If you want to know what the last book in the Bible is really about, make yourself read the news reports on the atrocities being committed against Christians in Syria, Iraq and Egypt – Christian men slaughtered; Christian women, children, and elderly taken as hostages; churches burned; homes destroyed.
Tomorrow, I’ll be teaching the last session of a class on the New Testament. We’ll cover the Revelation, a letter to “the seven churches of Asia” written during a time of brutal persecution under the Roman Emperor Domitian in A.D. 95. Unfortunately, the Revelation is not usually read through the eyes of the persecuted. In fact, most Western Christians are so far removed from active persecution that we misunderstand the meaning of many of our sacred texts, chief among them the Revelation. Today, the Bible’s final book is either interpreted as a prophecy of coming tribulation for non-believers and judgment on all those who do not agree with a very narrow interpretation of the Bible, or it is dismissed as a lot of fantastical nonsense with violent overtones that has no place in contemporary Christianity. Both these distortions result from affluence and privilege.
It’s easy to ignore the plight of Arab Christians who are now a target of the so-called Islamic State. The Middle East is so far away and the pictures of violence there are too horrifying to ponder. We’re accustomed to Christianity being a respected religion. We take for granted the freedom to worship however we choose. But if you want to understand the Revelation, then try as best you can to imagine yourself as a Christian in the Middle East. You know that to profess your faith means that you put your life in danger. You know that you or your family may be bombed out of church or home. You know that your loved ones and friends could be beheaded or taken away without warning.
ISIS is not the Roman Empire, of course. In fact, it is worse. Rome had a centralized government and at least claimed to represent certain high ideals that would improve human society. ISIS is governed by blind allegiance to an extremist ideology. It is completely decentralized (and therefore nearly impossible to attack effectively). ISIS militants have no respect for human life; they value only their intolerant dogmas, which they believe justify the destruction of any individual, community, or culture that fails to comply fully with their rule. (As much as they hate Christians, they’ve killed many more Muslims.) Despite these differences, however, the situation today in areas controlled by ISIS is not dissimilar to what Christians faced under the Roman Emperor Domitian. To be a Christian in Syria, Egypt, or Iraq is to be hated for what you believe. It is to be held in contempt because you stubbornly cling to the hope of peace in the midst of violence. It is to join Christ in his suffering.
Yes, it is difficult, maybe impossible, to place yourself as an American Christian inside that awful reality. But if, perhaps through prayer, you can empathize even a little with what our brothers and sisters in the Middle East are enduring, then you can begin to understand the Revelation and other biblical texts that were forged in the fires of persecution. You will also come to appreciate how much blood has been spilled by faithful Christians in the past so that we might hear the gospel message today, and how costly Christian discipleship continues to be.
The Revelation assures persecuted Christians that God knows their sufferings, will glorify those who endure without losing their faith, and will harshly judge those who persecute God’s people. More than that, the Revelation promises that while oppressive earthly powers will not escape judgment, neither will the forces of evil that have inspired them in every generation. In the end, all evil will be banished from creation, and God’s reign will be fulfilled. That is a promise I’m sure many Middle Eastern Christians are doggedly and prayerfully clinging to today. It’s a promise no Christian, regardless of how beleaguered or comfortable, must ever forget.
©2015 by J. Mark Lawson
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