Month: October 2026

A little pause from the Apocalypse

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Personal Perspectives

I am planning to get back to Revelation soon… but we have had our own very mini-apocalypse here. And so small in comparison to Gaza or the Ukraine. Dana ‘Adam’ (Depresión Aislada en Niveles Altos, or isolated high-altitude depression). With rising sea temperatures it is an increasing issue.

Every downstairs apartment has been trashed… today a truck is slowly coming down the street to take away the furniture that has been thrown on the street. Gayle has just brought back a woman from a downfloor apartment – everything trashed including her clothes, furniture and car. She is one among many.

The situation would have been much worse – probably with a few hundred dying – but the early warning and also the evacuation of a local camp site by the sea was ever so timely.

There are numerous situations that are natural (should not be normal, but ‘natural’ in the sense of the result of the mess we are making with the climate) but there seems to be a connection as signs…let me backtrack.

A year ago last April – and I posted on this – we ‘rolled up’ the old ‘Queen’ map of Europe as sign that abusive, dominant power was being rolled up. 24 hours later we sat in the power outage that covered all the Iberian peninsula and just beyond those boundaries. This year – Gayle had a training session with 25 people here from 7 different countries – and a big part of the theme (beyond the training) was the integration of land and sea. The person who opened that up and then with Gayle and team represented the Sama Dilaut (Wrongly termed ‘sea people’) was here. Gayle works with a mat as the basis for personal and team transformation and together they had developed a mat with sea symbols and imagery for that particular work. Now, not knowing that a storm was coming in and walking to be the beach in the sun and 25ºC, we took the mat to the sea and ‘baptised’ it proclaiming that the water will cover the land. Maybe now an ‘ouch’. Symbolism is powerful. And all reports are saying ‘Oliva was the centre’ for this flood.

The sea then the land in the creation story; so as we move toward something shifting I guess we need to see something like that to get a fresh beginning?

Desperately not trying to make too much of it… and yet.

Acts leading to signs are important. But far more important are signs that lead to reality. For Europe as things polarise we have to see a new levelling out – there is a triumvirate of those in power beyond Europe that we would love to see shift – and a coming back to a place where slowly we can see new beginnings. It is always painful to write about such stuff and connections but have also been looking for an event that will change the outcome of the forthcoming election. (It happened before in 2004.)

This is ‘our’ planet so there has to be a concern / responsibility to see it come through to a better (relational) place. And sadly the process is not always a pleasant one. And it also means getting our hands dirty with (not for) neighbours.

We are OK. Third day of no running water – oooofffff think of Gaza 2 million people displaced or the Ukraine. We emptied 8 gallons (36 litres) of water from our floors as we are top floor.

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A very inadequate overview

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Biblical Observations

Did the original hearers understand what was being read to them? I doubt it. But they would have had a few advantages over us. They would not have had a book in front of them (it was being read to them) and they certainly would not have had access to books explaining that the army of 200,000,000 is a vision of the 21st Century and a graet army from the far east!!! The hearers would have been impacted through a journey of disorientation and we would benefit from a similar disorieattion rather than trying to gain an understanding that pinpoints all the vsions in historical events.

So here are a few ways in which we might consider to be a bit of an overview.

The over all book is an uncovering (ἀποκάλυψις: apokalupsis) – it is there to help us ‘see’. A bit like the ’emperor has no clothes’, but a somewhat more profound. With the emperor there was a denial, but with us there is a blindness so that we are unable to see. The unveiling of Revelation is to help us see what is really going on, or at least to give us choices as to what we then subsequently believe. In the original context a broad issue that would have immediately have impacted the hearers would have been that of the choice of believing whether Rome’s government or heaven’s were the determining factor in releasing the future and destiny of humanity. A future shaped by Rome or one shaped by heaven? Take Romans 4 and the throne room vision. Or for a moment think about Domitian’s throne surrounded by 24 advisers. John is describing something that is from their world but really his vision poses a question – is John suggesting that maybe Domitian is ‘god’. If John had the vision in the 21st Century and he was writing to the seven churches in the USA I think he would be entering heaven through Pennsylvania Avenue and the throne room would be an oval room… or the UK might be read along the lines of ‘I walked down the street to enter by a door with ’10’ above it and…’

Is John describing Rome, or the USA, UK, China, Russia, Iran… well you the hearer decide. But I am confused – that is part of the reason for the vision, for unless we come through our confusion we will become deceived and…

We need to see things as they are. We need Revelation as a book not to confuse us for it all to become clear when we read as ‘this is what will happen in the future’. We need the book to help show us how confused we are and so that we stop putting our faith that if only this person was in ‘number 10’ or in the ‘white house’ then all things would change. (Though if we were able to see many of them removed and some genuine feminine energy in there? That though is another post!!)

Anyway back to the overview.

There are different genres throughout and some major (abrupt) changes that take place. The opening chapters don’t read too oddly. They are not too far removed from the standard letter genre. ‘Letters to the seven churches’. They give way to typical apocalyptic style writings – a lot of other worldly descriptions with angels, riders on horses riding out, a scroll etc. That style of writing was not intended to be understood literally but claimed to give insight into what was happening in the unseen so as we could understand what was being experienced in the seen realm. Then we jump to apocalyptic on ‘speed’, or maybe apocalyptc mixed with mythology. Myths such as Nero never really died and was waiting to come back from the East with the Parthians who had always been seen as the enemy of Rome. Myths combining fear coming from what was perceived as a real threat. Maybe we could compare it to something from say 1946 and as crazy as ‘Hitler never died but has been kept live and is ready to come back at the head of the Russian forces to subjugate great parts of Europe’! Are you being serious we would ask. In these chapters we encounter beasts from land and sea, a woman with twelve stars over her head, a dragon and other such ‘fantastic’ (fanclful?) imagery. So we need to push back a little on John at this point with a response of ‘really John?’ as to try and translate this into ‘real world’ would be to miss the point. We don’t do that with ‘fairy stories’ and yet we do not dismiss them as not ‘unveiling’ truth for us.

Only when we get to the end of the book does it settle back down again! Maybe if we cut out the middle section of apocalypse and apocalypse plus myth we might see the connections. Jesus is coming soon and when he appears that which has been separated (heaven and earth / God and humanity) will be united. ‘Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth’. Now we have entered the ‘end’, the culmination of the opening words of Scripture; the culmination of the creation project, the time when ‘all things’ will be made ‘new’ (not the obliteration of all things to be replaced with ‘new things’).

Probably the end never (fully) comes in the earlier part of the book, but there is a relentless move toward the end. The question is left hanging – will it ever come (a question posed by the martyrs in the book from early on… and I think a question posed throughout the centuries by those who have put their faith in Jesus).

We need to connect Chapter 1-3 to chapters 21 – 22. ‘To the mixed bag of people that were called to be the ‘ekklesia’ there are some heavenly perspectives that will reveal the mixed bag you really are… I encourage you to continue to step it all up a level… keep with the program for the day will come when the way things are (the status quo: Latin for the mess we are in) will give way to a whole new creation…

That is kinda how I think the message goes. (Not suggesting my paraphrase should become canonical, and there is a far amount of important stuff in chapters 4-20!)

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A way in to Revelation

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Biblical Observations

I am sure there are structures to the book of Revelation and I use the plural ‘structures’ as probably there is no one structure that give us an easy read of it. Overall I think the book is meant to grip the imagination not the mind, and certainly not to fuel speculation that we then feel safe with the inside information that we can cling on to. There is a four-time repeated phrase that I offer as giving a very broad understanding of John’s journey. It is the phrase ‘in the Spirit’. Here are the four times it occurs:

  • 1:10 I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day
  • 4:2 At once I was in the Spirit
  • 17:3 I was carried away in the Spirit
  • 21:10 he carried me away in the Spirit.

Four major movements that shaped John’s visionary encounters. The first is when John sees the Risen Lord actively walking amidst the lampstands. We are introduced to a familiar pattern – he hears something and when he turns he sees

I was in the spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet saying… Then I turned to see whose voice it was that spoke to me, and on turning I saw…

John is a Seer and his sight (how many times to we read ‘and I saw’????) gives explanation (and redirects / perhaps even corrects) what he hears. This first ‘sight in the Spirit’ is of an engaged Risen Lord.

The second occurrence is when he enters the throne room of heaven (described in such terms that Caesar’s throne room is exposed as a parody). He hears that the destiny of humanity has been secured for ‘the Lion of the tribe of Judah has overcome’. He then sees a Lamb slain. The Lion embodies the hope of the ages, but this is the only mention in the book of this Lion… the overcoming of God on behalf of humanity has a different lens – it is achieved only through the slain Lamb. Power over gives way to submission that appears as if one is overcome. A life laid down not lives being consumed is the path to overcoming. The critique of power is very strongly evident in this encounter.

Then comes a long section of conflict and battle. (Jumping over the third reference) the final ‘in the Spirit’ is of the New Jerusalem (redeemed humanity) manifesting on earth – the fulfilment of creation where there is no dualistic divide between heaven and earth. But preceding that is the judgement of Babylon (the third reference). Everything that is the opposite of the kingdom (βασιλεία: basileia) of heaven / God. Contextually those first readers lived in a hostile world within the Roman empire (βασιλεία).

The outcome is settled for the slain Lamb is the one who has overcome; the path is the challenge and ‘Babylon’ will manifest and seem dominant. Those who follow the Lamb wherever the Lamb goes are the overcomers, even if it seems that they are the ones being overcome. The ‘battle’ is not eternal, the outcome is settled, but the path is brutal at times.

Two strong positive visions – one from the past (Lamb slain as the foundation for the unlocking of human destiny); one from the present (Jesus walking), connected to one future positive vision of the eschaton of heaven coming to earth and in and through it all a conviction that all that opposes the kingdom of God will be judged and fall.

Perhaps Babylon grows and maybe as per Jesus’ incarnation being at the ‘fullness of times’, so maybe there is a growth and increasing opposition to the kingdom of God. Maybe. But chronology is something we need to resist putting on Revelation. The sight given is not to give us a time-line but a plumb-line to critique all oppressive power and powers.

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Understanding (or being confused by) Revelation

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Biblical Observations

Been thinking of posting on Revelation for a little while cos I so understand what is written there. Every vision, every time-line: all so easy!! However, I take comfort that the writer declared that those who read and listen to the words will be blessed (1:3), not those who get it all… and the writer does add that we need to ‘keep’ what is written which I guess means we should seek to align ourselves to the Jesus that is revealed in the book.

Traditionally it was written by John (one of the twelve) who was imprsoned on the island of Patmos. Two dates are suggested – in Nero’s (or Galbo’s) reign in the mid to late 60s pror to the destruction of the Jerusalem temple, or in the late 90s in Domitian’s reign. The weight seems to come down on the later date, and given the clear details with many ‘hidden’ details it is well possible that the book developed over time. As for the author, probably we are as well referring to him as ‘John the Seer’.

The book was included in what is probably the first written record of a list of NT books to be regarded as ‘canonical’ (the Muratorian canon – probably late 2nd Century) but Martin Luther thought it was somewhat dodgy and placed it in a ‘disputed’ section of the German Bible.

Canonical it should be, but many interpretations should be in the ‘disputed’ category, or better ‘the well dodgy, hyper speculative and of no use to anyone’ section! (IMHO.)

There are different genres in the book with a huge part of it being ‘apocalyptic’. There are a few other sections of Scripture that employ that language but no part of our Scriptures where that genre shapes a whole book. Apocalyptic might be compared to political cartoons that appear in newspapers – they are not to be taken literally but make a point through exaggeration and often use imagery to describe something. A political leader sitting in the top pocket of a billionaire, or being taken for a walk on a dog lead by someone is not to be understood as a photograph but as a non-literal representation of the reality that is being communicated.

Tom Wright uses the illustration with the description of the Berlin wall collapsing as being ‘an earth shattering event’. If someone a few centuries later were to discover that description and then wrote that the wall collapsed because of some massive earthquake they would be making quite an error!

Thus we should be very wary of seeking to understand the imagery and language as being literal. The exagerrated language and imagery is to capture the imagination so that the readers’ world woud be seen and responded to in an informed way.

All of that suggests that the book was written for those first Century believers so that they might live faithfully to their call… and written for us – those in every generation so that our eyes might be open. Given that the language of the NT is highly charged politically it is not a surprise that I consider the book is a political critique of the Imperial world, that had Caesar as its ‘lord, saviour, king of kings’…and other such titles.

There are a (surprisingly) few OT quotes but over 400 allusions. Those allusions would not have been recognised at a first, nor a second reading and this is part of the ‘redemptive and confusing gift’ of the book. By that I mean once the writer includes (for example) a description of the throne room of heaven that parallels Domitian’s throne room and adds allusions to Nero as one who did not die or mythological creatures, any listener would have been confused. But redemptively, for we need to be confused about what is proclaimed as normal and only through the path of confusion do we discover the questions that will lead us on a different path.

Ah well some initial thoughts.

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