Sooooo.....
After something I saw this morning, and after a nice 5 mile hike today to think about what it was I saw this morning, I thought taking a few minutes to blog would be apropos. If you are the inquisitive type hang out with me for a few minutes. If you already have everything figured out, go see if you can find a re-run of Gilligan's Island. Great show, by the way. Love it.
Two words I'd like to throw out in the way of introduction to some, and review to others: Eisegesis and Exegesis. "Woah, Jamie, those are some awful fancy words." Not so much. Just bear with me a second. Both of them deal with biblical interpretation, but one is more important to deep biblical study than the other.
If your pastor isn't spending several, and I mean several hours each week doing exegesis in his/her sermon prep, he/she is doing you a disservice. Exegesis defined is thus; "Critical explanation of interpretation of a text, especially of scripture." Exegesis helps to answer some very important questions of the text. Who was it written to? When was it written? Where was it written? Why was it written? What was the writer's agenda? What was going on in the world at the time it was written?
We need to know the answers to those questions in order to do a critical deep dive into the text. Without taking the time to properly exegete a text, we wind up reading our own biases and opinions into the text, which brings us to the other word; eisegesis. Eisegesis is exactly that. Per the definition, it's a subjective process of reading our own biases, personal opinions, or preconceived notions into a text, rather than deriving meaning out of the text.
Eisegesis, for example, is reading the book of Revelation and interpreting it ONLY as a futuristic, apocalyptic text because that is how we, in this part of the country, were taught to read it. Exegesis, on the other hand, is reading the book of Revelation and asking quesitons like the ones I mentioned just a minute ago. When was Revelation written? Who wrote it? Where was it written? If John actually wrote it, what were his intentions in writing it? See the difference?
And that brings me to the real reason I wanted to sit down a write for a bit; interpreting the Book of Revelation. And it is just Revelation, singular. Not Revelations, plural. That's just a pet peeve of mine. Like Psalms is Psalms if you're talking about the whole book, but only Psalm if you're talking about one. I digress. Anyhoo... back to Revelation.
It blows my mind, that in practically every church I've ever served, when I have mentioned a small group study, most folks want to study Revelation. Actually, it doesn't blow my mind. I get it, and I think the reason is that it has been so poorly interpreted throughout the last couple hundred years, or not really even interpreted at all. So, let's take a few minutes for a crash course on interpreting the Book of Revelation.
I will start by saying that I am no biblical scholar. Not by a long shot. In fact, systematic theology bores me to tears. I'm a practical theologian. Show me what Jesus says we need to do to make this spinning orb we all inhabit just a little closer to the kingdom of God on earth. I'm all about that. But folks want to jump into Revelation, so let's. Shall we?
There are four major accepted schools of thought for interpreting Revelation. Here they are in list form, then we'll take just a minute and break each one down; Preterist, Futurist, Historicist, and Idealist.
In the Preterist interpretation, the events described in the Book of Revelation have already happened. It's a commentary on life in the first century church under the persecutions of emperor Nero. One of his nicknames was actually, "the beast." Sound familiar? For folks who read Revelation through a Preterist interpretation, all the prophecies in it were fulfilled in the first century, therefore, it holds no fear for us today. I am of this school of thought.
In the Futurist interpretation, the prophecies in Revelation are yet to happen. Now, let me pause here and say a word about where this comes from . The rapture, the tribulation are fairly new constructs. In the middle of the 19th century, a fellow by the name of John Nelson Darby came up with the idea of dispensations. I'm not going to take the time to get into all of that, you can do a deep dive on your own about him. It's quite the interesting rabbit hole. But, it was because of John Darby, and later, the Schofield Bible, that we even have the idea of Revelation as some terrifying, future event. So, that interpretation of this most ominous book of scripture is less than 200 years old. This means, that for 1800 years, give or take, Revelation may not have been read that way.
In the Historicist interpretation, the symbolism in Revelation has played out over and over throughout history. One antichrist? No, there may have been several. One persecution? Nah, could be several. The actual definition that I found is this; it interprets the symbols in Revelation as a timeline of church history from the apostolic age to the end of the world, often identifying events like the rise of the Papacy or the Reformation. If you get bored, jump down that rabbit hole sometime.
Then finally, the Idealist interpretation. This one could be the most vague, but also the most comforting. It's all symbolic. There is no literal interpretation of events. There's no timeline. There's no Hal Lindsey, no John Hagee, no LaHaye/Jenkins. None of those guys. According the definition, it's just a "symbolic representation of the ongoing, timeless battle between God and evil, good and wickedness." I could also get behind this one, but then again, I read very little of scripture literally.
Now, why is all of this important? (The following may contain a little language, but we're all adults here)
Because today, I saw that our government has declared that this past weekend's bombing of Iran was commanded by God to put into motion the events leading to Armageddon. Armageddon being the final end all/be all battle between good and evil as outlined in Darby's interpretation of Revelation. I kid you not. They actually said that. What the hell were they thinking?
Here is where that becomes problematic.
One, let's begin with Matthew 24:36, which says, and I quote, "But about that day or hour NO ONE KNOWS, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father." I'm quite certain that information wasn't leaked via signal chat to our head of the "department of war."
Two, this is Israel's war, not ours, and certainly not the church's. I fully support and love my Jewish brothers and sisters, BUT the nation of Israel, formed in 1948, IS NOT the biblical nation of Israel. Pretty much the entirety of the Old Testament tells us about how, time after time, the Biblical nation of Israel turned away from God, and God did this or that to bring them back. The major prophets, the minor prophets, it's all there. Nowhere does scripture command us to support the current nation of Israel as has been alluded to by the things we've heard from government heads in the last 24 hours.
Third, the entire premise that God has commanded this invasion of Iran to set into motion events leading to the final battle between good and evil is based on biblical interpretation that, if it were human, is in elementary school. Less than 200 years old, out of 2000.
But, this coming Sunday, in pulpits all across America, men and women will stand in front of their people and vomit back up the words we heard this morning from the secretary of "their wars," in total disregard to solid, scholarly, exegetical work of the text. This should not be so, and at best, it's horrible interpretational work, and at worst, it poisons the minds of those who hear it.
The God I serve is all about liberation, but I can't imagine that being at the cost of hundreds, thousands of innocent lives. If war is your only option, you're not a very good negotiator, Full stop.
If this country wants to go to war, fine. I don't support it. I will speak against it. But at the end of the day my vote is only one among millions.
But I will be damned if I sit silently by and watch them blame their war on the God I have given my life to serving. This week, God's heart is breaking right along with yours.
So, if you want to support this war, go ahead. I'm not going to try to stop you. If you want to post the memes, the flags (and remember that John Prine said your flag decal won't get you into heaven anymore) go ahead. If you want to share the videos, and applaud the bombings, knock yourself out. Don't expect me to agree. Don't expect me to be silent. And by damn, don't you dare bring the God I serve into your war. Own it yourself.
