Today, Dr Alan Bandy talks with Marilyn about his specialty: the book of Revelation
Gary Myers: My name is Gary Myers.
Joe Fontenot: And I'm Joe Fontenot.
Gary Myers: And we're the host of the Answering the Call Podcast.
Joe Fontenot: And this is the podcast we talk to people who are answering God's call. The Book of Revelation may be the most interesting and at the same time, the most misunderstood book of the Bible.
Gary Myers: It is. Today, Marilyn talks with Dr. Alan Bandy. He's one of the newest faculty members here at NOBTS and his specialty is the Book of Revelation and he has some great insights on the book.
Joe Fontenot: And so here's Alan.
Marilyn: Welcome. We are glad you and your family are here in New Orleans.
Alan Bandy: Thank you.
Marilyn: And we've got you on faculty as professor of New Testament in Greek. So this is exciting. We're glad that you're here. And we know that you have many years of teaching experience, but most recently at Oklahoma Baptist University, I think about 10 years. Is that right?
Alan Bandy: Yeah, 11 years.
Marilyn: 11 years?
Alan Bandy: Yeah, but one of the last year was-
Marilyn: So you've had lots of teaching experience at the college and seminary level. And so your specialization, as I understand, is in the Book of Revelation.
Alan Bandy: Yes.
Marilyn: Oh, exciting. That's an exciting book. And we're going to talk about that today. But before we get into Revelation, I wanted to ask you a little bit about your teaching experience and why you love the New Testament. Why is it just the love of your life in teaching?
Alan Bandy: Well, that's a great question. So kind of going back to my early years, I didn't grow up really in a active Christian home. And so in many ways I was very unchurched. And with my parents divorcing when I was younger, raised by a single mother, I was always a bit of a outcast, an oddball. I was diagnosed with a learning disability.
So I was put in special classes and I was super shy, so I never talked in school. And because of that, it was from the start. I was just always kind of never felt like I had a place. In many ways I felt like I was a mistake in life. And when I got into high school years, I was very much a kind of, I tell people a practicing pagan.
And I mean that in the actual Ne paganism of somewhat a Celtic, somewhat Eastern religions and philosophy and kind of was a self-declared agnostic. And started dating a girl who was at the time, I didn't realize it, but her dad was a pastor.
So like a pastor. And I ended up marrying her. So we met in high school and her dad wanted to interview me in order to date her. And I was really kind of infatuated with her.
Marilyn: This is kind of dating tips now.
Alan Bandy: Yeah. And so I went and I sat down to meet with him and he asked me a bunch of questions, and I'd gone to church enough to know kind of the Sunday school answer. So I'd be like, Jesus, the Bible says so. And so he left the state for whatever reason.
But over the course of that, especially that first year, he was constantly in my way. He had an authority about him. He was a bivocational pastor, construction worker, kind of a solid, just a man's man type person. And he intimidated me.
But he cared more about his daughter than he did my feelings. And so he always set restrictions. He was always there. And I always was making mistakes and kind of pushing the limits.
And after some time I knew I was just a mess up and he wanted to talk with me and I went over there to meet with him again. And first words out of his mouth, and I could tell he looked awful. I mean, he looked like he hadn't slept and his hair was everywhere, eyes were sunken in. And he said, I was up all night for you praying.
Marilyn: Oh my goodness.
Alan Bandy: And God told me he had a different plan for your life. So I'm not going to make you stop dating my daughter. I mean, it's been years and I'm still not over that. And he proceeded to share some Bible stories with me and he lectured me. He was a very positive male influence was something that I didn't have a lot of.
And so to get on his good side, I started going to church where he pastored and went forward to rededicate my life. And he met me at the back of the building and just with a little Bible study booklet, he said, "When do you want to meet?" I said, "What do you mean?"
And he said, "Well, you made this commitment. I'm going to hold you to it." And so we started meeting on Monday nights. I was just turned 17 and it was the first time I ever had a man or anybody sit down and explain scripture to me. And it was the first time I ever read the Bible. And oh, it was powerful. I didn't give my life to Christ that night.
But every Monday night we met for two hours and I was on clockwork. And then after about six months of that, he shared the gospel with me. And I don't even remember what he said, but I sensed the presence of the Lord and gave my life to Christ that night and it's never been the same since.
Marilyn: This is a bonus. I didn't expect to hear this fabulous testimony. What a testimony to the power of the gospel and scripture, and Christians that will simply live the gospel out and invite others. That's powerful.
Alan Bandy: And he was the real deal. I told him later, I said, I just assumed he was a hypocrite. So I kept looking to find where he was not the genuine thing. And he was always the real deal. And I was given over to drugs and alcohol and all those things. And after coming to Christ within that year, he delivered me from drugs, alcohol.
It was my senior year of high school and called me into ministry that summer. And from there, I started preparing to be a pastor and fell in love with learning and academics. And had professors pulling me aside out in class saying you're really good at this. You need to go farther. And before I knew it, I'm working on a PhD and, well, it wasn't before.
I know it seemed like a long arduous journey to get there. And I think what motivates me, there's two things. One, Christ made all the difference in my life. This is not just religion. It's not just good things to think about. It's, he's the real living Lord.
And when I read scripture and I've veraciously devoured scripture during those early years especially, and it was like I was meeting with him face to face and he was transforming my life. And it's the only book that has ever read me back as I've read it. And the truth and the life and the reshaping of my worldview and my thinking.
And so, I mean, I tell people all the time, it's a sin to make the Bible boring. This is the living word of God, and it's gotten hold deep in my soul. And I sometimes I'll be reading scripture and class and I'll just get emotional, and it's just because it's the powerful living word of God. And sometimes we treat it as something other than that.
Marilyn: Yes, we do. I read a quote by Robbie Zacharias not too long ago and he said... I mean, it was really convicting because he said, as Christians, we forget how beautiful the gospel is and how powerful the truth is. So I love stories like this.
Every Christian has a transformed life, but there are some of us like you and your testimony that really remind us that it is beautiful. It's a beautiful gospel and very powerful. Wow.
Alan Bandy: But the other reason I went into biblical studies was twofold. I had a professor who's a young guy, just finish up his PhD by the name of Chuck Corals.
Marilyn: A good friend of ours, Dr. Corals. We love Chuck and his family.
Alan Bandy: Dr. Corals, and he came in and he was teaching scripture in a way that was just so powerful and riveting. And that deeply influenced me. In fact, it was in his classes I decided I want to devote the rest of my life to studying the New Testament.
Marilyn: Oh, that's fantastic.
Alan Bandy: Because I was seeing so much more than I'd ever seen before in there. And I was preparing to be a pastor, but just deeply, I was convicted. I can never improve upon the word of God.
And so to study scripture and be well versed in knowing how to read it, how to teach it, how to understand it, what it says, that is the foundation of all ministry. And so I thought, well, that's what I'll do. I'll just focus on studying the Bible. And low and behold, here I am.
Marilyn: Then that kind of brings me to another question. Then as you see students come into your classroom, whether it's undergrad or graduate, I mean, we're kind of living in a day when I think we have missed that. What do you see that's lacking in either their knowledge or their love of the New Testament?
Alan Bandy: That's a really good question. Well, the easy answer is biblical illiteracy. They don't know the Bible, but it's coupled with this, they think they know the Bible. So it's familiarity with it, especially if they've grown up in church, gone to Christian school, gone camp, done all those things, been in the youth group, gone to college.
There's this familiarity with it like, oh, I know what the Bible says, but they've never really dug in deep and never really read it in such a way that, or learned how to read it even better where it can come to life and they could see it and understand it.
And so often the biggest obstacle, even at OBU, the first day of freshman New Testament survey students go, oh, I went to so and so private school. I know the Bible. We had a Bible class. There's not much I'm going to learn in here.
And after about a week of class, they would come and say, I've now ever known any of that. Wow. There's so much more in the Bible. And that's the thing. I mean, I've been studying this book now for 25 years or more, actually closer to 30. Man, I'm getting old.
Marilyn: Whenever. We're not going to talk age.
Alan Bandy: Just blink and decades go by. But I mean, I've been studying it for 30 years and I can never exhaust it. There's always something more and something new, even familiar passages. There's a detail that I never picked up on before. And it's just this mind altering spiritual transforming moment where the word of God speaks afresh to me.
Marilyn: There are a lot of books that I think are very helpful. I even have a book that I picked up at a used bookstore and even just information about life in the first century, I have found ads to what the bond is saying. It makes that come alive.
And so there are a lot of things out there that we can use even in places when you're not expecting it, that can kind of bring the story together and make it a story. You're not reading just a history book, but you're reading about the earliest Christians and what they had to go through.
Alan Bandy: Yeah. Trying to read scripture and with an awareness of its original context, who it was written to, that world of that day, how it communicated to them so that they can understand how it communicates to us today.
And it's the biggest obstacle I have found in a long time of teaching is that, especially when it comes to the Bible, it seems like everybody who's gone to church feels like, oh, well, we know the Bible, right? We need to learn all these other things.
We already know what the Bible says. And it's just, we don't. And it's that familiarity, which I think can become an idol. And it's the sense of, I know what the Bible says. I need to know these other things that I feel is detrimental for the spiritual health of the church, as well as for our students.
Marilyn: I'm not the expert here, but one of the things I have found in my own life is that it's helpful to read the whole book through maybe even in one sitting because it's broken up into verses or paragraphs, and we tend to go do our quiet time and read just a little bit. And so then the next day we come back and maybe we have forgotten, or we missed the connection or the flow. And reading it all at one time is pretty helpful.
Alan Bandy: There's a lot of work done on the orality of the New Testament. So when it was written, Paul writes a letter to a church, well, not everybody in the church has a copy of the letter. It's just one person. And they read it out loud to the congregation.
And so the kind of the way we approach Bible is we look at a verse and we spend a whole day looking at this one verse. But the way it was delivered was it was meant to be heard all in one sitting. So whoever would read Philippians to the entire congregation, the entire congregation would sit there and listen to the message because it's the whole letter.
Now, you can dig down deep and focus on parts of it, but I think there's great benefit, not just to reading it all the way through, but even listening to it read all the way through using some sort of audio Bible, because you're hearing it in a way that it was intended to be communicated.
And you begin to see connections and themes and how he starts with one thing and develops it over here. And we sometimes miss that. It's the difference between looking at the tree versus seeing the forest. And so I think we need both. We need to be able to pull back and see the entire flow of thought and how it communicates and then focus in on the individual parts and then pull back, get perspective, go back in.
Marilyn: Interesting. So that brings me to Revelation. I want to get started on that. And so I'm going to start with this question. Was Revelation read to the churches like Paul's letters or the others?
Alan Bandy: Yes. In fact, it talks about that in the Book of Revelation, it says, blessed is the one who hears this book. It's the only book of the Bible that promises a blessing to just hearing it. And so it was given so even in the message to the seven church to the angel of the church of so such.
It was sent as a letter, a circular letter to the cities and Asia Minor there. And whoever would've been the leader, the elder, the local church prophet would read it in one setting. In fact, Revelation is better experienced than it is just read.
Marilyn: Interesting. I like the way you said that.
Alan Bandy: Because even in the description, because it's a very visual book, right. It's a record of a vision. There's sounds, there is different noises. The volume gets turned up. There's times where it's completely silent, gets silent in heaven. There's John eats things, he tastes things.
There's the sound of water. There's all kinds of audio descriptions and even experiential descriptions. And I think that's one of the unique things about the medium of kind of the visionary apocalyptic writing, because it allows somebody to participate in what John himself is experiencing.
Marilyn: Engages all the senses-
Alan Bandy: It engages all the senses.
Marilyn: ... even smell.
Alan Bandy: Even smell, like burning sulfur. So it does. When you read it, you realize it's engaging every single sense we have, sight, sound, taste, touch. So I think that I would even argue, and I don't have historical basis for this, but that it would be read in one setting.
It could take about an hour just to read it through in front of a church. But I think that the person reading it might have even acted it out somewhat dramatically. There's been some work done on that in scholarship that the narration, the reading of these things would be done with a little bit of a dramatic flare.
Marilyn: I can see that.
Alan Bandy: And I think that may have happened because it definitely communicates that way.
Marilyn: Sure. And maybe they would choose somebody that was able to really read in a way that would get those.
Alan Bandy: Yeah. So you read it like the ancient historical handbooks, rhetorical handbooks. They talk about various hand motions and ways of inflecting the voice. So good public speaking involved, something much more dynamic than just saying something out loud.
Marilyn: All right. So let me see if I can get to a couple of things.
Alan Bandy: Okay. Sure.
Marilyn: Now your book is Understanding Prophecy: A Biblical-theological Approach. And you wrote this with Benjamin Merkle. But you've written on Revelation in several places, but this is a book that deals with Revelation in the last chapter.
And you mentioned that genre is a very important thing to understand when you talk about Revelation and you write this, Revelation is a prophecy using an apocalyptic medium and preserved as a letter addressed to first century churches.
And so we've got apocalypse, prophecy, letter altogether. So I want to start with just that. There's so much we could talk about here, but in terms of just when talk about apocalyptic literature, we mean metaphor, symbol, figurative language.
So one of the big things that you notice first when you get into Revelation are the numbers and the number seven is just used extensively. I'm going to mention some places where it's not just seven, but even sets of seven.
Alan Bandy: Yeah, series of seven.
Marilyn: So we've got seven blessings, seven angels, seven churches, seven spirits of God, seven golden lamp stands, seven stars, seven seals, seven horns. seven trumpets, thunders heads, plagues, bowls, heel. It just goes on and on and on. So tell me about the number seven. Let's just start there.
Alan Bandy: Right. Boy, there's a lot I want to say. Probably the best way to see it is the number seven, numbers do have significance in the Book of Revelation. I think it's easy to make more out of the numbers that's there, but they definitely have a symbolic value. You also have threes used repeatedly and fours used, like the four horsemen of the apocalypse and so on and so forth.
Marilyn: Four visions.
Alan Bandy: Four visions. And so what these numbers are communicating. So I would argue that the overall genre is prophecy. And apocalyptic is a sub-genre, a prophecy. And even in our books of the Bible in the Old Testament that are prophetic, they're put in poetic verse because there's a lot of figurative language used there.
And it's just part of the way it communicates. It communicates in a way through poetry, through imagery. So an apocalyptic one is much more visionary. And the visionary heightens the symbolic and way that it's communicating in those ways. So the number seven is patterned off of the seven days of creation.
Marilyn: Oh, I see.
Alan Bandy: Yeah. So day one, day two, and then he rests on the seventh, so you have the Sabbath. So seven becomes, even in other places in the scripture, symbolic of perfection, symbolic of completion. So looking for that fullness of something. So the seven spirits of God is not necessarily indicating that there's seven distinct spirits, but it's the spirit of completion, perfection.
Marilyn: A wholeness, the entire.
Alan Bandy: Yes, that's right. The seven churches, it is addressing seven historical congregations in Asia Minor, but I've been there. I've been to those places a number of times.
Marilyn: I wondered if you had been.
Alan Bandy: Yeah, several times and there were cities all around it with churches. So why just seven? So seven in a way then becomes representative of those individual con conversations, but at the end of each of those messages to the seven churches, it says, let the one who has ears here, what the spirit says to the churches, plural.
So each individual church is addressed, but then all the churches are supposed to hear it. So ultimately, it's representative. While it is addressing various circumstances in those unique settings, it's also a message to the entirety of the church.
Marilyn: And so this would also apply in whatever part that it's using, for example, the bowls that represent plagues and the wrath of God. So it it's symbolizing just the total wrath of God, the response of God.
Alan Bandy: Yes, the completion of it. Now, that doesn't necessarily rule out an enumeration of individual seven bowls. But the totality of it, it says with it, the wrath of God is complete. And so it's representing perfection, wholeness, entirety. And so that's typically how seven is used. Six is used as in completion.
Marilyn: I see.
Alan Bandy: And it's also the number of humanity because man was created on the sixth day. So the 666, the 666, it says, it's the number of the beast. It's the number of man. And the word beast there is also interesting because John never uses the word antichrist ever in the entire Book of Revelation. He uses it in first, John, but not in Revelation. He uses beast.
So I was doing some work back on my dissertation, I mean, many moons ago and I came across some ancient Roman writers critiquing what they viewed was tyrants, empires that were tyrants, that were abusing their authority, that were harsh, mean. And the way that they were characterized was beast. So beast became synonymous with tyrant.
Marilyn: Now, that makes sense. So the people that hear this book in the first century, by the way, which in terms of day, to just give some context, we're talking about towards the very end of the first century, is that what you think?
Alan Bandy: That's where I think, yes. I mean, there are those that would date it, in the 60s or 70s. I put it in the 90s, a little bit more traditional dating there.
Marilyn: Which, in the first century, this is after the temple has been destroyed. And so this is a very significant time and for the Jewish people because they are feeling the heavy hand of the Roman Empire. So as they read this, how would they understand all these different symbols? And what would they get from this message? Would they leave with goosebumps and a feeling of God is going to have the final say. What would they think?
Alan Bandy: Yeah, that's a good question. So as a side note, I do affirm what's called the late date, 95 to 96 AD, end of the first century going back to the time of Irony S and some other church father. That's when it was kind of located. Other interpreters put it during the time of the 60, AD 60 before the destruction of the temple.
Now, the reason that's important is because you have a school of thought known as Preterism, which is a Latin word that means already passed. So what they argue is that it was written in the 60s during the time of Niro, and it's a prophecy against Jerusalem.
And the arguments they give is it mentions the city where Jesus was crucified, Sodom, and they say this is all about Jerusalem. So you have Babylon the harlot. And so they'd say it was the temple of the day. And so they see it as a prophecy against Jerusalem specifically, whereas I date it later.
Now, the difference between those two is fairly significant. So I would identify the Harlot City as Rome, not Jerusalem. I would take the city where their Lord was crucified more metaphorically to refer to human civilization as opposed to specifically Jerusalem.
So there's a lot of harmonistically things that probably are beyond what we can do here. It takes me a while to teach through Revelation because I got to lay those foundations so that you don't think I'm just some hair take or something. So going back to your question then, how would a Jewish person read it? Well, it depends when it was written.
So if it is about Jerusalem, then they would see it as God's people being redeemed and the marriage of the lamb returning to the Messiah, all of these things, the kingdom of David reestablished, after the corruption of the temple worship and all, so forth. Where I see it is I see it written to a audience in Asia Minor, modern day Turkey, because that's who it's addressed to.
Marilyn: And that's where these seven churches are.
Alan Bandy: That's where the seven churches are. Which the churches themselves would've been predominantly Gentile in their makeup. There would've been Jewish believers. Paul founded the church in Ephesus and some other places where it would've had a Jew-Gentile mix, which Paul's ministry in particular was that you belong to Christ.
You're neither Jew nor Gentile, you're now in Christ. You're people of God that way. But of course, John is different than Paul. But I don't think necessarily it's addressed to the Jewish people exclusively, if that makes sense.
Marilyn: Yes, it does.
Alan Bandy: I believe it's addressed to the people of God. And the people of God in Christ would be those who are Jews and Gentiles. So in my own work on Revelation, my dissertation was on the prophetic lawsuit. And probably time won't allow me to really explain all that.
But part of what I see happening in there as I was investigating what's going on in the situation of the churches. So kind of the traditional view is that there was an extreme persecution. Emperor Domitian is persecuting Christians, so forth.
Well, basically all the historical evidence points that there was no imperial sanctioned persecution during the two time of Domitian. Now, origin and some other church fathers said that Domitian was like Nero and he was a savage and he persecuted the church.
But the actual records show that there might have been some aggression towards some Christians in Rome, but it wouldn't necessarily have been all empire wide, in the provinces. So part of what I was exploring was so the language you have in the letters you have, the synagogue of Satan, those who call themselves Jews and are not, and those types of language.
And then you have in Pergamum you have Antipas who is the witness who died for Christ. He's the only one named who had died for his faith in the book Revelation. So I did a lot of, kind of social, historical, cultural study to try to figure it out. And there's a number of things going on here.
First of all, the provinces, and Asia Minor being that province, benefited under Domitian. Domitian liked the provinces better than Rome. And so he gave them a lot of money. And so they competed to show him their favor and loyalty because he liked loyalty. And so they would do things to try to honor him.
They built a temple for him, they did different things. In AD 92, the third Imperial cult temple was built in Ephesus by Domitian. Huge structure. That would've corresponded with John being there. I don't think Domitian actually sent John into exile. I think the governor of Ephesus did.
Marilyn: Oh, you do?
Alan Bandy: Yeah.
Marilyn: Okay. That's interesting.
Alan Bandy: I think it's the governor of Ephesus. And the reason is because Domitian wouldn't care about John.
Marilyn: Yeah. He was in Rome. He's the big guy.
Alan Bandy: But having a temple. So in the Greco-Roman cities, you see this in the inscriptions of these places, the phrase Neocoros, which means temple warden. And to host the Imperial temple was a huge honor. People competed for that for cities kind of like they compete for the Olympics.
And so that's a big deal for the city. It also means that they're loyal, they worship and honor the emperor, all those types of things. So here you have this old Christian leader that's well respected and well loved by people and there's this big temple and he's not going to worship there.
He's seen a seditious, dangerous. So I think the governor exiled him to remove his influence from those areas because he didn't want to do anything to make it look like they're tolerating people who aren't loyal.
Marilyn: Well, that seems very plausible to me. And of course, the first century church struggle, especially where there were Gentiles of Syncretism, of mixing and matching.
Alan Bandy: Right. So that would be the pressure. So for these Gentiles, in fact, when he talks about the prophetess at Throatier and other places, by and large, the understanding is they're basically saying you can be part of the trade guilds and have their various deities that they honor and have Jesus. So here's where a lot of the pressure was felt.
Well, if I'm faithful to Christ alone and I'm not worshiping these other gods, I'm not going to be able to practice my business because you can't practice business without being part of a trade guild. So there's an economic consequence to faithful to Christ.
There's the political consequence that perhaps you'd be seen as not being loyal to the emperor and therefore you're a danger. But then you also had from the Jewish people, the synagogue of Satan. They claim to be Jews and are not, is what Jesus says.
So what's going on here? Well, so the destruction of the temple represented a crisis for the Jewish people. And it's not until after the destruction of the temple that you find a clear definite in history point where Jews wanted to disassociate from Christians as a separate religion. So Christianity in its earliest stages was really a sect of Judaism.
It was an offshoot of that. They're following the Jewish Messiah. They were viewed as Jewish. Roman law allowed Jews to practice their ancestral religion without participating in the other temples and other deities. So they had legal protections.
Christians, because they were seen as a Jewish sect benefited from those legal protections. So what I think is happening in the 90s in particular in these cities is the Jewish congregation are making more concerted effort to say no, they're not with us.
Marilyn: Not them.
Alan Bandy: Okay. So the language, he said, the slander of those. Well slander, there is blasphemeo, which is used in the law court and it represents those who bring an accusation against somebody in a court of law. So what I think is happening is they're saying, no, they can't have these legal protections because Christianity was not legally protected.
There weren't always necessarily laws against it, but they had no legal protection. So Jews could not participate in certain things and be okay, but not Christians. And so I think what they're doing is trying to bring them before the local government and the magistrates to say, no, they're not with us. We don't acknowledge them.
And accusing them of various things to try to get them in trouble, to try to shut them down. And that's why Jesus is like some of you are going to go to prison, some of you... And they call themselves Jew, the slander of those. But basically I deal with them. So it's not anti-Semitic, it's not anti-Jewish at all.
But I think what it is saying that at this time, those who are the true people of God are those that follow Christ. As it forms of religion is distinct from that of the worship of the Messiah. So there's this parting of the ways, if you will. And I see that reflected. Now, ultimately there's that hope for the Jewish people and for Israel.
That does seem to run throughout scripture. So it's not anything. So that's why I'm saying, I think the audience would've been primarily Gentile. It would've been these believers. Many of them would've been Jewish. Many of them would've been purely Gentile. But it was a message to them, and it was encouraging them to be faithful to Christ no matter what.
Marilyn: Yes. And you see that in each of the churches.
Alan Bandy: Each of the churches.
Marilyn: Either repent or at least persevere.
Alan Bandy: So it's a call to radical faithfulness and it's against idolatry. But a call to radical faithfulness to Christ so that if I'm killed, if I'm imprisoned, if I lose my business, if I can't buy or sell anything, if the government mandates the worship of a beast and I'm not going to worship it and I'm going to be killed because of it.
And so it seems like they're winning. So you have in Revelation 6:9 and 10, the fifth seal breaks and the altar in heaven is revealed and the souls in the altar and they cry out how long oh Lord. How long until you vindicate us. And the answer is a little while longer until the rest of your brothers and sisters come in.
So say all that to say this, it's a book that anticipates martyrdom. It's a book that's basically the kind of encouraging them to be faithful, to face death. And the souls under the altar, I call the star witnesses and they're crying out for justice. God, when will you fix this?
When will you judge those who judged us? This was wrong. We're innocent and yet we paid for it. And the message of Revelation is, hang on, it's coming. He will judge those who judged you. He will deal with them. But there's going to be more that come in before that happens.
Marilyn: Well, so let me just back up a minute and see if I am following you. I've always thought that the Roman Empire would allow people to kind of live the way they wanted as long as they did certain things, pay the taxes, kind of do what they want you to do.
If you didn't cause trouble, they were kind of happy with that. And so what I think I'm hearing you say is that these Gentile churches were feeling more of a pressure from the Jewish people that were there. And that's what kind of brought them into.
Alan Bandy: At least in some of the cities. So maybe not everywhere. So every church, like Thyatira they had a false prophetess who's encouraging them to eat food, sacrifice to idols, and engage in those things. And so Jesus deals with them differently. For Philadelphia and Smyrna, they're experiencing pressure from the synagogue.
And what's interesting is they're the only ones Jesus has nothing negative to say to, and he basically just says, hang on, be faithful. So it's every city had its own set of issues that are being addressed. There's no one size fits all because it really depends on the context. I mean, Laodicea was wealthy and comfortable.
And so because of that, they had to deal with the things. So they might not have been feeling any social pressure, no persecution, no difficulties. So what I would say is there was no widespread persecution, but it manifested in different ways.
There was either internal struggles within the church, or there was external pressure from various groups. So it might have been Roman government, might have been the local synagogue that was being antagonistic. It depend on the circumstance and the situation there.
Marilyn: Okay. Now, you can't read those first few chapters of Revelation and the letters to the church and not feel uncomfortable if you're a Christian. And a lot of that was that rebuke about not staying true to Christ, but allowing these other false teachings or other things in.
So in that sense, I see it could speak to every generation of Christians. But I also wanted to just give you a chance to explain why should we be interested in Revelation? Where is the message to every Christian? Where is it universal?
Alan Bandy: Yeah. Great. So I do think it is historically conditioned in some of the specifics, but I do think there's a universal truth that is communicated in all of those. So those seven messages in particular, which by the way, most people stop there and think that's the only thing it says to the church. The entire Book of Revelation is a message to those churches.
Marilyn: Yes. Tell me more about that too. I want to hear more about that too.
Alan Bandy: It goes back and forth to those letters. So it's like, that's the introductory part, but everything that it's saying is still speaking to the same audience. What was I saying? To completely lost my grit.
Marilyn: Sorry about that.
Alan Bandy: It's okay.
Marilyn: About how it's universal.
Alan Bandy: Oh, yeah. So it's universal, right? So the call is faithfulness to Christ, overcoming the world, being a victor. What does that look like? Well, in some circumstances, it means being willing to die, being willing to face whatever penalties come legally. In other cases, it means repenting of their sin or their complacency.
So as prophecy, good prophecy throughout the Bible is a call to action. It's not just a call of here's knowledge just for the sake of knowing the future. It's here's what God is saying, and here's what you're to do in response. It's always a call to action. Always. And so the call is for them to overcome.
It's a book of encouragement to reinforce endurance no matter what. So why does apocalyptic genre work the way it does? Well, so what it does is it gives us a heavenly glimpse of the reality that might be different from our current circumstance. So the current circumstance, even historically, it feels like we're marginalized, we're not winning.
It seems like injustice prevails. Wickedness seems to thrive. Where's God? When is he going to do something about this? So my current reality is, boy, this is rough. But then I get a glimpse of the heavenly throne room and God seated on his throne and all the worship of heaven surrounding it.
Marilyn: It's beautiful.
Alan Bandy: And he's in absolute control. And everything as alpha and omega, he will bring it to conclusion. There is no ringing of the hands or worrying, is this all going to work out? It's already decided. And then he will take... I was just speaking about this in class today.
Someone asked me, I tell people, I say, when people ask me my political view, I give them Jesus' model prayer, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
That the longing of my heart, and my hope, and my expectation is that God's rule and reign will be realized here, not in an earthly political system, but when the Messiah returns and establishes his kingdom on earth. And there'd be no more death, no more disease, no more curse. The Bible says there'd be no more sun because the light of his face will illuminate.
Marilyn: Be enough. It is a beautiful, beautiful book. And I think sometimes, I'd love to hear what you say about this, but I think as 21st century Americans, all that imagery is really hard for us to understand the picture. It's not the kind of imagery that we would use. We are used to superheroes and things like that. But in terms of describing something beautiful, we see pictures. But trying to describe it is always different.
Alan Bandy: It is. And it stretches the limits of human language and conception. I often when I'm teaching how even the vision of heaven works. So let's just say, we do a thought experiment here, I was born blind. I've never seen anything. Describe the color green to me.
Marilyn: I don't know how I'd even begin to start on that because we always compare it to something that we know.
Alan Bandy: Something that we know.
Marilyn: Green is the color of grass.
Alan Bandy: Okay. So what does that look like? I mean, it doesn't tell me what green is. So then when you're taking something that is the heavenly reality of God and his kingdom, which is beyond what we can even fully understand here and now, how do you describe that? So that's part of the reason why John's language.
I used to, when I was pastoring, be invited to speak at different places. And I did a Bible study at a nursing community kind of independent living. And I taught on Revelation because all of our understanding of heaven, think of the images, streets of gold, probably the gates, all of these things, Revelation. You don't find a lot of it in anywhere else in the Bible.
Marilyn: It's in Revelation.
Alan Bandy: It's in Revelation. And so it becomes my go-to place when I think of what is the eschatological hope. And I'll just say this in terms of what is the overall theology. And I'll have to read it because it's just worth reading.
It's in Revelation 21, and it says, he sees the New Jerusalem coming down. And then it says, and he said, it is done. I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty, I will give water without cost and to them... Oh, I'm sorry. I messed that up. You might have to edit that out.
Marilyn: That's okay.
Alan Bandy: Where is it? It's just before that, Verse 5. He, who was seated on the throne, said, I am making everything new. Write it down. These words are trustworthy and true. Revelation is not about the destruction of the world.
Revelation is about God renewing his good creation that was ruined by sin, death, disease, the way that we understand the world all because of Adam's fall. What he created was good and perfect and right in the Garden of Eden. The Book of Revelation ends with the Garden of Eden-
Marilyn: Yes, it does.
Alan Bandy: ... on earth where even the New Jerusalem and the temple is described with garden imagery.
Marilyn: Beautiful.
Alan Bandy: There's the river of life with the trees of life bringing forth its fruit and every season. And all the language is garden imagery because in German, the saying is [foreign language 00:47:55], the end will be as the beginning.
Marilyn: Oh, that's a perfect way to say it. I like that.
Alan Bandy: The final goal is God removing the curse from his creation and making it all new.
Marilyn: This is a perfect place to stop. I will just add this one thing. C. S. Lewis always talked about beauty, enjoying how it makes your heart ache, that longing. And that's kind of the sense that I sometimes get when I read Revelation, that longing, that when we see Jesus, we're going to really have such joy, it's going to make our hearts ache, maybe. That's what I picture.
Alan Bandy: And just to ping off of that, when I was first a Christian, I was just so excited about the salvation I had and all these things. The longer I walk with Christ, the more homesick I become and the less at home I feel in this world.
And when I read Revelation in particular, my heart yearns in a way. When I see all the natural disasters and the death and the ruin and the hatred and the violence, I'm just yearning for God to set everything right back in his creation. How long, oh, Lord?
Marilyn: How long? And come, Lord Jesus. Come.
Alan Bandy: Come, Lord Jesus. Amen.
Marilyn: Thank you very much. I've enjoyed this.
Alan Bandy: You're welcome.
Gary Myers: Hey, it's Gary and Joe here again. Would you do us a favor?
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Gary Myers: This would mean the world to us. Thanks.