BibleProject - The Blood Cries Out - Apocalyptic Special Episode

Episode Date: June 10, 2020

In this special mid-week podcast episode, Tim and Jon address recent events in light of The Revelation. Listen in as they discuss the use of “word and testimony,” the meaning of Babylon, and the exposure of slavery in the book of Revelation.View full show notes from this episode →TimestampsPart 1 (0:13:30)Part 2 (13:30-28:30)Part 3 (28:30-39:30)Part 4 (39:30-47:00)Part 5 (47:00-end)Additional ResourcesRichard Bauckham, “The Economic Critique of Rome in Revelation 18,” p. 370-371.BibleProject, Exile podcast seriesBibleProject, Way of the ExileShow MusicDefender Instrumental by TentsNo Spirit: Snacks EPChillhop Essentials Summer 2020Conquor by Beautiful EulogyShow produced by Dan Gummel and Camden McAfee.Powered and distributed by Simplecast.

Hey, this is Cooper at Bible Project. I produce the podcast in Classroom. We've been exploring a theme called the City, and it's a pretty big theme. So we decided to do two separate Q and R episodes about it. We're currently taking questions for the second Q and R and we'd love to hear from you. Just record your question by July 21st

and send it to us at infoatbiboproject.com. Let us know your name and where you're from, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds and please transcribe your question when you email it in, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds, and please transcribe your question when you email it. That's a huge help to our team. We're excited to hear from you. Here's the episode.

Welcome to this special midweek episode of the Bible Project podcast. There's a lot going on in the world, and while the Bible Projects mission isn't to speak into current events, we found that we're in this really unique place talking about apocalyptic literature, literature that's supposed to open our eyes to what's really going on behind the veil, to see the world as God sees it. And we began this series talking about the pandemic and how that was a type of apocalypse that has opened our eyes to realities in the world.

So we thought it would be a mist to not end this series with another apocalypse that's happening right in front of us. And we'll look through the book of Revelation. There's an important motif happening with the book of Revelation, John's depiction of Babylon, and the fate of slaves, and the fate of innocent blood in the book that I thought would kind of give us a perspective on how to think about this,

with an apocalyptic set of lenses. We'll look at the theme of bearing witness to Jesus, and the theme of bearing witness to Jesus and theme of bearing witness to the oppressed and the blood that's been spilled by people all over the earth. How God cares about that deeply. How the revelation is a tale of two cities. In this climactic way, he makes Babylon responsible, not just for the blood of persecuted followers of Jesus, but the last line is and of all who have been murdered on the earth. So he's thinking all the way back to Abel.

When you see the blood of the innocent, not just because they are followers of Jesus, anybody, any innocent blood that you see that's connected to these systems of oppression and injustice, you're looking at Babylon. It's Babylon manifesting itself. That's what he's saying right here. Thanks for joining us. Here we go. Okay, Tim.

John Collins. So we concluded our series on how to read apocalyptic literature and it was really great. We did a question response episode that just released on Monday. And here we are now. It's midweek. And we wanted to extend the question response and do a little bit more talking about apocalyptic literature because of the current national conversation happening. We think that there's something really special happening. And we think that the revelation actually can give us eyes to see some things.

And you approached me about this this morning and said it'd be cool to talk about Babylon a little bit in the revelation and process what's going on with all the protests, with the murder of George Floyd and all the things happening. Again, we recorded the main conversations about how to read apocalyptic months, many months ago.

When we released them, it coincided with the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. So we did a special real-time episode to reflect on that. The pandemic, from perspective of the biblical story. And then, you know, as we concluded the series, it coincides with another set of current events that I think equally qualify as another apocalypse happening to our culture. We recorded the last episode of those conversations, the Q&R episode of the apocalyptic, on Tuesday, May 26th, and George Floyd had been killed

just 24 hours earlier. I remember reading about it in the news that morning when I was kind of beginning my work day. And as you and I were recording, the Q&R episode, the first protests were just forming that afternoon in Minneapolis. And so we're sitting here now. He was killed two weeks ago today. And man, what a so hard to put into words what we're all experiencing. Everybody's experienced so multilayered, you know? So it seems to me that there's a number

another apocalypse taking place. Right as we're closing down our series on how to read apocalyptic. And I just, I felt like we can't ignore another opportunity to reflect on how not just the murder of George Floyd, but right, there's been this kind of recent litany of black people killed in situations that are rooted in racial injustice and it's some kind of tipping point. And it's an important moment that we need to reflect on. So that's the context. So this is just a special extra episode in the Apocalyptic series.

And as I've been thinking about the Book of Revelation, there's an important motif happening with the Book of Revelation, John's an important motif happening with the book of Revelation, John's depiction of Babylon, and the fate of slaves, and the fate of innocent blood in the book that I thought would be going to give us a perspective on how to think about this, it was an apocalyptic set of lenses on. Yeah, you know, I've felt the last week, I know I have privilege and I know I don't understand what it means to experience injustice regularly,

the one that's so systemic. And I don't even know what that really means systemic injustice. Like, I so, the whole thing just makes me feel just stuck. I feel like I'm repenting in just makes me feel just stuck. I feel like I'm repenting in like real time, just like telling you, I don't know how to respond in the right way. Yeah, man, I think you're not alone in that.

I think that's how a lot of people in America are feeling. I've also felt the full range of emotions. And neither you and I are given to a very wide range of emotions on an average day. I think you're right. There's something about the last 10 weeks

of the coronavirus situation, whatever you call it, pandemic crisis, that has kind of removed a layer of, I don't know, of orderliness from our lives that I think makes a lot of people extra vulnerable to the intensity of these murders, you know, not just George, but Brianna Taylor and then Hamad, Arbery, all of these. They've just kind of stacked together in a short amount of time. And my parents were actually really invested back in the 90s, especially when I was a teenager.

They intentionally wanted to understand more the experience of the black community here in Portland, and so they started going to a like an old traditional black church. This is when I told them I didn't want to go to church anymore. And so they didn't make me. But they did. And I remember there was a whole season, kind of my teen years where they just cultivated lots of friendships with people in the African-American community. And they just wanted to know the story of Portland, the way that black people have experienced Portland. And I remember really admiring my parents for that. And I can see now, you know,

since I move back to Portland after grad school and as an adult, I've just been aware of that reality of Portland, watching it change, watching the urban core gentrify, and watching how the African-American neighborhoods, traditionally, when I was growing up, have all been turned into Trader Joe's and, you know, the apartment buildings and all transformed. And that's all just been happening, and it's like this example, this systemic thing that happens in the history of America. And it's just from what I understand, right? When I listened to my Black brothers and sisters, it's just one more iteration of the thing that's been happening

for centuries. That's their experience. And so for this all to come to the surface in the last couple of weeks, I just have felt so sad, despair, despair That has turned into anger in as much as I experience anger consciously, which is not, doesn't look much on the outside. At least that's what my wife tells me when I'm angry. You can hardly tell. And another part of it too is that I feel like, you know, I'm like a privileged white guy. You know, like, yeah.

So who wants to listen to me talk about my despair and sadness? Like who cares? You know, like, yeah. So who wants to listen to me talk about my despair and sadness? Like, who cares? You know, like, I actually haven't had to live with a fear of policemen from my earliest memories as a boy the way my black friends share with me about. One important moment for me was when we started telling our boys, our little boys, telling the story of George Floyd and Brianna Taylor. And my youngest son, we were over the dinner table in my youngest son August.

He actually, in the middle of the story, he asked me to stop. What he said was, I know what you're going to say happens, that he dies. And he said it made him feel like he wasn't safe in a city anymore. And I was watching him process that. And I thought of a good friend, his African American. And he was just sharing with me like last week what it's like to grow up with a fear of policemen from your earliest memories as a as a black little black boy in Portland and I was looking at my son Who's white, you know and just to see that fear in his eyes that like what the there are might be some police who that like what? There might be some police who aren't safe and I was just watching, it was just a little bit of innocent stripping from him, you know? So anyway,

the only thing I've known what to do with these emotions is I just started going to march in the nonviolent demonstrations in Portland and it's been really powerful and it felt so good to yell. And we're just saying, we're saying their names. Yeah. Shout these people's names. Yeah. It's been really amazing.

Thanks for you, man. To feel like, I don't have to sit alone, you know? Yeah. In this pain and we can name it. And yeah, you know, for those of you listening, you know, you have your own journey with this, but it's apocalyptic. There's something being uncovered here that for many people, many layers of American culture,

especially in African-American community, there's nothing new here. This is the same old thing in terms of the events that sparked this, but in terms of the refusal to ignore it or be indifferent, that's being shaken in a new way that's really amazing to watch it happen. It's nipoclips. Couple of things that have helped me that I'm trying to turn to lies is I saw someone share. One thing I was told is don't try to give answers, just listen to people who this is their

life. Just like, let's listen and repent. That's kind of been, I feel like a common motif I've been hearing. So I've been listening and one person said, if you're getting involved because you want to liberate me, I'm okay. If you're, well I didn't say I'm okay, but don't get involved because you want to liberate me. Get involved because your liberation is intertwined with mine.

And I think that was the first time I kind of realized like, I don't know to what degree I'm really enslaved and how much this is affecting me and other people because of the oppression I'm bringing through my ambivalence or through my lack of clarity of thought leading me to not take certain actions. And yeah, I thought that was really a stupe observation. I really appreciated that. That's a good segue, I think, into how John's Apocalypse, the Book of Revelation, I think can give us some language and imagery to think about it, because it is, I think you're right, it's a form of slavery. One of John's core metaphors is that the Revelation is a tale of two cities. There's the city that is ruled on Mount Zion, the heavenly Mount Zion by the slain lamb, who liberates people to become a kingdom of priests, and then there is the city of Babylon that enslaves people

with its military and economy, and loals people into indifference. And this is the tale of two cities. So I thought this has been actually helpful for me in the last couple of weeks. I thought we could kind of take a tour of this motif of the tale of two cities through Babylon and then maybe come back to this old

complex eruption of racial injustice in our culture and maybe look at it with some new eyes. 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh

1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh Okay, so maybe let's just kind of upload the last couple conversations you and I had, John, about viewing the revelation as a set of glasses. Lens is through which any audience, any generation, including the first readers, but now to 21st century readers, living anywhere. It's a set of glasses that you put on to try and understand and interpret your own landscape, the religious political landscape of any given church community. So we explored that approach in the last couple episodes and how that differs from viewing the revelation as a predictive code that is pointing to just one set of events in the past or the future,

that kind of thing. So this is an exercise in viewing the revelation as a Settle lenses as we think about this motif of the two cities. Okay, so let's start. In chapter one, we just talked about this briefly, but I realized I never clarified what I meant by it. But in chapter one, where John is exiled, we're introduced to the visionary of the book. Chapter one, verse nine, John is writing to the seven churches and he says, I, John, your brother and fellow participant in the trials and the kingdom and perseverance that are in Jesus. I was on the island called Pupmos because of the word of God and the testimony about Jesus. So he doesn't actually say explicitly, I'm in prison here, or that I've been exiled here, does he? But that's what kind of the majority view of how he got there.

So how do you get that interpretation that he's there because of the word God and the testimony? So this is important, he's introducing these words here. When a follower of Jesus bears witness to the word of God, and this testimony, this message, like I'm bearing witness to the story of Jesus, he's the risen king of the world. That becomes a key set of phrases that will be repeated over and over again throughout the book. It's kind of like a design pattern. You have to wait for the book to develop what it means and then you come back and reread the book and you're like, ah, I get it. I get it. So when people are announcing the Word of God or sharing

it or giving a testimony about Jesus, what that means is they are resisting Babylon. They're resisting the narratives that say that the kingdoms of this world actually run the show and that they have the final say and they're really in charge. So to give a testimony about Jesus is to resist the kingdoms of this world by telling the story of God's kingdom coming on earth as in heaven. And usually it results in followers of Jesus getting alienated, isolated, hurt or killed. It's gnarly. This little phrase he uses to speak the word of God and the testimony about Jesus is, I mean, we would even use the word like descent, like a form of political or social descent. Hmm.

Protests, if you will. Yeah. Yeah. Resist. Resist, resistance. It makes sense in its first century context where Christianity was antithetical to the Torah. Or at least it was an alternative.

It was set up as an alternative and often viewed as a threat. Yes, and viewed as a threat because of the clear distinction of you worship the Roman gods and you give your allegiance to Caesar or you are now not actually supporting Rome and its leader. It seems like Babylon is easy to tease out where, you know, fast forward to our modern context and it seems like it's not as clean. Yeah, I got it. That's right. And so we live in a different cultural context.

John doesn't live in Babylon. He never actually names the Empire that he's talking about, you know, Rome. Not once in the book. All he uses is the names of different ancient biblical empires from the Hebrew Scriptures. So that tells us something too that even he's in a new moment that the gods people haven't been in before in the first century but he finds it important to use these biblical icons of Babylon and Egypt and Sodom because they help give clarity to the ambiguity. So let's watch how he does it and I think it'll give us guidance for how to find some clarity to perhaps. So what follows is that he sees the vision, the cosmic apocalypse, where he sees the exalted heavenly throne room of God's kingdom.

And in chapters four and five, he sees the slain lamb. We kind of talked about this earlier in conversations. And Jesus, who is the slain lamb, the crucified king, he takes the scroll that represents God's purposes for history and he starts opening the scroll. And the fifth break of the seals that he opens is in chapter 6 here where he opens the fifth seal. And he sees up into the heavenly throne room, which is also a temple, and he sees the actual altar. So remember the heavenly temple is the reality to which the

earthly tabernacle and the temple and Jerusalem were symbolic pointers to. So before you go up the steps, or priests would go up the steps into the temple, he would pass by the altar where all the animals are sacrificed. So he's seeing into the heavenly temple and he sees in front of it the altar. But what he sees around the altar is not the blood of animals. He sees, this is chapter 6 verse 9, I saw under the altar the souls, it's the Greek word Tsukas, the living beings. Wait, what? It's the Greek word Tsukas. Tsukas, which we get psyche. Yep, that's right. And it's the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew word nefesh, which means a living beings living essence. So he sees dead people.

This is one of the very few guys in the Bible where you have a disembodied person. Yep, he sees people, but they're dead. He sees them in God's heavenly presence. That's right. Or do you imagine them as disembodied here? Well, this is all in a vision, so I'm sure he's seeing human-like figures in his dream. He's seeing human-like figures, but he calls them souls.

He calls them sucas. Yep. And this would be one of a very, very small group of examples that uses the word soul the way we think of it in English, if a disembodied human. And really, the scene that he wants to paint is that of an altar, but instead of having dead animals on it to sacrifice, it's dead people and keep reading.

They had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony that they held. And there it is. That's the reason he's on the island of Patmos. It's the same reason why these followers of Jesus are dead. So we've talked about martyrs. People have been killed in the first decades of the Jesus movement.

They're calling out, saying, how long sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood? So we're back to Cain and Abel here. About a house. About a house. Yeah, the blood cries out.

So it's the scene of just like Abel's blood rose up to God and the judge of all the earth can't and will not ignore the blood shed of the innocent. Now notice they're calling out how long that itself is a quote from, I think Psalm 69 opening them, but it's a very common opening, how long, O Lord. So this is a motif in the prophets, in the Old Testament prophets and Psalms. We trust the gods, the judge of all the earth.

He'll bring justice, visit justice on the oppressors for the bloodshed of the innocent. But he takes a sweet time sometimes. How long, O Lord? Yeah? That's what they're crying out. So this begins a motif. If you can just track it through, get a concordance about these words, testimony, or witness, or word of God. And you get all these scenes where people are announcing the testimony, which means to say that Jesus is the risen Lord

of this world. And that all kings and kingdoms are ultimately answerable to him. And when you say that message to leaders and powers that don't want to hear it, you get the treatment, you get broken kneecaps, you end up slaying on the altar. So this happens in Revelation chapter 11, the two witnesses are testifying against the beast, and the beast comes up and kills them in Revelation 12. Oh, remember, we read this about the dragon and the woman, the seed of the woman. There, the dragon comes to wage war against the seed of the woman, which is interpreted by John as those who keep God's commands and hold fast

at their testimony about Jesus. So that's the drama. The drama in the early parts of Revelation are. If you're gonna bear witness to Jesus. Yeah. You're likely gonna get killed by the powers. Yep, that's right. Now, so that was reality in the first centuries

of the Jesus movement. It just was. And the book is exploring that whole drama. So that's the slain lamb and the people associated with him. John really wants to explore the other side of it of like, well, who's this beast? Who are what is the beast? And the city, because the beast is also a city at the same time.

So that we've got the bad guys, like a dragon, who inspires some beasts who build a city. And on top of the city, dragon rides this goddess, woman named the prostitute. It's just whole collocation of images here. I haven't seen this one on a stained glass window. Oh, I don't think. That's a bit yes.

Nope, neither of I. Neither of I. I'm guessing it's just a little too provocative. So if you're tracking through the bad guy in Revelation, the first real portrait you get is in chapter 11, then it's this parabolic vision John has about how these two prophetic witnesses are going to rise up and testify their witnesses. And they're depicted as a new Moses and a new Elijah. They do Moses and Elijah's stuff. So they can shut up the heavens so it won't rain, they can turn water into blood and send plagues, right?

Yep. Moses and Elijah. But then the beast is going to come up from the pit and attack them and kill them. And this is in Revelation 11 verse 8, their bodies will lie out in the square of a great city which, and the NIV has, which is figuratively called, and I've always been puzzled by that translation. In Greek, it's the word pneumaticoce, it's the word spiritual. Yeah, yeah, pneumas, yeah.

Yeah, from, yeah, pneuma. So what he says is, this great city is spiritually called, and then he names the city, Sodom, and Egypt, and the place where their Lord was crucified. Jerusalem. So whatever John means here, he's thinking symbolically here of three actual cities in the biblical story. Well, that's why they use the word figuratively. Totally. That's right. Or spiritually.

What he means is apocalypticly. When you put on your apocalyptic glasses, and you can see what the spirit of Jesus is inviting you to see because of the apocalypse. What you'll see is in any city where the blood of the innocent is being shed, especially in this case, because they testify to another king, Jesus.

You're seeing the same dark powers surface, whether it's Sodom, near the Dead Sea, whether it's Egypt, or whether it's Jerusalem. It's the same city, even though it's different cities. This is so important for seeing how the Revelation works as a set of lenses. When you see this pattern of events, you know that you're dealing with a Babylon type of moment here. Does that make sense?

Actually, that one verse, Revelation 11 verse A, I think is a little interpretive key to understanding how John thinks in terms of biblical design patterns and how he can describe Rome of his day with these ancient city symbols. Yeah, they're laying in the public square of, and he calls it the great city.

It's funny, he just doesn't wanna, he doesn't wanna give him the dignity of even using the name, their name. It's amazing, yeah. Bodies will lay in the public square of this great city, which is Numa Ticos. Yeah, that's right, yeah. It's spiritually called,

and then Sodom, that's from Sodom Gamora, Egypt with Pharaohs, Egypt and the 10 Plagues. And then Jerusalem during the time of, I guess, many different iterations of Jerusalem. But... Well, yeah. So, in the flood, the blood of Abel crying out from the ground. That's Cain's murder.

And then Cain's seven generations, right after Adam, through Cain's line, you get Lemek, Genesis 4, and he's even more murderous, and he's in Cain's city. And the murder and the violence of Cain's city by Genesis 6 rises up to God and he brings the flood. And then in Sodom, the outcry of the oppressed against Sodom raises up to God. He reigns fire. The outcry of the Israelite slaves rises up to God and Egypt. He brings the Ten Plagues. He's all connecting all these.

So when he says where their Lord is crucified, I think he's reflecting on the persecution of Messianic Jewish followers of Jesus in Jerusalem that we have described in the book of Acts. They arrest, and like the arrest of followers of Jesus, Paul's persecution of the church, Peter getting arrested, Stephen getting executed. That was the first outbreak of lethal violence against followers of Jesus in Jerusalem. Anywhere on earth where the oppressed are calling out, the blood is calling out, becomes a place which is spiritually solemn in Egypt. Or Jerusalem, or he hasn't used Babylon yet.

But now notice, specifically this is about those who share the word of God and the testimony about Jesus. So this is talking about being a witness to Jesus. He's gonna take it broader, but we just gotta wait for it. All right, now he's filling out this portrait because he's trying to encourage these seven churches. Okay, so that's in chapters one through eleven. When you get to chapters twelve and following, which we explored a couple episodes ago, it's

seven signs. He calls it a collection of seven signs. It begins in chapter twelve, and it begins with that vision about the woman and the dragon, and the dragon is trying to eat the seed of the woman and so on. So what happens in Revelation 13 is that dragon who's really ticked off. He wants to destroy the woman and her seed now. He summons up out of the dark chaos waters of Genesis 1, verse 2. He summons up a beast out of the sea, and it's powerful, and it tramples people.

It's like a military machine. But then he summons up a beast out of the earth. And this is all a parody on Genesis 1, where God summons, he says, let the earth bring forth creatures. And so this is the dragon bringing forth anti-creation creatures from the land. The sea in the land.

And the beast he brings up from the earth in chapter 13 is the beast that everybody has to worship and take them Mark if they want to buy yourself. Yeah, well, so that if you'll be part of this economy Yeah, worship the beast. So we talked about that in the Q&R episode This is people who participate profit from benefit from oppressive Military economic structures the prosper on the on the backs of the oppressed. It's called a beastly kingdom in Revelation 13. And they build a city.

So you get this city, the beastly dragon city, but then Revelation 14 and 15, you get this counter city. We're back to the Royal Throne Room, except this time it's not God's temple in heaven, it's called Mount Zion. High up and exalted. And it's so cool in these chapters. There's a big choir up there and they're singing the song of Moses, it says. And the song they sing is all, it's from the song of the sea, XS-15.

But combined with all of this about how God's gonna bring the plagues and finish off Egypt and bring about the ultimate Exodus and so on. So cool. And it all culminates in Revelation 17 and 18 with the fall of this great city that finally is named Babylon. Finally is named Babylon. And so the introduction of Babylon, it's in Revelation 17. I'll let you read it, because it's the stained glass window.

He carried me away in the spirit into a wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast, full of blasphemous names, having seven heads and ten horns. The woman was clothed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a gold cup cup full of abominations. That's not a normal English word.

Oh, abomination. It's a standard old testament, shorthand for idol shrines. A gold cup full of abominations and of unclean things for immorality. Because what you do at the local Zeus temple on Friday nights is somebody invites you, hey, like I had a good crop this fall, I'm going to sacrifice. Is that a party at the Zeus? It's a party, higher the temple prostitutes, and it's a good night for the men involved. And this is a normal Friday night in any Roman city in the first century.

And on her forehead, a name was written, a mystery. Babylon, the great, the mother of Harlet's, and of the abominations of the earth. And I saw the woman drunk with blood of the saints, and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus, when I saw her, I wondered greatly. This image of this woman is pretty intense. Yeah.

Writing a red beast. Yeah. One of those beasts, one of those beastly kingdoms. Yeah. Yeah. Most revelation commentators that I've looked at are thinking he's merging all kinds of imagery. Some of it's Hebrew Bible imagery in Isaiah 47, specifically Babylon of Isaiah's day is depicted as a queen that God is going to bring down and bring from her exalted throne to the dust.

But then also people are pretty convinced he's also creating a parody here of the goddess Roma, which is the empire of Rome personified as a female goddess, and that he's mixing all of that together into one potent set of images here. So notice the blood of the witnesses comes back up here again. Remember, the blood was crying out from the altar back in chapter six, now she's drinking it.

So we're talking here about, you know, it's just it's the classic images of followers of Jesus thrown to the lions in the gladiator arenas and executed in city squares and this kind of thing. And you know, so for Rome, this was a point of pride to be able to display its domination of the nations and people groups around, to roads to bring the Pax Romana the peace peace Roman peace, but it was always accompanied it was a peace Accomplished through domination crucifixion of thousands people and Bajan wants us to see Like you know the center of Rome is not this glorious

Honorable place. It's a prostitute riding a beast and a dragon drunk with the blood of innocent people. That's what he wants us to see spiritually. Again, with those glasses on, the apocalyptic glasses. So intense. When you see this image, there's no ambivalence. It's just like, oh, that's evil. You know what I mean? You can't read this description and be like, well, I don't know,

maybe she was good to some people. It's like she wants you to see the dark and generally. She wants you to have a visceral reaction. That's right. Yeah. To this woman who's drunk on the blood of the saints. Totally. Yeah. So what follows chapter 18 is a whole lament of all the kings of the earth begin to cry out and lament over the fall of Babylon. And I'm just gonna read it, it's the longest list of economic trade goods of the Roman Empire anywhere in ancient Greek or Roman literature.

It's a list of 30 types of trade that Rome engaged in. So this is Revelation 18 starting in verse 9. When the kings of the earth, who committed adultery with her and shared her luxury, see the smoke of her burning. Just like Abram saw the smoke of Sodom rising up. So now here's the new Sodom. Smoke of its destruction is rising. But the kings of the earth are crying, they're weeping and mourning.

Terrified at a torment, standing far off crying, Oh, whoa, to you great city, mighty city of Babylon, in one hour your doom has come. And the merchants of the earth will weep and mourn, because, well, no one buys their cargo anymore. Cargos of, and here it is, gold, silver, precious stones, pearls, fine linen, purple, silk, scarlet cloth, every sort of citron wood. Articles made of ivory, costly wood, bronze, iron, marble, cargoes of cinnamon,

spice, of incense, merer, and fragrance, wine, and oil, fine flour, wheat, cattle, sheep, horses, carriages. And these last two words, he's placed very strategically at the end. The 29th number of the list is bodies. And then he clarifies, that is human lives. So really, again, this was Richard Bauchem, who brought this to my attention in an important way. He really wants to paint the portrait of the economic prosperity of the Roman world. Yeah, of the Roman world. It was a time that brought huge economic abundance for some, for some.

And the fact that he saves for the last, these two terms to refer to the slave trade is really significant. So he uses these word bodies and then he clarifies that is human lives. It's the last item of cargo. I'll just read this, Richard Bauchem. I'll just read how he puts it. He says, John gives considerable emphasis to the reference to slaves by placing them at the end of the list. He gives both the common term for slaves

in the slave markets, that is bodies. That's just how they refer to slaves. Yeah, he has a whole thing on this. You just call them bodies. I'm gonna go get two bodies at the market. Yeah, right. And then what he says, he notes that what John does is he uses the common purgeorgative term for slaves, bodies, and then he gives

them the scriptural designation for humans from Genesis 1, that is, human lives, or a living human. I thought this was such a good observation. Bacchum goes on. He says, he is pointing out that slaves are not animals to be bought and sold as property, but are human beings. In this emphatic position, at the end of the list, this is more than just John's comment on the slave trade. It's a comment on the whole list of cargo.

It suggests the inhuman brutality, the contempt for human life, on which the whole of Rome's prosperity and luxury rests. And you just have to stop and you just have to say, like, this is a pointed economic critique of a whole system. We've grown up in a culture that says politics and religion in economics, they're like separate spheres. You can go study and major in separate, you know, I major in economics, I major in religion. And that's fine to like, if you want to study and learn about these fields, but it loels us into thinking that these are actually like separate spheres of our lives, you know, and that religion doesn't have to do with these other things.

And a point like this in Revelation 18, I think just tells the lie on that one. He's exposing that I think it's part of the seedbed of the anti-slavery, the logical outcome of a Christian worldview. And it took Christians centuries to actually own that conclusion. But in a text like this, Revelation 18, you can see the roots of it right there, I can't yeah. And again, Malcolm's point is he puts slaves last in the list because it's like the, it's the foundation of the whole thing. The whole economy is built on dehumanizing people as bodies

instead of human beings. Woo! 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1%, 1 %, 1 %, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, The last paragraph of Revelation 18 is really significant. He sees this vision of this angel who takes up a big millstone and throws it into the sea. Do you remember that saying of Jesus? Is it about the children? Is it about his followers? Yeah, these little ones. These little ones, it's better if you've

thrown in the sea with a millstone around your neck. Yeah, that's right. So it's an interesting variation of that image. So he sees that angel pick up a millstone, just a huge piece of rock, and throw it into the sea, and he says that's what babble on the great city will be like. Throne down by violence no longer found. The sound of harpists and musicians and flute players and trumpeters won't be heard. No craftsmen, no crafts will be found. The sound of the mill

will not be heard in you. No light of the lamp will shine. The sound of the mill will not be heard in you. No light of the lamp will shine. The voice of the bridegroom and bride will no longer be heard. Your merchants were great men of the earth, and all nations were deceived by your sorcery. And this is the final line. Because in Babylon was found all the blood of the prophets and saints, and of all who have been murdered on the earth.

Remember, we've been tracing this theme of when followers of Jesus bear witness to the word of God and the testimony of Jesus? That was kind of the focus of the book, right? That's John's audience. But then in this climactic way, he makes Babylon responsible, not just for the blood of persecuted followers of Jesus,

but the last line is, and of all who have been murdered on the earth. So he's thinking all the way back to Abel. When you see the blood of the innocent, not just because they are followers of Jesus, anybody, any innocent blood that you see that's connected to these systems of oppression and injustice, you're looking at Babylon. It's Babylon manifesting itself. That's what he's saying right here. And the fact he saves us for the last line, is so significant, I think.

He's trying to teach us how to spot Babylon. It seems to me. And when you put all this together in light of the design patterns and how he calls Babylon, also them Egypt, Jerusalem, he's trying to teach us how to see spiritually when Babylon raises its head. And the murder of the innocent is like key criterion on his list. Well, I'm struck by is the kings of the earth who were in bed with Babylon. They see that Babylon's going down and they're sad because... Yeah, they're source of income. They benefited economically from Babylon. Yeah. Oh man, it's convicting. You know what's interesting. The member of the

revelations, a tale of two cities. So if you just keep reading, when the description of the New Jerusalem comes on the scene, many of these items are going to reappear. Oh yeah. The bronze, the gold, the precious jewels, and there's abundance in the New Jerusalem, streets of gold. So it's not abundance as such,

it's abundance by what means, right? That's the contrast you want to paint here. And so this is abundance is built on the foundation of bodies that is traded enslaved human beings. I think that's the contrast, abundance by what means and abundance for whom. That's interesting. Because what was the garden? The new Jerusalem is just garden of Eden on like with the volume turned up to 11. You know?

So I'm just, I'm not saying that you're trying just to console you. I'm just saying he's inviting us to reflect on the economic systems in which we are embedded, have a worldview and a set of allegiances attached to them that are not always apparent. That's why you need the revelation to uncover it for you. We've had a whole conversation in the past about what does it look like to live in Babylon

when your allegiance isn't to Babylon. I feel like that's where I would want to go next in this conversation of like, I mean, nothing that I touch is not tainted by. Totally. By Babylon. And by participating in all sorts of economies, am I perpetuating oppression and violence? Well, what? like, what do I do? Yeah. So we don't have to mold that all over, but that was a really cool conversation

that we got to have about living as exiles and Babylon. Yeah, that's right. How do you serve Babylon? Yeah, how do you be a Daniel that both resists subversive loyalty, right? Subversive loyalty, that's true. Yeah. So let's step back into our apocalyptic moment.

You know, part of what, especially in America, what makes this uprising against our social systems that perpetuate racial injustice, what I mean, the momentum and the leverage that these movements have is an idea that the realities of racial injustice betray what the American flag is supposed to represent, and the ideals that it's supposed to represent.

And so it's being loyal to the dream, right? That America could represent. It's a kind of loyalty. There's something there of subversive loyalty, where it's loyalty to the best ideals of what my society wants says it wants to pursue and how I can I be loyal to those even the loyalty to those ideals might often mean subversion of the current institutions or leadership structures

in the form that they are right now. And I think that in many ways, that's a good way to capture what's going on right now. And so as a follower of Jesus, at the Book of Revelation, I think gives us a very powerful set of lenses to think about what that subversive loyalty looks like, which means naming idolatry, naming cultural

values and systems that benefit some at the expense of others, and naming that as idolatry, you know? So you're right. Our video is on exile, and especially the way of the exile, fully kind of go hand in glove here with this conversation we're having right now. Yeah. conversation we're having right now. 1 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 I'm not sure there's a good way to even draw all the threads of this conversation to a close right now. I will say that for me, I think this is a moment right now for me to really listen and try to internalize

and make meaningful what it means to have such a legacy of oppression at your back. Yeah, I, you know, I don't have, I don't have the right categories and I don't want to be complicit. Yeah, thank you for walking us through Revelation and that theme of testifying for Jesus. I mean, another thing I've heard a number of times for people just saying, like, where is the white evangelical voices right now? And they're probably feeling similar, which is this sense of, I don't want to say something until I've got it all figured out. I'm having all these conflicting emotions, and then just feeling stuck.

Yeah, that's right. So one way to let the Revelation guide us is this line from chapter 7, which I think is so cool. It's John's vision of, he hears about a group of 144,000, which is the 12 tribes of Israel times 12. That's what he hears. He hears the number of these people who are sealed with God's seal. But then he looks and he tries to see this group. What he sees is not 144,000, what he sees is Revelation 7.9, a great multitude, which nobody could count. People from every nation, every tribe, every people, every language, standing before the throne and before the lamb clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands. This is all about how Passover and also the Feast of Tabernacles got celebrated in Jerusalem

with all these palm branches and they're crying out with a loud voice saying rescue belongs to our God to the one sitting on the throne and to the Lamb and then when John asks his little tour guide who And then when John asks his little tour guide who these are, he says, these are the ones who have come out of the great test, the great trial. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. And it's this image of when God's people are faithful when they find themselves in Babylon, there will be tension. It will create conflict and tension. Just like Jesus created conflict inside of everybody, he was around. And that's not a bad thing because it can be

apocalyptic. It can expose, you know, what needs to be exposed. But we're invited this image of putting on the white robe that's washed in the blood of the Lamb. That's such a great contradictory metaphor. But it's like what Jesus was to Jerusalem of his day. And you know, he charged in Jerusalem and he told them what he thought, you know? And he got killed for it, but that may or may not be required in any given context, but bearing witness to the crucified Jesus as the way to confront the

idolatrous powers of our world. This is like the bread and butter of the biblical story. And I just want to make sure that my eyes aren't closed to the apocalypse happening around me. So one day at a time, they, they God, give us wisdom, right? To know what to do when we wake up tomorrow. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Bible Project podcast. It's a special midweek episode related to crit events.

The Bible Project is a nonprofit organization where in Portland, our mission is to show Fabo's unified story that leads to Jesus. And this podcast is one way we do that. We have videos and other resources on our website, biopartic.com and it's all funded by thousands of patrons like you. So we really appreciate that and we're thankful for you guys and for being part of this with us. All right, cool. Hi, my name is William Murphy. I'm from Orlando, Florida. Hi, this is Nasser Algartani and I'm from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Hi, this is Lauren. I'm from New York City.

Hi, this is Allison to Sarthino. I'm from Phoenix, Arizona. We believe the Bible is a unified story that leads to Jesus. We're a crowdfunded project by people like me. Free videos, study notes, podcasts, and more. You can find them at thebibeproject.com. Woo! Woo! Woo!

Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo!

you