Revelation: Chapter 3, Verses 7 to 13
Small but mighty Philadelphia church persists in a thriving Jewish population in an earthquake zone that brought down pagan temples.
Well, trying to speed this up didn’t go too well with me missing two weeks! But I’ve finished the manuscript for the first novel of my trilogy, so time to buckle down for novels two and three research.
N.T. Wright doesn’t ask many questions about this section. Most are about regurgitating what he wrote. So I’ll just address his final question. But first a summary.
Note: I’m following N.T. Wright’s Revelation: 22 Studies for Individuals and Groups and his newest book 20th Anniversary Edition with Study Guide, Revelation for Everyone. See my post Prepare for Revelation for suggested materials.
The Church in Philadelphia
Philadelphia Christians were apparently few, had probably been persecuted by the time of this letter, had not denied Jesus’s name, and had kept his word through it. The letter uses earthquake imagery — Philadelphia had weathered major earthquakes, had seen temples and their massive columns crumple to the ground. Interesting, though, that the small hovels of the poor “might escape the worst of the damage.” It’s like Jesus is saying to the church, just as the small homes of the poor survive Nature’s wrath while the splendid architectural works fall down, so, too, will you survive the “time of trial that is going to come upon the whole world, to test out all the inhabitants of the earth,”1 while those who are mighty now will not.
History shows those who have eyes to see that the persecutors become the persecuted, and the persecuted become the persecutors. It’s unfortunate that the persecuted, once gaining power, don’t learn from their history and show mercy, but, instead, flip roles and exact centuries-long revenge on their persecutors.
Jesus says, “Anyone who conquers, I will make them a pillar in the temple of my God. They will never go out of it again.” In other words, they, the tiny persecuted church who keeps Jesus’s word and doesn’t deny his name, will become like those majestic temples — and the ones who occupy them — and will never return to their lowly status again.
But keeping Jesus’s word means not replicating the roles of the persecutors.
I think the church and much of humanity kind of missed that part.
Christians, once persecuted as a small Jewish sect by mainline Jewish and pagan majorities, are, as a separate major religion and to this day, persecuting the small Jewish population in a millennial-long revenge that ignored Jesus’s word. I think even one year of revenge time was one year too long after the first-century Christian sect of Judaism became its own religion, ascended to power, and donned the mantle of persecutor, oppressor, and judge.
Question 8
“Equipped with regal power, Jesus has opened a door right in front of the Philadelphia Christians (v. 8) and he is urging them to go through it. The meaning is almost certainly that they have an opportunity not just to stand firm but to make advances, to take the good news of Jesus into places and hearts where it has not yet reached.
What open doors is Jesus setting before us today?”
What Is the Good News Not?
I don’t think the good news is to replicate the oppressor’s role or the persecutor’s status. It’s not to judge, for Jesus said even he did not come to judge and bluntly instructed humanity to deal with the log in their own eyes first.
Jesus promised the Philadelphian Christians who persisted unto victory that he’d make them pillars of God’s temple. On them, he’d write God’s name, the name of the New Jerusalem (God’s city), and his own new name.
If God is love, how could Jesus write God’s name or his own new name on pillars who represent persecuting, judging, oppressing attitudes? Only if God is a being to be feared (not respected, but terrified of for every mistake made), does that make sense. But reading the good news — i.e., the gospel — one can see that Jesus empathizes with the poor, reaches out to heal any who ask, seeks the deranged to heal them, teaches about love in action, condemns those who abandon and persecute, stands with the persecuted, outcast, women, and judged.
Since Jesus is the word of God, it seems to me that no way is Jesus about to write the name of God on pillars that create fear, loathing, sorrow, trembling, disability, isolation, impoverishment, and death. Those don’t comprise the “good news” Jesus opens the door for us to advance.
What Are the Open Doors Today?
My trilogy begins with the death of my protagonist Charlotte Elisabeth through legal murder aka “Medical Assistance in Death” aka euthanasia as legalized by Canada’s Supreme Court rationalizing the indefensible and by governments acting like a bunch of hounds baying for more and more prey to be shot. From the terminally ill to the disabled to children. And what has the church said?
Nothing.
I think they may have put out some sort of muted press release to cover their backsides. But seriously, compared to the brouhaha they stirred up over same-sex marriage, their opposition to legal murder is…well, words fail me.
I wrote an email to my MP about this appalling law:
“Medical assistance in dying is suicide by another’s hand, one that was trained to heal and restore life. It’s now being targetted at people on the basis of disability. This issue is so serious the UN has weighed in on it.”
And years earlier, I reviewed an excellent book on suicide, November of the Soul, which, though the writer mayn’t have known it, is a slam-dunk counterpoint to the myths people who endorse euthanasia hold:
“I liked his use of detailed true examples for each section, of how he profiled people who suicided or, later on in the book, a person who was left behind by suicide. He also profiled suicide survivors. He goes into meticulous details about the events leading up to their death (or surviving the death of a spouse) and also what happened afterwards, including how the community and media reacted.”
My Trilogy Represents an Open Door Today
I had no intention of my protagonist’s death being due to murder by doctor. When she told me this (I know, to a non-writer, it may sound a little whoo-whoo a fictional character making demands of their creator), I was a tad upset. Well, more than a tad. I refused, said I wouldn’t write her story, not gonna happen. Haha!!
Characters always have the upper hand when they make demands of you.
At the time of writing my first draft, Twitter hadn’t become a bot- and troll-farm, and I was following several people with disabilities or mental health issues who had been impoverished by our governments and abandoned by our health care. I mean, when psychiatrists refuse to treat people with brain injury (oh hey, so sorry, I’m not qualified — then get qualified you lazy doctor!), then abandonment is not just about governments not funding adequate medicare. It’s also about health care professionals refusing to learn how to diagnose and heal epidemics like brain injury. When the former Harper and current Trudeau governments obeyed the Supreme Court of Canada’s ruling and then lower courts expanded the definition and the Feds didn’t appeal, although the Supreme Court had said to keep the definition narrow, these people, driven into despair, chose to be euthanized by doctor. They’d get that fatal “health care” swiftly while having to wait years in mind-destroying poverty for life-giving health care.
What kind of country offers death in weeks but no liveable income support and limited life-giving care only after months or years?
Again, the church has remained silent, not walking through this open door Jesus is standing at, inviting them to enter and advocate for and sit with the poor, the disabled and ill, the outcast and dying.
And so my protagonist, Charlotte Elisabeth, got her way and forced me through it.
My novel starts at the moment of her death, contains a few scenes in the Dying with Dignity suite, but focuses on her journey between Earth and Heaven on her Soul Track cut short by euthanasia and by a doctor who prefers the ease of killing over the hard work of caring for a chronically ill person with major family and generational issues.
Personal-Life Open Door
In my non-writing life, I advocate for proper diagnosis and effective treatments for brain injury, no matter the cause. It feels Sisyphean. Every time I’d like to quit and concentrate on writing, reading, and watching K-Dramas (my current fatigue-induced obsession), something rises in me to keep on going.
My case manager from CHIRS has worked with me for just over a year now to write every month for my Psychology Today brain-injury blog. I’m setting up a pre-order for the ebook version of Brain Injury, Trauma, and Grief: How to Heal When You Are Alone, and will make the ebook available on November 16th. And I continue to mull over ideas for my brain injury website.
Whenever Jesus opens a door, whether or not I like it, screaming, yelling, or eager, I must walk through. I don’t know how others manage to ignore it!
What open door are you facing today that’s challenging you and your long-held views?
I think this line about the time of trial coming upon the whole world is a Pandora’s box. We don’t know when; we don’t know how or what despite Revelation’s imagery. This line also makes me wonder who are the Philadelphia descendants who’ll conquer this time? Obviously, not the humans alive at the time this letter was written and who read the original. Is it strictly metaphorical or literal, as well? Anyway, writing on this line would take thousands of words. I bow to Star Trek and its WWIII for an answer.