I avoided studying, and even reading ‘end time’ Scripture for most of my faith journey. Growing up, I would hear some of the most fantastic ideas and theories about the end times. I’d hear others enjoy lively debates about end times, pre-trib this, post-trib that, it just seemed like everyone was guessing and throwing darts so I steered clear.

This past year, it’s been fascinating to dig into the various genres of scripture. Scripture, history and culture truly make lovely bedfellows. What the biblical authors intended to communicate, what the original readers understood, are often, I’m learning, so significantly missed by our 21st century western experience.

One example is the rich symbolism and metaphoric language embedded in the Old Testament, and in pagan mythology of the day. For a short interpretative exercise this week, we had to study Revelation 13. I’m pasting below some of my initial findings related to inter-textuality, or how John’s use of Daniel, Hosea and the like are weaved into a synthesized, monolithic ‘beast’, the worldly opposing forces throughout the ages which Israel, and now the Church are up against, and continue to ‘battle’ until Christ’s return ushers in the victory already secured through our victorious Lamb!

The most striking inter-textual connections in Revelation 13 for me are the descriptions of the beast rising out of the sea. Specifically I focused on verse 2 with the symbolism of the leopard, bear and lion.

Proverbs 28:15 says, “Like a roaring lion or a charging bear
    is a wicked ruler over a helpless people.”

There are actually many surprising combination references in the OT which combine lions and bears as Israel’s foreign overlords at different periods of their history. As far back as 1 Samuel 17:34-36 when David is before the Philistine giant, he essentially calls Goliath and his nation a lion and bear.

Lamentations 3:10 is another interesting passage in which the writer laments that God is like a bear lying in wait, and a lion in hiding, ready to pounce in judgement due to their apostasy. God has a history of using foreign actors to bring his judgement to Israel.

Hosea 13:7-8, I think, might be a key in understanding what the first century would have thought about Revelation 13 and the emerging beast. Hosea’s ministry took place well before the Babylonian exile and destruction of Solomon’s Temple. The prophet warns, “so I will become like a lion to them, like a leopard I will lurk along the way.”

Daniel, in his famous chapter 7 description of four different beasts, I think, is borrowing from Hosea’s vision of emerging political forces and captors. John then seems to synthesize them. While we can guess at which animal represents which world power (e.g. Persian/Mede bear, Alex the Great Hellenistic leopard), it seems as though John is borrowing a range of OT texts and ideas to symbolize something a historic but now ongoing reality for the Jewish / Gentile church as well?

Both Daniel’s and John’s beast arrive by surfacing from the sea (Dan 7:3, Rev 13:1). Both Daniel’s and John’s beast speaks arrogantly, and breath threats against God’s people (Dan 7:8, 11, Rev 13:5). Daniel clearly interprets the four beasts as political powers/kings (7:17).  I think it would be quite difficult for John’s original audience, particularly those familiar with the Book of Hosea/Daniel to conjure up meanings for John’s beast beyond it’s past and present political, oppressive powers – especially with Rome at the height of its glory! 

I’m learning that “symbols do not conceal; they reveal” (Achtemeire 2001, 561). In the inter-textuality of the beasts symbolism, I’m seeing “words, deeds, symbols, pointing forward and backward constantly throughout the Bible” (Clifford PDF, p.16).

We drove 40 minutes to Stavy, a small village just west of us to visit Mark and Masha today. They are living in their parents massive, old school house which their family lived in for several years before moving back to Ontario, Canada.

They are open to using the property for hosting some retreats, or however the Lord might use this wonderful space. We call our guest house the big house, this makes our big house look like a small house! It’s probably 6000-7000sf of space, and was designed for a fostering / orphan ministry. Masha used to live next door, at the big house for a couple of years. It’s so cool to see how God provided her a wonderful Canadian dude, and now a baby!

I loved seeing this combine bouncing down the road. I used to have a toy combine sort of like this as a kid, so it brought back memories. I stopped my truck, swung around and chased it down the road to get this photo. The driver must have thought I was nuts.

We no longer use our beach much since the tourists rolled into town a few years ago, it’s just too small and gets packed quickly. Plus the water is rather unclean..Kyiv actually shut down their beaches last week due to pollution. Well, the girls didn’t mind a quick visit .. just don’t drink it!

In studying hermeneutics and interpretative practices in my final semester at Fuller, it’s been wild to consider the many ways in which we all, from varying point of views and contexts, approach and attempt to make sense of the Bible.

In this week’s focus on inter-textuality (how the biblical authors draw upon outside sources), the professor stated something a little shocking, but refreshing to hear.

Don’t fret about injuring the Word; it’s more resilient than we are. Don’t worry about making a mistake or about leading the rest of us astray. “Sin boldly,” as Luther used to say. Pursue your task honestly and energetically. The entire concept of learning entails our being wrong about something! Keep learning and trying to apply what you learn, all the while in willingness to listen to your peers. Trust the rest of us — no matter what century or what nation we come from — to call you out if you step off the road, and we know you’ll do the same for us. When it works, that’s how it works; it’s a community thing. For it is we the Church, the totality of us, whom the Spirit leads into all truth, rather than any one of us all by ourselves.

R. Erickson | Biblical Studies Professor +30yrs at Fuller

How often we are told, as believers, to hold tightly our beliefs concerning doctrine and faith. Little encouragement is given to the pursuit of learning, it’s so often the pursuit of certainty, as if Christianity is about possessing the right cognitive information. Learning requires unlearning. Ignorance in the NT is not simply the lack of information or data, but the possession of hostile or foreign ideas that aren’t native to God’s revelation in Jesus.

As I spoke with my son Clark last night, we mused over the ideas of knowing vs growing, of the dangers of thinking we are the sum of our beliefs. We are so much more than what we think, we are loved, valued, and pursued by the God of the Universe not because we think rightly, but even as we don’t, because our God is love. I used to think you need to think rightly to be know God rightly. What folly. We are, all of us, coming from imperfect perches, shaped by our culture, our context, our biases.

What if we approached knowing God as a collective, exploration up a mountain? It’s peak too high to ever reach, but up and forward we climb. What if, instead of assuming battle positions around the Word of Life, we admitted our narrow views, limited exposure and learning, and came to God as children, mining His Word as our kids might hunt for treasure in the forest? What if we all just admitted we are wrong, in so many ways, in thought, attitude, and that but for God’s deep mercy and loving posture towards us, we’d be quite lost and alone in this world?

God’s revelation in Christ is solidified, communicated, and clearly seen in Scripture. Start, and define God through the lens of the Son, and let the Spirit guide you through the rest of the formation process. All the other pet ideas of God and the universe, allow them to be aligned under the illuminating Son of God, align within the wake of His perfect mediating revelation. If we construe a God that cannot harmonize with Christ, we can be sure we have bigger problems than injuring doctrines in the Bible, for then, we’ve assumed God is something other than the Word become flesh.