About this episode
Shane J. Wood, professor of New Testament and its origins at Ozark Christian College and author of Thinning the Veil, returns for the eighth episode in the faith and politics series — this time on Revelation.
Wood argues that the question the series has been circling is the question Revelation opens with. Christians in Asia Minor were living under an emperor in decline, caught in a conflict they hadn't chosen, and the book was written to tell them how to stand.
Much of the conversation is about definitions. When the crucified king is at the center, what counts as victory changes — which is why Smyrna's reward for faithfulness is that things will get worse. Wood reads Pliny's letter to Trajan as a Roman governor's genuine confusion at a group whose stubbornness took the form of being better citizens than his citizens.
They also discuss why worship was a national security matter in Rome, the iconography of Washington, why obedience and subversion both have textual warrant, and Wood's closing claim: that the early church regarded the emperor as a figure to be pitied rather than feared.
Go deeper: Christians & Politics
Thinking Christian is hosted by Dr. James Spencer, president of the D. L. Moody Center and author of Digital Discernment (InterVarsity Press). Each conversation reads the Bible as the final authority for life and faith, questioning the assumptions of our culture, even our Christian culture, so that we don't settle for a narrower vision than God's word offers.
Unsettling convention. Cultivating conviction.
Episodes, articles, and questions: thinkingchristian.org
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Find more from Shane at hsi website https://www.shanejwood.com
Chapters:
00:00 Welcome back
02:13 The situation Revelation was written into
04:05 Paul, household codes, and relocating structures
06:09 Obedience and subversion: holding the spectrum
07:08 Rome is too small a target
10:56 Smyrna: victory that looks like more suffering
13:34 Pliny, Trajan, and a governor's confusion
16:40 Sacred order and why Christians couldn't comply
17:58 Worship as national security in Rome
20:22 Civil religion, grammar, and iconography
23:36 A Roman historian walks into the Lincoln Memorial
26:19 The slow descent, not the sudden conversion
29:10 The verses we carve and the ones we don't
31:19 Matthew 28: discipleship as political
34:40 Matthew retelling Israel's story
38:05 When governing authority overreaches
40:52 Nero, Domitian, and emperors in decline
45:23 Pharaoh who knew not Joseph
46:44 The church as guide, not political strategist
48:05 The true enemy behind the empire
50:30 Pity, not fear
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