John's own world and the great tribulation the church was experiencing in his time.

The other recurring image is that of judgment. There would be a resurrection of all the dead. Those who had persecuted God's people would be judged. Christ would reign on earth eventually. There eventually would be the new Jerusalem and an eternal Millennium. More on the Millennium in the next chapter.

5. What then is Armaggedon? ...

Antichrist is coming.

For some reason, probably because of the freedom God has built into the creation, good almost always has its opponents. Whether it be Pharaoh at the time of the exodus or the high priest when Jesus was on earth, there is almost always a bad guy in the story. The Bible is full of them.

As we saw in the previous chapter, the archetypal bad guy in the key passages in Daniel turns out to be a Syrian king named Antiochus Epiphanes. He is the one who, in 175 BC, deposes the anointed high priest and puts his own favorite in charge of Israel (Dan. 9:26). It is he who in 167 BC puts an end to the sacrifice and offering (Dan. 9:37). He defiles the temple with a "desolating abomination" (Dan. 11:31). He offers a pig on the altar and constructs an altar to Zeus in the temple. Some three years later, the temple was purified and restored (164 BC). 

In other words, the prophecies of Daniel were initially fulfilled even before the time of Christ, including its prophecies about a "desolater." There was already a secondary fulfillment in the destruction of Jerusalem (Mark 13:14). Who knows, perhaps there will be a third fulfillment in the end times. There wouldn't need to be. We'll find out.

Antichrists

2. There's a good chance that you have heard of the Antichrist. The Antichrist is the archetypal opponent of Christ and Christianity. The term itself comes from 1 John 2.
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"Little children, it is the last hour, and just as you have heard that antichrist is coming, even now, many antichrists have arisen. Thus we know it is the last hour." (1 John 2:18)

"Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ. This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son." (2:22)

"Every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God, and this is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard that it was coming and is already in the world"  (4:3)

"Many deceivers have gone out into the world that are not confessing that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist" (2 John 1:7)
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Because of the noise in our heads from other passages and contemporary debates, we can easily overread these passages. If we can bracket those other voices out and listen to these passages in context, none of them are necessarily referring to an individual person. In fact, the lead-off verse in 1 John 2:18 says that many antichrists are here, not a single figure. 

There is also no "the" on the word antichrist in 2:18. In Greek, that doesn't mean that we should put the word "an" in front -- "an antichrist is coming." It may simply say that opposition to Christ is a predictable element in the equation.  

The very next verse hints at who John the elder actually had in mind. It is a group that had split off from John's church (2:19). 2 John 1:7 suggests that they were early Gnostics who denied that Jesus had come to earth in the flesh (cf. 1 John 4:2). We call this group "Docetists" because they thought Jesus only seemed to be human. [1] They may have been Jewish since they seem to have acknowledged God the Father but denied Jesus the Son (1 John 2:22).

The bottom line is that the antichrists of 1 and 2 John are not primarily an end times figure like the Antichrist we have heard of. There will always be antichrists in the world. Opposition to Christ is always coming. Ironically, the passages from which we get the name "Antichrist" are not primarily about the Antichrist.

Now, John may allude to teaching about an Antichrist. When he says, "You have heard antichrist is coming," he may be alluding to teaching in the church about an archetypal opponent to Christ. It is possible. He may allude to some of the other teachings we will examine in this chapter. But in general, he was referring to some of the Gnostic resistance to a proper understanding of Jesus that existed in the late first century in certain church circles.

Bottom line: 1 John does not clearly refer to an end-times figure known as the Antichrist. It could allude to such teaching, but its primary concern was a group in the late first-century church who opposed a proper understanding of Jesus.

The Man of Lawlessness

3. One of the most enigmatic passages in the Bible is 2 Thessalonians 2. It mentions a "man of lawlessness" who opposes God. He would certainly qualify as an antichrist, although the word is not used of him here.
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[The Day of the Lord will not come] unless the apostasy should come first, and the man of lawlessness should be revealed, the son of destruction. [He is] the one who opposes and exalts himself against everything called "God" or any object of worship. Accordingly, he seats himself in the temple of God trying to demonstrate that he is God. Don't you remember that I was telling you about these things while I was still around?

And you know what is restraining him now so that he might be revealed in his own time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already working -- [there is] only the one restraining until he should be out of the midst. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will destroy with the Spirit of his mouth, and he will destroy with the appearance of his arrival.

The arrival of [the lawless one] is accompanied by the working of Satan with all power and signs and false wonders and with all the deceit of unrighteousness to those who are perishing because they did not receive the love of the truth so that they might be saved. So God sends on them the working of delusion that they might believe in the lie.

2 Thess. 2:3-11
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This is a difficult passage because nothing is said of the temple being destroyed (still less of it being reconstructed). The most natural way to think of this prediction is thus that it relates to Paul's own day and to the time before the temple was destroyed.

It is also very cryptic like there is code language here in case someone would read the letter. "You know," but the letter doesn't say. "Didn't I already talk about this when I was with you?" Nudge, nudge, wink, wink. This secret quality of the letter again reinforces a sense that it is about events that were unfolding at the time of writing.

As we have said repeatedly, that does not mean that it cannot be about the end times as well. Paul can be inspired to say more than he knows he is saying. But in his mind, something in his own time was likely going on.

What or who was keeping the man of lawlessness from fully emerging? Again, the language is very cryptic. No answer seems completely satisfying. The Holy Spirit is both a "what" (the Greek word for spirit is neuter) and a "who" (the Holy Spirit is a person), but it is not clear how the Spirit would ever be taken out of the way.

One theory is that the reference is to Paul himself. A self-reference might explain the cryptic nature of those comments. "You know what is keeping him from unleashing" (that is, me). "But when he is taken out of the way" (that is, me), he will come full on. 

4. The dating of 2 Thessalonians is often considered straightforward. The standard answer is that 2 Thessalonians was written at about the same time as 1 Thessalonians, around AD 50-52. Perhaps Paul writes 1 Thessalonians to explain the resurrection. Then some overreact and think the Day of the Lord has already happened.

However, there is nothing we know about at the time that fits the secretive nature of 2 Thessalonians. For example, there seems to be concern that its message be authenticated. Paul's signature is emphasized at the end (2 Thess. 3:17). There is also a strong parallel between the beginning of the letter and the beginning of 1 Thessalonians. Some have even suggested it has been copied.

For these reasons, I have hypothesized that the real context of 2 Thessalonians is in the last days of Paul before he was put to death by Nero. [2] This would put it in the range of AD 62 to 68. Some have suggested that 2 Thessalonians was "pseudonymous," written under Paul's name. If that were the case, we would still imagine it written soon after his death, when he would have been taken "out of the way."

As we will see in the rest of this chapter, the image of Nero as an antichrist figure, even if the word antichrist is not used, seems to be a major part of the imagery of Revelation as well. So it would be in keeping with this strand of New Testament thinking if 2 Thessalonians also had Nero in mind.

The imagery of 2 Thessalonians 2 also fits the tone and flavor of Mark 13. For example, both talk about signs and wonders accompanying false messiahs. They both suggest that there will be those who are deceived among the people of God. A context of the Jewish War -- which overlapped with Nero's rule -- would make some sense of these comments. 2 Thessalonians then, like Mark 13, would pertain to the lead-up to the temple's destruction ("sets up in the temple as God").

The bottom line is that Paul had some figure in his own day in mind and that the temple to which he refers was the temple that was standing at that time. More on the temple in the next chapter. Is it possible that there will be another man of lawlessness in the end times, even another temple? Far be it from me to say that there will not be. 

My point in this book is more to indicate that most of the prophecies that are part of the dispensationalist approach already had fulfillments in biblical times. God can do whatever he wants in the future. We'll know that when it comes. But these prophecies had a great deal to do with their own times. 

The Beasts of Revelation

5. [The chapter continues...]

[1] The Greek word dokeo means to "seem."

[2] See my Explanatory Notes on 1 and 2 Thessalonians (Marion: Independently Published, 2020).

From the Great Tribulation

We now come to the distinctive feature of John Darby's dispensationalism: the Great Tribulation. The idea of meeting in the air was not new. The idea of antichrist was not new. But no one before around 1830 had ever suggested that there would be a seven-year period of tribulation after a rapture of the righteous to heaven. This was the distinctive invention of John Nelson Darby.

And it is an ingenious invention! The starting point is Revelation 7:14, the key text for this chapter.
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These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
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We saw in chapter 3 that these individuals were not likely individuals raptured from the earth while alive. Rather, these are likely those who have been martyred for their faith. In chapter 3, we also argued that John probably was especially thinking about those who were martyred under the Roman Empire. 

In this chapter, however, we want to explore where the idea of a seven-year Tribulation came from. There are two places in particular. The one is Daniel 9, and the second is Revelation 12-13.

Daniel 9

2. Just as Ezekiel 38-39 is a passage that doesn't get a lot of attention, John Nelson Darby also noticed another little read passage in Daniel 9:24-27: 
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Seventy weeks are decreed upon your people and your holy city for the fullness of the transgression... from the going out of the word to restore and rebuild Jerusalem to the anointed one, the prince, [will be] seven weeks. And for sixty-two weeks it will return... And after the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one will be cut off and lose everything. And the people of the coming prince will destroy the city and the sanctuary... And he will make a covenant firm with many for one week. And in the middle of the week, he will stop the sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations, the desolator [will come] until complete and what is decreed is poured out upon the desolator.  
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It is commonly assumed that a "week" here stands for a seven year period. It is hard to make sense of the prophecy historically if it were referring to seven day periods. Given that figurative assumption, Darby then interpreted the years from that point on literally. Since 70 times 7 is 490, he assumed that Daniel was referring to a literal span of 490 years. 

He then took the one who "will be cut off and lose everything" as a reference to Christ. Since that point was 69 weeks into the prophecy, that would put AD 33 or thereabouts 483 years into the prophecy. Counting backwards, that would put the time of the word going out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem at about 450 BC. While not exact, this is about the time that Nehemiah rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem (ca. 444 BC). 

But the most distinctive point of Darby's interpretation is his sense that the counting of weeks went on pause at the point of Jesus' death. At that point God switched "dispensations." God had been working with Israel. Now God switches to the church for a new period of history -- the "Church Age." We are still in this age today. [1]

However, Darby believed that God was still planning to make his math work. At the end of time, after the church was raptured to heaven, God would switch dispensations again. In The Great Tribulation, God would get that last seven-year week. He would finish up his dealings with Israel. In the end, Israel would turn to Christ, as we talked about in chapter 2. 

During that final seven-year period of history, a "desolator" would arise. He will stop the sacrifice and offering of the temple. (By the way, that implies that the Jerusalem temple will need to be rebuilt.) Darby correlated this prophecy with what 2 Thessalonians 2:4 has to say about a man of lawlessness setting himself up in the temple as God. He correlated it with the abomination that causes desolation in Daniel 11:31 and Mark 13:14. He correlated this figure with the Beast from the Sea in Revelation 13:1. He called this figure, "The Antichrist," following 1 John 2:18.

This is all ingenious, the sign of a beautiful mind. Perhaps he was inspired by the Holy Spirit! Nevertheless, we will take the next few chapters to unpack each of these texts to see what each seems to refer to in its own context. Far be it from me to say that God cannot stitch these passages together and fulfill them however he wishes. At the same time, in context, it is not at all clear that these passages naturally go together in this way. 

In this chapter, we especially want to examine his interpretation of the weeks in Daniel.

3. You'll notice that there is a mixture of literal and figurative here, and the weeks don't exactly line up. For example, there is nothing in the text to suggest that we would skip 2000 years between the 69th and 70th week. Darby just made that up with no basis whatsoever in the text of Daniel.

Most Christian interpreters throughout the centuries had taken the prophecy to refer to Jesus' death and perhaps the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. This includes not only early church figures like Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Tertullian but Protestant Reformers like John Calvin. That is to say, they believed the prophecy was already fulfilled.

Even then, there are questions about how literally we should take the numbers. The whole prophecy is very symbolic. For example, weeks are taken as years. We are on figurative ground from the very beginning. But then we become very literal and precise with how the years are played out. It's like we are mixing genres -- extremely figurative meets extremely literal.

By most reckonings, for example, the span of time from Nehemiah to Christ is remarkably close but a few years off. From 444 BC to 33 AD is 477 years. So it would seem that, by any reckoning, the weeks of seven years are approximate. This is no problem at all given the genre. The symbolism of the sevens was more important than the precision of the years.

But there are other questions too. For example, why start with Nehemiah? I would have thought the more natural referent is 538 BC when Cyrus gave the word to the Jews to "restore and rebuild Jerusalem." Daniel is set in the 500s, not the 400s. Daniel is set during the Babylonian captivity. The most natural way to take the "word to restore and rebuild Jerusalem" is thus in terms of the return of the Jews from captivity, which took place in 538 BC.

But then 490 years puts us in the year 48 BC, a year of no particular note. Are there any other clues in Daniel that might suggest the prophecy is referring to some other event? 

Yes, why yes there are. Daniel 11 reads as a virtual blow-by-blow of the events leading up to the desecration of the Jerusalem temple by Antiochus Epiphanes, the king of Syria, in 167 BC. We have already mentioned that this event was the first fulfillment of Daniel 11:31 and the "abomination that causes desolation." We will return to this passage in chapter 7.

In other words, we know that the book of Daniel has material that is focused on the events surrounding the Maccabean crisis from 167-164 BC. In that material, a desolator puts a halt to the sacrifice and offering of the temple. And he does this approximately halfway through the crisis.

Who then would be the two anointed ones in the passage? The first anointed one is difficult in any rendering. Following Darby's approach, this person would need to live in the early 300s BC, and we know of no such figure.

Starting from the call to return to Jerusalem -- and taking the numbers to be approximate -- there are candidates for the interpretation that starts with 538 BC. For example, Joshua the anointed high priest of Zechariah 3:8 was high priest in the late 500s. Again, taking the numbers to be approximate, one might point to Nehemiah as the anointed one in the mid-400s BC. There are at least options, where there are none for Darby.

The Maccabean crisis is earlier than we might expect if the numbers are taken exactly, but the genre itself suggests that the numbers should not be taken exactly. What then is the final week? The final week would refer to the Maccabean crisis itself, which only came to a head with the desecration of Jerusalem in 167 BC. Antiochus had already been implementing actions to Hellenize Israel since about 175 BC, including a prohibition on circumcision, on the observance of Sabbath, and on keeping food laws. He ordered the construction of Greek institutions like a gymnasium.

The last three years of the crisis were the most intense. You might argue that they came "in the middle of the week."

Who then would be the second anointed one who was "cut off" and lost everything. This is often related to the high priest Onias III, who was deposed and replaced by Antiochus, the Syrian king. This deposing took place at the beginning of the troubles Antiochus brought on Jerusalem in 175 BC, arguably the beginning of the "week" to which Daniel refers.

Is it possible that God planted a double meaning here, one in relation to Jesus as well? Certainly. We find the phenomenon of double interpretation often in the New Testament. However, from a contextual standpoint, the book of Daniel itself more likely points to the Maccabean crisis in Daniel 9.

In either of these cases, there is no week left over for the end times. In this interpretation, Darby went completely beyond anything the text indicates. And indeed, he saw an interpretation that apparently no Christian (or Jew) had ever seen in the passage before him for some 1800 years.

4. What about Revelation then? Does it not mention several 3.5-year periods too? ...

[1] This switching to the church is in part why Darby did not anticipate that Israel would be gathered and be reconstituted as a nation before the Tribulation. The re-establishment of Israel in 1948 thus caused some adjustment to what was by then the standard dispensational understanding.

Magog will attack Israel.

Because I want to get my current writing project done before the eclipse, I'm substituting this post for my weekly review.

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If we did a "heatmap" for the parts of the Bible that people read and talk about a lot in contrast to those that get very little attention, the book of Ezekiel would probably turn out to be one of those books that is read less often. At this point, some would begin to chastise us. It is all the word of God, and preachers should preach the whole council of God! This dynamic is why preachers are told in seminary to use the lectionary, which is a tool to make sure you cover all of Scripture in the course of three years.

However, before we get too hard on ourselves, there is a good reason why some parts of Scripture are read more often than others. The books of the Bible tell us they were written to people who have been dead for thousands of years. When you write something to an ancient audience, even though it is inspired, it is bound to have some parts that apply more directly and others that apply more indirectly. In other words, some parts will inevitably have more to do with "that time" than "all time." We can learn from all of it, but some of it is bound to be more directly relevant to them than to us.

Take the middle chapters of Isaiah, chapters 13-39. There is some very rich material in these chapters! At the same time, most of these chapters involves the condemnation of nations that no longer exist. For example, Isaiah 16 is a prophecy against Moab. Where is Moab again? It no longer exists. So it is no surprise that you don't hear a lot of sermons on Isaiah 16.

A good deal of Ezekiel feels that way too. There is some incredibly rich prophecy in there. Yet it also relates to a situation in the mid-500s BC. And there is some strange material in there too -- wheels within wheels, eating scrolls, laying on your side for months on end! The Holy Spirit makes certain parts of Scripture jump out at different people in different times, places, and situations. At other times, these passages may stand ready more in the background.

2. Ezekiel 38-39 is a passage somewhat like Isaiah 16. It talks about places like Magog and has puzzling names like Gog, Meshech, and Tubal. It is very difficult to align these names with any known historical figures or places. The battle that is pictured in these chapters similarly does not align with any known battles.

So it is no surprise that dispensationalists typically align these chapters with an end-times battle that has not yet happened. The Scofield Reference Bible in 1917 had this to say about Ezekiel 38:

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That the primary reference is to the northern (European) powers, headed up by Russia, all agree... The reference to Meshech and Tubal (Moscow and Tobolsk) is a clear mark of identification. Russia and the northern powers have been the latest persecutors of dispersed Israel, and it is congruous... that destruction should fall at the climax of the last mad attempt to exterminate the remnant of Israel in Jerusalem. The whole prophecy belongs to the yet future "day of Jehovah"... and to the battle of Armageddon... but includes also the final revolt of the nations at the close of the kingdom-age.

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During the days of the Soviet Union, it was easy to think that it would spearhead an attack of this sort, although many other enemies are mentioned: Persia, Cush, Put, Gomer, Beth-Togarmah. These names represent areas like Egypt and Europe. One could easily think that the picture is that of the whole world against Israel, much like Armageddon in Revelation 16 when the "kings of the whole world" come to battle against God's people. 

3. How do prophecy teachers integrate the attack of Magog into their understanding of the Tribulation and the end times? The answer is that there is no one agreed application. Some have seen this event as taking place before the rapture and the Great Tribulation. Others think it will happen soon after the rapture.

How might these scenarios go? 

The one I remember from Hal Lindsey years ago is that, because Ezekiel 39:9 says it will take seven years for them to use the (obviously wooden) weapons for firewood, it would have to take place before the Tribulation began. In fact, since Lindsey didn't think there would be much time for such things in the last 3.5 years of the Tribulation, he suggested that perhaps Magog would come up against Israel three and a half years before the Tribulation.

Perhaps for similar reasons, others suggest that this event will take place soon after the rapture but before the Tribulation begins. Then there are seven years to burn the weapons. This event might also then provide a mechanism for the Antichrist to arise.

Both of these scenarios have in common a military event where large portions of the world rise up against Israel. They throw everything they have at Israel but are defeated.

4. I often have told my Bible students over the years that we will know what the fulfillment of such things looks like after it happens. Frankly, I haven't found a "one-to-one" pattern of fulfillment between the Old and New Testaments. Often, it seems like the fulfillments are somewhat unexpected. In hindsight, we look back at a passage like Isaiah 53 and say, "Of course, the Messiah is going to suffer for the world." But as far as I can tell, not a single Jew had that thought prior to the death of Christ, including the disciples themselves.

The imagery of Ezekiel came to mind in 1948 when so many Arab countries rose up against Israel after it declared its independence in 1948 -- the "Arab-Israeli" war. But that was not the end of the world, no matter how clear it seemed at the time! That moment was not the specific fulfillment of Ezekiel 38-39. But this passage always comes to mind in prophecy circles whenever some force is in tension with Israel. And thus far, they have always been wrong. 100% failure rate.

In fact, a number of Arab nations have recognized Israel as a nation since then. Dispensationalists resisted Jimmy Carter for trying to bring peace between countries like Egypt and Israel. "You're wasting your time," they said (lifeboat). "You're coddling the enemy!" But there have now been over 50 years of peace between Egypt and Israel. Imagine if their "clarity" on prophecy had prevailed. They were just wrong. 100% failure rate.

Bottom line? 

It is alarming when the interpretations of passages like these run the risk of becoming self-fulfilling prophecies in modern politics. In a 1971 speech, Ronald Reagan as governor of California expressed the belief that the Soviet Union was Magog. When he then gave his "evil empire" speech as president in 1983, it is only natural to assume he had this imagery from Ezekiel 38-39 in the back of his mind. 

Thankfully, Reagan later collaborated when Gorbachev indicated he wanted to restructure the Soviet Union and move toward peace between the two countries. As it turned out, the Soviet Union of the twentieth century did not turn out to be Magog. But you can see how potentially dangerous it was for Reagan to have this equation in his head. By the grace of God, the notion did not lead him to assume that Russia could only be the enemy, because he was wrong. 100% failure rate on equations like these.

Today, we face similar danger when politicians with immense power assume that, say, Iran must always be the enemy or, for that matter, that the nation of Israel can never do anything wrong. The world is at great risk if our leaders do not make decisions based on the evidence and holding all nations to the standards of international law. Otherwise, we run the risk of losing opportunities for peace or looking the other way at injustice.

As mentioned in chapter 1, there have been many moments of good and bad times over the last 2000 years. We run the serious risk of unnecessarily making the times bad if we assume they must always be bad. We should work for the good of the world at all times and, when the bad presents itself, deal with it with wisdom and sound moral values. When we assume, it makes a mess out of you and me (or something like that).

5. So what is the right interpretation of Ezekiel...

We will be caught up in the air.

As I mentioned in the Preface, the 1972 movie, A Thief in the Night, begins with a husband being snatched out of his bathroom while he is shaving. His wife is left behind. This is the rapture, probably the most discussed event of the end times. Suddenly, all the Christians on earth are taken to be with Jesus, and the Great Tribulation begins.

When I was a boy in the 70s, the big debate in my circles was whether the rapture would happen before the seven-year Tribulation (pre-trib rapture), in the middle of it (mid-trib rapture), or at the end of it (post-trib rapture). But there was no question about whether there would be a rapture or a Tribulation. These were assumptions.

A quick look on YouTube and elsewhere will quickly reveal that there is a lot of debate today about whether the idea of a rapture is even biblical in the first place. The same goes for a seven-year Tribulation. What is all the debate about, you ask?

2. The core text is 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17:

"We who are living, who are remaining until the arrival of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep because the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are living, the ones remaining, together with them will be snatched in the clouds for the meeting of the Lord in the air. And thus always we will be with the Lord."

The key word in Greek is "will be snatched," "will be caught up," "will be taken." The word was translated into Latin as rapiemur. The Latin word is where the idea of a "raptor" dinosaur comes from, a dinosaur that Jurassic Park vividly pictured as "snatching" people to eat them. It has a sense of seizing or grabbing. 

So what's all the fuss about? Isn't it clear?

The questions are two fold. First, how literal is this picture. Isn't the air all around us? I reject this sort of "demythologizing" of the text -- attempts to make the text fit with our current conceptions of the world. They thought heaven was straight up. In Acts 1:9, Jesus ascends straight up into a cloud. Don't try to make the biblical text conform to our picture of the world. It wasn't written to us originally. It was written to them, and they pictured heaven as straight up. Get over it.

The more serious question is what happens after we are snatched up to meet Jesus in the air. A very good argument can be made that we meet Jesus in the air in order to come back down for the judgment of the world. Arguments have been made that his language of meeting Jesus is reminiscent of what happens when a dignitary comes to town. You go to the edge of town to escort him into the city.

Paul had a sense that both Christians would participate in the judgment of the world, including the judgment of angels. He tells the Corinthians that they would judge angels and the world (1 Cor. 6:2-3). Jesus tells the disciples that they will sit on twelve thrones judging the children of Israel (Matt. 19:28). The New Testament generally sees the kingdom of God as something that happens on a "new" earth (e.g., Rev. 21:1-2; Luke 13:29), but it is on earth.

1 Thessalonians 4 does not say where we will be forever with the Lord, but the most likely answer given the rest of the New Testament is that it will be on a renewed earth. Jesus will descend. The dead will rise re-embodied from the ground to meet Jesus. Then we will be "snatched up" as well.

The battle lines will be drawn. Those on Jesus' side will be on the right side of the battle lines. The judgment of the world will commence. Here it probably is significant that the word air refers to the sky just above the earth, not to heaven. That is to say, we are meeting Jesus right above the earth, not in heaven.

Paul's writings know nothing of a seven-year period between Jesus' arrival and the judgment. Nor do they know anything of a thousand year Millennium. It is an argument from silence, but it puts pressure on us to make sure we are interpreting the passages in Revelation correctly.  

3. Another set of passages that are often taken to be about the rapture are Matthew 24:36-41 and Luke 17:34-36. Here is what Matthew 24 says: 

"As they were in those days before the Flood -- eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage -- right up until the day Noah entered the ark, and they did not know until the Flood came and took them all, so also will be the arrival of the Son of Humanity. Then two will be in the field. One is taken, and one is left. As two women are grinding in the mill, one is taken and one is left." 

As Craig Keener and others have shown, this passage is actually saying something dramatically different than what we think of as the rapture. [1] If we follow the train of thought, those that the Flood takes away are not the saved, but the damned! The passage is not talking about the taking away of the righteous, but the sweeping away of those who are wicked.

It is the same in Luke's version. Luke 17:34-35 talk similarly about one being taken and one left. Then the disciples ask where they are taken. Jesus' response is that they are taken to where the vultures gather around dead bodies (17:37). So, far from supporting the dispensational understanding of the rapture, these verses picture the righteous remaining on earth in the coming kingdom.

4. What about Revelation 7:14? Does not Revelation picture the righteous in heaven, those who have been snatched up from the earth from the Great Tribulation? We will explore the idea of the Tribulation in chapter 5. For now, here is how Revelation 7 reads:

"After these things I looked and, behold, a great crowd whom no one was able to number from every nation and tribes and peoples and tongues standing before the throne and before the Lamb... And one of the elders answered, saying to me, 'Who are these who have put on white robes, and from where have they come?'

"And I said to him, 'Sir, you know.' And he said to me, 'These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation, and they washed their robes and they made them white by the blood of the Lamb'" (Rev. 7:9, 13-14).

It has been all too easy to see this group as the group of those who have been raptured from the earth. However, the picture is much more grim. How is it that they have come to the throne room of God? 

We find the most likely answer in the previous chapter -- the context...

[1] Michael Brown and Craig Keener, Not Afraid of the Antichrist: Why We Don't Believe in a Pre-Tribulation Rapture (Bloomington, MN: Chosen, 2019), 146. 

Things will get worse and worse.

I continue my current book project, trying to finish in time for the eclipse on April 8. Last night I finished the chapter on Israel becoming a nation, going on to explore the imagery of the fig tree in Mark 13 as well as the meaning of Romans 11 and "all Israel being saved."

On to the next chapter this morning.
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Growing up, we never stopped to think about our “philosophy of history.” Everyone just knew that things were going to get worse and worse until Jesus returned. 

Of course, if you look back at the last 2000 years, there have been good and bad times. Things haven't irrevocably been getting worse for 2000 years. But this is the "premillennial" mindset and the assumption of my childhood. In the days right before Jesus' return, things will get worse and worse and worse.

2. Let me pause to explain this millennial language. Revelation talks about a Millennium in chapter 20, a thousand year period with Christ reigning on earth. We will explore it further in chapter 9. 

There are three basic views of what this Millennium signifies. First, there are those who take it literally and believe it will happen after Jesus comes to judge the earth. These are premillennialists who believe that a literal Millennium is still to come. This is the order in which events happen in Revelation. There is a battle called Armageddon in which the forces of darkness are defeated (Rev. 16). Satan is bound for a thousand years, and Jesus reigns over the earth.

Throughout most of church history, amillennialism has been the dominant view. This view does not take the Millennium literally but sees it as the spiritual reign of Christ now no matter what might be going on politically with Christianity in the world. This was the dominant view throughout the Middle Ages and even by the Protestant reformers.

Postmillennialism is a view that largely coincided with the optimism of the 1700s and 1800s. In this view, the world was getting better and better in preparation for Christ's return. As it were, the church would prepare the way for the return of Christ. This optimism was more or less dashed by the wake up call of two world wars and a reminder that humanity still reminds capable of the worst atrocities of the past.

3. Most of us didn't have a name for it, but I grew up a "premillennial." Even today, most of the American church is premillennial. We believe that, right before Jesus returns, things will get worse and worse and worse. Then when it looks like there is absolutely no hope at all, Jesus will come back.

In the late 1800s, the preacher D. L. Moody used the image of a lifeboat to capture this perspective on the world. The world was like a ship that was sinking. We needed to get into the lifeboat of salvation. Clearly, he had drunk from the waters of dispensationalism and John Darby that we mentioned in chapter 1. 

From this perspective, there is no point in trying to save the world. It's going down like the Titanic. It has no hope. This view of the world thus has little time for trying to improve society. It downplays concepts like trying to help the poor or address social ills. There's no point in trying to address climate change. The world is burning, and there's nothing we can do about it. Just get in the boat and try to get as many other people as you can in the boat with you.

These are all largely the unarticulated assumptions of a worldview. The bridge is out. We need to warn people. This is no time to work on their car engines. Jesus is coming back any day!

4. Where does it come from in the Bible? Two places, chiefly. First, there are the passages in Mark 13 and Matthew 24 where Jesus talks about the lead up to the temple's destruction. Then there is of course the book of Revelation itself.

Note that this tone is not equally sustained everywhere in the New Testament. For example, the Gospel of John does not have this same urgency. The Pastoral Epistles (1 & 2 Timothy and Titus) do not have this urgency. Paul's early writings, which seem to expect Jesus to return within his lifetime, do not have the same feel as Mark 13. Even Luke's version of Mark 13 feels less urgent.

What makes the difference? The difference is when Mark is being written. Mark was arguably written around the time when the Romans surrounded and then destroyed Jerusalem. Nowhere is this clearer than when he inserts the words "let the reader understand" into Mark 13:14. This was arguably a note to the person reading Mark to a congregation to emphasize the point about the temple's desecration. Why? Quite possibly because it was in process or had recently happened at the time of writing.

We will return to the question of the temple in chapter 7. For the moment, we want to show that the "worse and worse" dynamic of Mark 13 especially applied to the time leading up to Jerusalem's destruction by the Romans in AD 70. It may apply to the end times as well, but let's hear those verses first for their original meaning...

Israel becomes a nation.

A decade or two ago, I wrote books by blogging through them. I'm not sure that this was a good practice, but it helped me picture an audience, which is a good thing when writing.

Several times over the last decades, I've also started a book on the end times. I've never finished it, of course. I have in mind a popular audience, particularly a Left Behind audience. I think I may have come to write a little too advanced for this audience. At the same time, my circles have become so populist that I wonder if my style has drifted from the more academic realm. 

In any case, I'm trying to shake myself loose on this project, so I thought I'd blog a little on one of the chapters.

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1. After nearly 2000 years in exile, Israel became a nation again in 1948. It sent shock waves through the prophecy world. Many believed that it signaled the beginning of the final generation of people on earth before Jesus would return and the end times would begin. Several passages in the Old Testament talk about the gathering of Israel back to its land. Here are a few:

Jeremiah 31:10: “Hear the word of Yahweh, O nations, and declare it among the coastlands from afar. And say, ‘He who scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him like a shepherd his flock.’”

Ezekiel 36:24: “I will take you from the nations, and I will gather you from all the lands, and I will cause you to come to your land.”

Ezekiel 37:21-22: “I am taking the children of Israel from the midst of the nations to which they have gone, and I will gather them from around and I will cause them to come to their land. I will make them one people on the hills of Israel. And one king will be king over them all. they shall no longer be two peoples, nor will they ever be divided into two kingdoms again.”

2. The problem with these three passages is that none of them were actually about today. They were all fulfilled already in 538 BC. In that year, the Persians allowed the Jews to return to their homeland and reestablish Israel as a political entity. Many of them did. In 516 the temple was rebuilt, and in the late 400s BC, the walls of Jerusalem were rebuilt. 

Jeremiah and Ezekiel both wrote during a time when Israel was in exile (more specifically, the southern kingdom of Judah). The Babylonians had come and pounded them. They had destroyed Jerusalem. They had destroyed the temple. They had taken the elite away to a far-off country. Some had gone down to Egypt to escape. Some even built a temple there for Yahweh. When Jeremiah and Ezekiel wrote, Israel was scattered.

Meanwhile, the Assyrians had scattered the northern kingdom of Israel a century and a half earlier. Israel had been divided into two kingdoms, a northern one called Israel and a southern one named Judah. In 722 BC, the Assyrians came in and wiped out the kingdom to the north.

So, Israel was scattered in the early 500s BC when Jeremiah and Ezekiel prophesied. They both predicted rightly that God would bring Israel back from the nations. And he did. In 539 BC Cyrus, king of Persia, pounded the Babylonians (see Isa. 45:1). The Jews returned.

3. So these passages were not, in the first place, about modern times originally. However, could they also be about modern times? In other words, a double meaning? 

We see the phenomenon of double meanings throughout the New Testament. Some have called this phenomenon a "sensus plenior" or taking the words of the Old Testament in a "fuller sense" than they were originally intended. A good example of this dynamic is when Jesus warns of the "abomination that causes desolation" in Mark 13:14. We'll return to this verse in chapter 7 for a fuller exploration.

This verse also was not originally about modern times. In fact, the verse has already had two fulfillments. The first was in 167 BC when the Syrians defiled the Jerusalem temple by offering a pig sacrifice on its altar and erecting an altar to Zeus within it. This was the original referent of Daniel 11:31.  

However, as we will see, the context of Mark 13:14 points instead to the defilement and destruction of the temple in AD 70. The beginning of Mark 13 makes it clear that the topic under discussion is when that temple will be destroyed. This event happened in AD 70.

Accordingly, this verse in Daniel has already had two fulfillments. Will it have a third? Time will tell. But before we go too far along that road, we should know that there is nothing that would lead us to expect another fulfillment. We will talk more about that question in chapter 7.

4. So, Old Testament passages apparently can have more than one fulfillment. Is Israel becoming a nation in 1948 another fulfillment of these verses? Far be it from me to say that it is not. God can fulfill Scripture however he wants to.

However, I am not sure that everyone who thinks so has actually reckoned with the fact that it has already been fulfilled. The first and primary fulfillment took place 2500 years ago. There is no need biblically for another fulfillment.

Someone might argue that some aspects of these passages remain unfulfilled. For example, not every Jew returned to Israel. On the other hand, it doesn't really say that every Jew would return. And, of course, far from every Jew has returned even today.

Israel did not generally have a king after the return either, and there was never a clear return of the northern kingdom to the land. We will think more about the fulfillment of Ezekiel in later chapters. Israel did briefly have a couple kings. In the early first century BC there were some kings of Israel, and Herod the Great was a king. Under Herod's rule, both north and south were united.

In later chapters, I will argue that Ezekiel cannot be precisely fulfilled because Hebrews and Revelation indicate God's glory will never fill an earthly temple again. This is not a problem because prophecy is often fulfilled in ways that were blurry to the prophet but that become clear in hindsight. Since we have the New Testament (and history), we know the precise fulfillments.
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Thanks. That helped get my juices flowing. Any suggestions about style or tenor are welcome!

Week in Review (March 23, 2024)

1. A lot of course writing this week again. Worked on a couple Kingswood microcourses. Here's one on Leading a Bible Study that I did the write-up on. Continued to work on a second-semester composition course, a Lifespan Development course, a Biology course, and more.

2. I largely paused my ads this week. My sense is that most sales occur from Thursday to Sunday, so I edited and turned a version of my ads back on yesterday. The ads do well. They get people to my landing page. People move from my landing page to a sales page. Good conversions there. A number of people even go into my Shopify check-out. It's only $9.99 for five e-books. I sent a couple follow-up emails to those who have already signed up too. 

No sales... well, except for some family members.

3. I pushed into the paperback versions this week. Most people still prefer paperbacks to ebooks. That may be part of my problem. You can ship paperbacks directly to people through Amazon at author cost. The problem is that it can take up to 10 days. 

I've rediscovered Lulu Press. They were the first press I self-published with. I thought Amazon would have put them out of business, but they have an impressive worldwide printing network. I had high hopes they would be the ticket. The quality of book product they facilitate is better than KDP on Amazon, IMO.

BUT their shipping price is outrageous, IMO. AND they take as long or longer than Amazon to ship. My sense is that most people in my shoes keep a stock of their paperbacks and ship them themselves. This of course would require me to buy lots of copies of my books well in advance of selling them without any guarantee they would actually sell. I could do this and may slowly stock up over time. By the way, I could do this with books I have written with conventional publishers as well, selling them through Shopify.

3. One of the more interesting things to happen this week was an inquiry about translating my systematic theology into French. The question was whether I would be interested in giving a certain mission group in Africa permission to work on a translation. Of course, I am. But I also indicated that I could have it in French by Monday, given the wonders of AI translation. I may go ahead and do that even if they do their own.

I continue to be very proud of this book. I feel like it is more accessible than most theologies. I think it is more practical. I think it is more real. And there just aren't many Wesleyan options out there.

4. I have about 100 people in my Schenck Book Club. They signed up, so I send them a couple emails a week so far. The course I took suggested that three emails a week is not onerous because people only read them if they hit them at a good moment. I promised them a couple more books by Pentecost. These are 1) novella #4 in the Gabriel sequence: Gabriel's Diaries: The Earliest Church and 2) Explanatory Notes on Acts 1-12. So I have about 7 weeks to get those finished. But will anyone read them???

5. I don't know if I ever shared my four-prong marketing strategy for this year. 

• Self-publishing -- this is the core business, selling on Amazon and now Shopify
• YouTube videos -- video atoms live here
• Udemy courses -- the videos assemble into courses here; books support the courses
• Patreon -- videos also make their way here for followers

It's still a trickle, but I probably bring in $250 a month from these venues. Obviously, I'd like to see that number in the thousands but oh well.

I hope you find this mildly amusing. Have a great week!

Week in Review (March 16, 2024)

I have always hoped that the reason why my books haven't sold as well as some others was marketing. I'm sure this is not entirely the case. :-)

After over $100 in marketing (really hardly anything), I had only two sales through Facebook last weekend. That's an $80 loss on the ad itself. I was hoping it was because it wasn't a payday, but thus far this weekend, the ad hasn't garnered any more sales even among the 50 or so people who signed up for my email list.

Yesterday I started running another ad with another bundle. This is 5 e-books for $9.99. The books are:

• Gabriel's Diary: The Enthronement
• Gabriel's Diary: The Incarnation
• Gabriel's Diary: The Creation
• Explanatory Notes on Mark's Passion Week
• Explanatory Notes on Jesus' Resurrection

Same setup as the other. Free ebook to introduce you to the series which then leads you to the offer of four more ebooks for only $9.99. Five books in all for only $10. Pretty good deal! 

I didn't have the time to work too extensively on this ad sequence. The ad gets a good reaction (although at way too high a cost per click), and the conversion rate for getting people on my email list is very good. But once on the list, they don't seem to download the free ebook or purchase the bundle. I don't know if a larger ad spend would make any difference.

I'll confess that I find it very discouraging. I know people who've written pretty trivial stuff who are selling 1000s on their personality. I mean books that have almost nothing in them. They sell because people like the author as far as I can tell. It's their magnetism. I mean, I have some charisma, but I don't have THAT x factor.

2. A good work week. I did have an encounter that had me chuckling a little. Someone seemed to take umbrage at our sales pitch. They let us know in no uncertain terms that their online courses were excellent, their faculty excellent, and that we could learn some things from the way they did online. Maybe so. I don't know. It felt a little out of nowhere to me.

Academics are funny people. Sometimes you have to be able to laugh at yourself.

Weeks in Review (March 9, 2024)

1. Time for my weekly check-in and journal of sorts. Work continues to boom. Working with more and more high schools and more and more colleges. Of the Wesleyan colleges, only Kinsgwood is working with us currently, I've expressed earlier my sadness that so much good is being done around rather than with our Wesleyan schools. I anticipate a day when we will contribute to the success of schools in direct competition with our Wesleyan schools even though we tried and tried.

Kingswood is the big exception. These last two weeks, microcourses on Urban Church Planting with Troy Evans and Apologetics with Adam Blehm dropped. I did the write-up for the Apologetics microcourse. So many good things are underway with Kingswood in partnership with Campus. It could have been that way for all the Wesleyan schools.

2. A week ago I launched Ken Schenck Books. Eventually, I hope it will be a one-stop shop for all my books, both that I have published officially with publishers and all the books I have self-published. This may require me to stock up and ship my own books, although I can ship through Amazon. The problem is how long Amazon takes to deliver author copies. It's like 10 days.

About 6 months ago, I started a course on self-marketing your own self-published books. Unless you're a well-promoted author (which is a select few), there's no money to be made with the normal system of publishing. And there's no money to be made with simple self-publishing through Amazon. Similarly, simple advertising on Facebook is pointless. Unsurprisingly, the system is rigged for Amazon and Facebook to make money off your futile dreams.

It remains to be seen whether my new venture will go anywhere. One week in, it is not encouraging. I write on too deep and detailed a level for the average audience, which of course is where the sales primarily are. Here is a brief tour of my venture.

3. The venture starts with Facebook ads. Above is one that has received 154 likes and 26 shares. It has been seen by about 4000 people on an ad spend of less than $20 a day. That ad spend is probably too low -- it takes money to make money, after all.

As you can see, I then send them to a landing page where I try to get them to sign up for a free ebook and join the Ken Schenck Club, cleverly named. Over the last couple months, I wrote a book for just that purpose, The Spiritual War for the World. You can get the ebook version for free if you put your email in the box.

About 150 people have clicked on the ad link on Facebook. Facebook keeps begging me to let it set the parameters of the ad, but I tried to target people who like theology and philosophy. Also, I tried to limit it to Facebook and Instagram feeds rather than watering it down everywhere in Meta's universe. Then about 50 people have given me their emails. A 33% conversion rate isn't bad for that part.

4. Once you give me your email, of course, I try to sell you on getting three additional ebooks for $9.99. These are previous (e)books I've written in upgraded form: Chats about God, The Problem of Evil and Suffering, and Who Decides What the Bible Means? 

Out of the 4000, only 2 have made it that far. Quite discouraging. Hours and hours of effort. Probably $1500 in set-up. I haven't given up. In many ways, this is expected. But I can't exactly say I'm in Joyland.

For those who signed up but haven't gone for the ebook versions, I've created a paperback offer where I will send them some $44 dollars worth of Amazon books for $19. Since at this point it will take over a week for the paperbacks to arrive, I'm throwing in the ebooks to read while they're waiting. On paper, it's an $80 deal for less than $20. Less than 24 hours in, no takers yet.

The books are of course on heavy topics. Stay tuned. On Friday (d.v.) I plan to unveil another book combo with another FB ad. Maybe novellas will do better than the ontological argument and the problem of evil.