Theology in the Raw - A Theopolitical Reading of Revelation, and Other Scholarly Musings: Dr. Scot McKnight

Episode Date: September 16, 2024

Dr. Scot McKnight is a professor, author, golfer. He's also a newly converted Clevland Guardians fan and believes that Michael Jordan (not Lebron James) was the best basketball player of all time. Oh, and Scot is also a world renowned New Testament scholar who's written dozens of books and several commentaries on various books in the New Testament, including his most recent commentary: Revelation for the Rest of Us: A Prophetic Call to Follow Jesus as a Dissident Disciple. This podcast conversation is free flowing. It ranges from technical scholarly issues to baseball to MJ vs. Lebron to politics to a theopolitical reading of the book of Revelation. In short, Babylon is everywhere. And Christians must "come out of her" (Rev 18). Register for the Exiles 2 day conference in Denver (Oct 4-5) here: https://theologyintheraw.com/exiles-denver/  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey friends. Welcome back to the episode of theology in the raw. The exiles of Babylon conference is just a couple of weeks away, October 4th to 5th. We're talking about discipleship in an election year, uh, sexuality after purity culture, and also fake news, propaganda, and healthy media consumption. We are going to blow the doors off of all of these hot topics. I can't wait to see you all there. Those who are going to attend, if you want to attend the conference, uh, theology and the raw.com, all the information is there. You can attend live in person in Denver, Colorado, or virtually from Antarctica or wherever you are sitting with an internet connection.

Okay. My guest today is Dr. Scott McKnight. I always have my guests fill out a short bio. Here's exactly what Scott wrote down in the, in the sheet, professor, author, golfer. Oh, there's a man, a few words, at least on paper, but he's a very great conversationalist as you will see. If you don't know the name Scott McKnight, where do I begin? He is a world renowned new Testament scholar. He's been a professor for over 40 years. He's written dozens of books, including the many commentaries on several books in the new Testament. He's known for several books that have really become popular, like the Jesus creed or Jesus creed, King Jesus gospel blue parakeet and many, many others. So yeah, well, we talk a lot about just random scholarly stuff. We also talk about baseball

and basketball, basketball. We, we, we go back and forth on whether Michael Jordan or LeBron James, the best basketball player. Anyway, mostly we talked about scholarship, but we mix in real life stuff too. So please welcome back to the show. The one early doctor Scott Scott McKnight. Welcome to the all-general. It's a really good to have you on. Well, thanks Preston. Good to see you again. Although I'm sad to see you wearing an LA Dodgers hat. Well I was going to begin by asking you LA Dodgers hat. Well, I was going to begin by asking you how you feel about your Cubbies this year. You're, you're 10 games out of first. But you know, Milwaukee is having a great season. So you feel good

or disappointed. Have you ever heard of LeBron James? Yeah, a little bit. You know how he changes teams. My son, my son, we were with the Cubs forever. And my son resigned from working with the Cubs. You know, he played in the organization five summers, then worked 15 years in the front office, he resigned. And then two years later, he got hired by the Cleveland Guardians. So we are now Cleveland Guardians fans that we watched the games on major league baseball network. Yeah. Yeah. So you're having a great year.

I'm sorry about the Cubs, but we're cheering for the guardians and they're not playing very well right now. They're double header yesterday. Well, all of the Kansas city Royals. Yeah. Oh, that's not good. All the hot teams, Orioles, Phillies, guardians. They, they last month or some Dodgers to the last month. They just have not, they've kind of dropped a bit, but yeah. Yeah. Yankees had a bad spell in there. Yeah. But you know, it's, it's that's baseball. It's going to be up and down. You just got to get through these seasons and all of a sudden, maybe you can start hitting again. That's what's that's baseball. It's going to be up and down. You just got to get through these seasons and all of a sudden maybe you can start hitting again. That's what's going on with the guardians. It's quite it's Kwan still hitting. I mean, he's having a remarkable year.

No, Kwan's not hitting very well. Ramirez. Ramirez got three hits yesterday, but no, they're Josh. Nailer's not doing so well. It's just, they're down on hitting. They're not doing very well. Ramirez is one of my favorite. I mean, how can he not love Ramirez? He is just a scrappy, classic, old school, hard hitting baseball player. I love watching him play.

Yeah. As Lucas, you know, my son's a baseball scout for the guardians. Oh wow. He says, Jose Ramirez never has a bad at bat. Yeah. And no, we've seen a couple, but by and large, he hits the ball. He makes you throw strikes. He doesn't swing at bad pitches. He hits the ball hard a lot. He's good. He's really, either way, right-handed or left-handed, he can hit.

So he's not a, how do I put it, a physical specimen. He's not an Aaron Judge, 6'7", rock hard muscle. He's not tall. What about him? How is he able to generate the kind of power he does? Is it just mechanics? Is it, I mean? Well, he's got a lot of quickness. So, I mean, that's a big part of it. But he has a near perfect swing for his body size. I mean, he goes right to the ball. He doesn't dip and lift. He just goes right to the ball and he hits it hard. And, and the other thing he swings hard. Yeah. You know, Javi Baez was, he swung hard. Now he has back problem. So it was Chris Bryant. They both have back problems. They swung hard. Javi, maybe because he's a switch hitter,

doesn't seem to have those, that kind of problem. He just, he's a remarkable baseball player. He is and smart. Golly, just has instincts. His base running. Um, but yeah, that, that bat, the bat, the hand, the bat, the ball speed, people sometimes, you know, Mookie bets is the same thing. What is he? Five, five 10, 180 or something. I mean, Mookie bets is not a big guy. And he, I mean, he just is, is an incredible bat, the ball hitter. And and just when you get barrel on it, it'll go. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we could spend all podcasts on my baseball if you want, but you don't, you're also an author.

I didn't know you were into baseball Preston. I forgot about this. I mean, every, yeah, it's a daily, I'm constantly on the MLB app. Um heaven on earth is Dodger stadium. You know, I get down there once or twice a year and it is just, to me, it's, it's magical. I grew up going to L my dad is LAPD. We, I grew up in California. And so going to Dodger games was like a once a year, like, you know, and I was, I was, it was baseball as my life. So to go to a pro game was just, I was that kid with the jaw on the ground just in all, you know, um, yeah. Well, my son played in Boise too. You know, he played, he played for the Boise Hawks one. So he told me that did you come out here and watch him play? Yeah. Oh yeah. We're, I think

I, I think we flew out four different times. Yeah. It was a lot of fun. Yeah. Yeah. He loved his year in Boise. Oh wow. Right there by the river, that stadium. It's a classic minor league. I mean, you got the dog that runs out of the, did this back then, but they have a dog that runs out and grabs the bat. They've got all the weird quirky barter league stuff and smoke. All right. Yeah. Let's let's how many years have you been teaching now? Are you getting close to retirement or...? I've been teaching 41 years. And I don't know if you know this, I resigned at Northern Seminary.

I did know that. Yeah. Okay. So I'm not retired. And I don't plan on retiring until, as Jimmy Dunn once said, until my brain is full of Swiss cheese and things are leaking out. There's holes in the brain. He says, there's holes in my memory. And he says, I repeat things. Yeah. Yeah. And so I plan on, you know, I'm going to be teaching at Houston Theological Seminary, a course. In fact, I'm lecturing this afternoon on Zoom for a while. And then I teach an intensive in October and an intensive in March. And then in September of 25, I add to my two times a year at Houston

to my two times a year at Houston course, an intensive in England with Westminster Theological Center, but it's taught wonderfully at the University of Nottingham, where I did my PhD. So it'll be the first time Chris has been back since our kids were little. Do you know, I taught at Nottingham for a semester filling in for Richard bell. He was on a semester leave. And so they, they, they interviewed a bunch of PhD students for a semester long post. And I, I got that job. I was there at Nottingham for a semester lecture at the university or St. John's university, not him. Can you really, my office on the outside had, Oh, who's the first Corinthians comment that the new Testament scholar, this will, this will be Thistleton. Yeah. I had his, his name was still on the office. He was retired then,

but that was the office they gave me for the office that Jimmy Dunn had. He wasn't a wreck. He was up in Durham at that time. Oh yeah, but was it the second office from the end of the hallway? Oh gosh. You remember? It was tucked away. It was at the end of the hallway. Yeah, it might have been his office. A big, big, looked out with glass windows onto the square. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's probably Jimmy's office. Oh my word, wow. Because the one next to it was the dean of the cemetery's office. Okay. Yeah, it was David Ford. No, not David Ford. The other Ford. There was Ford brothers, two theologians. The one, it wasn't David Ford, it was his brother who hired me. Really neat guy.

Who's that New Testament, the Aramaic Jesus scholar. KC was still there. He was there. We used to hang out. Oh, he was a hoop. My, my atheist new Testament colleague. He was, he was something else. He was, he wasn't, I don't think he was quite there when I was a student. He wasn't, he hadn't been, at least he He was, he wasn't, I don't think he was quite there when I was a student. He wasn't, he hadn't been, at least he didn't, he wasn't known at that time. But I remember when he came out as an atheist. I remember asking him about going to church, and he would say things like he used to go to church. But he was never, I never heard a word about that. But Morris was always friendly and very careful. And he, in a sense, had the administrative duty of paying attention to my dissertation

once Jimmy left. But he didn't read it. And I had the, my external examiner was Graham Stanton and John Muddyman. I don't know him, I don't know Graham. But I don't think, I don't think Morris read any of it. My external examiner was Graham Stanton and John Muddyman. I don't know him, I know Graham. But I don't think Morris read any of it. He didn't care for redaction criticism at all. Morris didn't?

That's what I did. I did Matthew 10's redaction criticism. What's the elevator pitch of your dissertation? Gosh, this is 40 years ago. New Shepherds for Israel was the title and it was pretty much just a classic at the time, you know? It was the end of the Redaction Critical Era, but it was still going on.

It was just a redactional study of Matthew 10, 935 to 11.1, and it was sort of an exploration of method for me as well. And in the process, I did a long study of Jewish missionary activity that was published as A Light Among the Gentiles. And I never published my dissertation. Graham pleaded with me several years to do it. I lost interest in doing that. The Matthew seminar in SBL was totally directed by Jack Kingsbury, Jack Dean Kingsbury, and he wanted

all literary and composition criticism. And so, Dale Allison, I knew at the time, he and I just didn't participate because we were more into tradition criticism. And Jack, he didn't want any part of that. So I moved to historical Jesus studies. Can you explain to our audience that don't have a clue what reduction criticism is? How would you explain that to somebody that doesn't even know it? Well, it's the analysis of, let's say, a chapter in Matthew. So, I'll talk about redaction criticism in Matthew. In light of how it used the Gospel of Mark and the putative source

called Q, or what it did to those sources and what you can infer about Matthew's theology, and I didn't do much of this, even Matthew's community in light of the emphases and editing, the edits that Matthew made to Mark and to Q. So it kind of looks at Matthew as an editor of his sources. So you compare Matthew with his sources, one might say alleged sources, and how he's telling the story slightly differently from his source shows what kind of emphasis he's trying to bring out. Yeah.

Would you say- Those aren't alleged sources, Preston. Those are his sources. Well, Mark, for sure, cues a little bit. Yeah. You know what I used to say though? I mean, if people have underlined their synopsis, most people haven't done. I've underlined my synopsis. I did it for Jimmy Dunn. Jimmy says, well, if you haven't marked up your synopsis, we can't get anywhere. I think it's easier to posit that Matthew and Luke had access to a source than even that they use Mark. There are so many passages that go on word after word after word that I think it's pretty secure. Now, you could argue that Luke used Matthew

or that Matthew used Luke, but it's straightforward. Like Matthew 3, 7 through 10, paralleled in Luke 3, 7 through 9. It's like 87 words there and 85 of them are identical and in the same order. The chances of that are not so great. So is Mark and Priority is still basically established in scholarship, right? Are the people that question. So I grew up, I was trained under Bob Thomas at

master seminary who thought that was heresy to say you have a God and inspire gospel writer using another gospel writer and saying something differently. So his whole hypothesis was they're all writing completely independent, not looking at other sources, even though Luke tells us he uses sources at the first. I forgot how they got around that. Well, I remember when Bob wrote his Harmony. I was involved in respond. I guess I didn't respond to it, but I read it and we talked about it. I was a seminary student at the time. It's interesting because there was a period in there when William Farmer was kind of pushing against Mark and Priority, but I don't see that now. But what happened in the historical Jesus studies that started in the 80s and really blossomed was the

whole synoptic problem issue was dropped to study history. And when people woke up on the other side of it, they were really back to mark and priority. And so I don't see that much now. Mark Goodacre at Duke, he's pretty strong against Q. He studied with, I'm pretty sure he studied with Michael Golder at Birmingham. I think the chances that Matthew and Luke have identical words on the basis of independence is zero. They are dependent upon one another, or they are dependent upon a source or one another, and that I take to be pretty firm. I think the chances that Luke would have done to Matthew's Sermon on the Mount pretty low—its stuff is pretty cool. The

Sermon on the Mount was pretty influential in the early church. Matthew could have done that to Luke, but most people would date Luke even later than Matthew. So I still believe in Q and a lot of people do. Most people seem to believe it. As an actual written source that we don't have anymore, oral tradition or does it matter? It's just some kind of... I don't think we know, but the wording is so similar.

I think it's probably some, there's some written stuff there. And just again for our audience, for those who don't, so Q stands for the German word, is it Quella? Quella. Quella. Quella. Quella. That means source, and it is the name given to the source, again, whether written or oral,

that Matthew and Luke, when Matthew and Luke are writing about Jesus in a way that doesn't, that it wasn't written about in Mark. Mark was a first gospel written Matthew, Mark are using Mark, but there's also seems to be another source that they're both like you're saying word for word and agreement on. So Q is a term given to that. I'll say a lit. Well, yeah, it's still the ledges. I mean, it's false or not legitimate. It's just like, we don't have access to this. So we don't have it hypothetical. It's nice to talk to Pauline scholars who didn't do their work

on the, on the synoptics because we operate in different worlds. I mean, the, the people who specialize in the synoptics, they've, we've got details in our, in our back pocket on this sort of thing. And, and I think that the gospel, I mean, Luke 1 to 1 to 4 is very important where Luke tells us that he's using sources. It looks like one of them was Mark.

Yeah, I did read Goodicke's book, Questioning Q. I thought it was really, I didn't know it. I don't know enough. I still don't know enough about the debate to have a strong opinion, but I remember reading here. I mean, he's a brilliant guy. I mean, everything is going to be, yeah. But yeah, I dabbled in the gospels, but it really, people don't realize how siloed even something as seemingly small as the new Testament, even something like Paul. I mean, I did Paul in the law, Paul in Judaism, Romans, Galatians. I had a PhD student friend of mine who was studying first Corinthians. Our overlap in literature was like maybe 1%. He was reading all

Greco-Roman stuff, Corinthians stuff. We were both studying Paul and we were not intersecting with each other's work on, on any level. It's that side. Well, you know, I teach the whole New Testament. All right. I did the last, I mean, the last 28 years and I'm stunned by the specialization literature in Paul and Romans and Galatians are in their own world. But it's totally true that the minute you move to 1 Corinthians, it's a different game altogether because of the city of Corinth, Cancreia, and the scholarship. It's way out there. And then Philippians has its own group of people and Thessalonians, you know, those are the two letters I go, oh boy, these are the ones

that are, I trust John Barclay saying stuff that I can trust on the Thessalonians. It is really siloed and even in the synoptics, Matthew, Mark and Luke, you can study Matthew and realize these people who are doing Luke are doing completely different things. Hey friends, I am absolutely loving this new book, White Boy, Black Girl by Adaisi and Chad Brinkman. So Adaisi is a Black Nigerian American creative woman and she married Chad, a flannel wearing, beer drinking white dude from the South who also grew up in the Pacific Northwest. Okay. So in this book, they beautifully narrate the relationship and talk about, talk very openly and honestly about their, you know, the challenging conversations they've had

about race, the eye opening life situations they've encountered together as a mixed race couple. So I think readers who are in an interracial relationship can absolutely benefit from this book. You will love it. I mean, if you're in an interracial relationship, you just absolutely have to read this book. But even if you're not, I mean, I'm not in a relationship that's interracial. I found this book to be so incredibly helpful for just understanding a lot of the ignorance I had about being a majority person in a majority culture.

But I didn't feel like I was, you know, shame for being white or ignorant. A Dayz and Chatt are very gracious and humble and vulnerable in how they write. So seriously, all a white boy, black girl is a book that is so hard to put down. Check it out wherever books are sold. Do you think that's good? Like if you were to construct a PhD program, would you maintain that kind of siloed or would you have people be a little more broad? You know, it kind of depends who you are. If you're going to be a historian, let's say

you're not working in the church that much, or maybe you're not even a Christian in that sense. You're just a historian. I think it's perfectly fine. But if you end up with people in the pew, I think you have to become a generalist at some level and value, let's say, scholarship or at least careful readings of the entire New Testament. While I like to think that I'm a Jesus scholar and a Matthew specialist, I unloaded two shelves of books in Joel Willis's office on Matthew because I didn't have space on my shelves for them.

Now I kind of wish I had them. I guess I could call up Joel and say, Joel, let's meet. I've got to have my books back. But I've tried to work. I end up writing about things that are interesting to me. And then I'll study those. But I don't want to be a specialist on Revelation. But I really enjoyed reading stuff on Revelation and writing the everyday Bible studies

on every book of the New Testament has been really a redemptive experience for me, just writing on every book. But I'm not, obviously, I'm not reading monographs for each one. It's for laypeople. Did you finish that? Wait, you've written New Testament for the rest of us? Can you see them back here? No, I see... No, they're right over here. I have Matthew's at the publisher, Ephesians and Colossians. I have one more passage left tomorrow.

I'll finish Colossians, then I have to write the introductions. And then I have just two more books, one on first, second, third John, and one on Hebrews. Scott, that's an amazing accomplishment. 16, 16. That's crazy. Yeah, it is. And John, the editor the other day said, we're all kind of amazed that you've kept the schedule. Did you keep the schedule?

I've stayed ahead of it, actually. How many years, how long did it take? I'm sure you're doing other things along the way, but. It's four years. It's four years for a year is what I've done. And I'll take time off because I'm working on a book on Jesus and the Pharisees. And it's about 90,000 words and the publisher wants 60,000.

And I keep editing and then I keep reading and I find more stuff to write about. And I told the editor I'd have it to him next year at this time. Do you have a particular book, this might be a hard question to answer, that you fell in love with the most? Is there a certain book or commentary you wrote that you're just like, this was just particularly enjoyable writing this? Yeah, it's a good question, Preston. I like to tell people my favorite book

is the last one I wrote. And many times that's the case, but there are certain books that just have really stood out in my life that I've been formative in shaping of how I do other things like the Jesus Creed. Although I I'd revise portions of that now, but I'm not gonna do it. King Jesus Gospel. I liked Fellowship of Difference because it was about Paul in a way that I don't think anybody's talking about

or not enough and let's see, I was gonna bring up another book that I really enjoyed. Blue Parakeet? Blue Parakeet was a lot of fun. I just got royalty statements today, so I was able to see. It was kind of fun to see some of these books. Those books were... I get letters every week about the Blue Parakeet. I loved reading Romans backwards because the editor said I don't want any footnotes.

Oh, he didn't want me. And he says, you can't mention any scholars in the text. He said, I just want you to work out what you think, he says, because I think you've got a distinct idea. So it was really fun to do, but it was hard work because I wanted to read on Romans. And you know what that means. Yeah, I mean, it's it's endless. And I would and as someone who had Jimmy Don is a teacher, I'm new perspective. And I've been that way since the 80s. And yeah, late mid 80s, early 90s. There were certain things that just, you know, I'm not going to sit there and worry about how Lutherans read Romans five, Romans one through four, I'm not

going to worry about that. But they have great scholarship. And so I wanted to dabble in that. This is a sine qua non for me, but it's a total sin for many. I won't read Karl Barth's Romans until I've retired, because I don't want him messing with my head. Because if you read Barth, you become drunk on Barth. I've got all his church dogmatics sitting right here on my shelf. If I read it, I will become a Bartian because that's what happens to people who read that.

That's not a bad thing, Scott. That's what I'm told. But when I look at the Jewish world, I don't see Paul the way Douglas Campbell sees Paul. I don't think too many people see Paul the way Douglas Campbell sees Paul. Well, but I mean with all that Barting is, and even Beverly Gaventa, and I think they're exceptional writers with clarity and proposals

that are just so convincing and compelling. But... You're too much of a Wesleyan to wanna go be a Barting, is that it? No, I think I'm too much of a Jesus scholar to allow that sort of thing to take over too much in the world of the Jewish world. I've only read chunks of Bart, but I, I, I did, I, I did, I drank, I drank the punch largely through Francis Watson because he largely waved his magic wand over me when I was doing

my PhD. He wasn't my advisor. Simon Gotharkel was, but Watson was there. And I read his Paul and hermeneutics of faith, which is kind of a Bardian reading of Paul and it, yeah, it convinced me. So I understand the reluctance. I mean, it's, it's, it's a compelling, I mean, it's like, it's a little bit like this. I mean, it's, it's, it's a compel, I mean, it's like, uh, it's a little bit like Wesley. It's a little bit like Calvin. It's, it's a little bit like, uh, Jonathan Edwards is that you absorb those. It's a total hermeneutic. And once you absorb it and get it, you can't get rid of it. How would you understand, okay, for our audience again, that might be a little lost. How would you explain what you're, what you're saying to somebody that's never read BART? Maybe they barely heard of BART.

I would say it's a lens through which they see the truth of God in the Christian faith. It's such a clear lens that they can't see anything else. But what's that lens looking at? Like, what's the emphasis that they're... Well, when it looks at Scripture, especially, and then they look at Paul. Look, some of these people, as you know, haven't written a word about Jesus. And there are just, it's Romans and Galatians, and tidied up with some Corinthians, maybe a little bit of Philemon. It's an approach to understand how to put together what Paul said that allows them to read every passage in Paul through that lens. The way I would put it is, to a really heavy emphasis on divine agency in salvation, in covenant

fulfillment, and a strong discontinuity between Paul and the Old Testament, at least in terms of divine and human agency relationship. It is very strong on divine agency. But what stuns me at times is the lack of interest in, let's say, the narrative of Scripture, the lack of interest in the Jewish world, a little bit of interest for some of them in the Greco-Roman world. It kind of stunts me, like, where is Jewishness here? And look, some of them don't like that whole narrative approach. If everything is new, everything old is gone, you know? And sometimes I feel that way when I read certain apocalyptic thinkers on Paul. It's like, what about, you know, it's not just Isaiah's image of new creation that we

have to deal with. We're dealing with the story of Israel. What sense does it make of meaning? And then how does Paul fit in that? And this is one that, this is what bothers me, Preston, is how connected is their theology to Jesus' kingdom vision? You know? I mean, you know, Kingdom does not mean God's apocalyptic act of redemption that leads to the dynamic of the here and now of George Ladd,

you know? Kingdom is a pretty social, political idea. Yeah. So, and how does that relate to the church and stuff like that? So… Who's the guy who wrote the famous anchor Galatians commentary? I'm blanking on his name. I'm terrible. No, no, no, no. The, um, the Boer and the apocalypse, the main apocalypse guy, the Martin, J Louie, Martin, J Louie, Martin. So my first year, you would appreciate this. I was a first year PhD student at Aberdeen and they had a new Testament seminar with a lot of these apocalyptic thinkers out there.

Doug Campbell, he actually stayed in my flat. Martin was there and a couple other, I forget a couple other guys. And I was show for these guys around at one point, my little four banger car, you know, I had J Louie, Martin, Doug Campbell, and another apocalyptic thinker. And I was thinking, if I get an, in a wreck, the entire apocalyptic approach to Paul would be done because they were all feet. I shouldn't laugh. That's really sad. But I think I've made that joke and didn't Martin cracked up. But anyway, man, it's been so long since I even thought through these categories really. Anyway, let's, let's move to revelation. Cause this, yeah, this is the main reason why I wanted to have you on. So you wrote as part of this commentary series, revelation for

the rest of us, that I liked the subtitle, a prophetic call to follow Jesus as a dissident dissident disciple. Why don't we begin by you helping us understand, how should we even approach the book of Revelation? Is it completely mysterious that we can't understand it? Is it all about the future? Is it all about first century or is it about something else? How would you coach us in this. Yeah, but I have to tell you that one time I carted from the airport Carl Henry and Harold Linzel in the same car. That would have been a bad accident for evangelicalism. Okay, I think the book of Revelation, okay, I'm going to say it this way, just because I don't quite believe this, but it will help. It has to be read as fiction.

It has to be read as a vision of what God is going to do in the world because of the injustice of the Roman Empire, when God makes the—as Tom Wright says, puts the world to rights. When God acts in history to defeat the emperor of Rome, probably Nero, or Domitian—I mean, it just depends how you read certain texts. But it was a—I think it's a—we have to read the text as a political tractate criticizing the Roman Empire and its injustice. And the people who liked it were the people who were experiencing the rough side of the empire because they were believers in Jesus. So now, it's not fiction in that sense, in the fiction like it's not a novel, but it

has that apocalyptic visionary sense that ties it to Jewish apocalyptic literature, to visions in Isaiah, Ezekiel, you know, Tyre is behind things, and Babylon and Jeremiah and Isaiah. All these visions are recaptured by John when he has these visionary experiences, but he is incapable of writing without using biblical imagery. So, the big mistake is to be asking the question, who is the predicted fulfillment of the beasts, let's say in Revelation 13? Who is the predicted fulfillment? The odd thing is, I think a lot of people who predicted some of these figures were right and wrong at the same time. Wrong because they limited it to one person in one nation. It was always not their nation. You know, it was the Americans predicted it was going to be in Europe or

Israel or something like that. And they were right in the sense that they perceived the correspondence between the beast or the dragon of Revelation to a current leader. So people who see—now, the book of Revelation doesn't use Antichrist, but let's just say that you use the word Antichrist. People who see Putin as Antichrist have got a lot going for them. But so also would many people see Trump this way, or some people would see Biden this way, and some people would see Netanyahu this way, and other people would see Hamas. They're all right because they're recognizing political corruption, which is what the book of Revelation chapter 17 and 18 are all about. It's a revelation

of the political corruption of Rome as a template for, as a template of Babylon, the empire that opposes the way of God in this world. So instead of seeing it, you know, two days ago, my wife and I are walking around our lake and a lady starts asking me questions about, do you think this is the Antichrist? You know, she says, my husband thinks Trump is the Antichrist and I think it's Biden. I'm thinking, okay, both. They wanted it to be a prediction. She wanted it to be a prediction. And Preston, I'm 70 years old.

I began hearing really clear predictions in about 1965. And it was really clear in the end of the 60s, in the beginning of the 70s, with the hippies and the world falling apart. And every prediction I've heard has been wrong, because it was a prediction rather than a discernment of political corruption. So if someone sees political corruption in the greed of America, let's say radical consumerism and capitalism, if someone sees the warmongering tendencies and violence of Rome and Babylon in the American military or in the Western world's military, they're doing the right thing with the book of Revelation. We should see, we should read it and say what in our world corresponds to this sort of thing right now. And we should become dissidents as followers of Jesus

who think he is the lamb, the lion who is the lamb, who is on the throne and who will rule. We become dissidents of anything that is not like Christ, especially in the political world. And that's why I think we need as Christians, I think we need to call out Christian nationalism and the American evangelical obsession with the Republican Party. I mean, isn't the Republican Party right now spoofing what evangelicalism did under Jerry Falwell?

If we get with the right political party, we can bring America back for God. Since when does a political party bring us back for God? And now we have a president. I'm hoping I'm not getting you into too much trouble, but I'm done at the end of this hour. So I'm not worried about it. He's completely betrayed everything those original evangelicals who wanted to get involved in government and bringing in a conservative president, he's betrayed everything they've said. That's what happens with political corruption. If they see the beasts of Babylon, the dragon at work in that, good, they should.

I love what you're saying about the flexibility of the concept of Babylon. There's a quote from Richard Baucam, and actually a lot of people have cited him on it. I think he really gets exactly what you're saying. He says, like, if the shoe fits, then the empire must wear it or something. Basically, that Babylon is described as almost like a collation, yeah, I guess that's the word, collation of all the beasts of Daniel. They're all kind of Babylon-like, and Rome is Babylon-like, and guess what? If any empire slash nation acts like the Babylon being described in Revelation, then they are a sort of manifestation of this dragon-empowered beast. Would that be... No. In our book, Revelation for the Rest of Us, Cody Matchett and I have the line,

Babylon is timeless. In fact, Zondervan produced leather belt, little leather clips for our key chain that says Babylon is timeless on it. So I carry it every day. Oh, can I get one of those? I need to reach out to the Zonimers. No, they only got like 20 of them. I said, hey, you guys could sell these. Well, they didn't.

They didn't think of it that way. They want to sell the books instead of these leather straps. But I really believe that this is a secret to reading Revelation, is to learn that Babylon is timeless. Babylon is always present. And it is present not just in one nation with one king or tyrant. It is present in every nation, in every national government, in every state in the United States, in every governor, in every village and community and city with their administrative leadership. I mean, we've got some very serious corruption cases going on in Chicagoland with some of the suburbs. And it's really, you know, you think this is Babylon. People who experience the underside or

the rough side of these governments, these leaders, they're experiencing Babylon, and they need this language for what they're experiencing, and that's what John provides. I do think he was talking about Rome, and I do think he believes that the New Jerusalem is going to come, but Old Testament prophecy did not work the way dispensationalists taught us it worked. It was imagery that could then be reused when the fullness of that prediction didn't occur. And I don't think they were predicting more than one thing. I think a prophet sees what's going on. They're social critics of their own day, and they see beyond that the way of God, and the

way of God is then fleshed out in concrete detail. There'll be peace, and the grapes will be big, and the cows will be big, and everybody will be happy. And then the fulfillment occurs, or the event occurs, and then beyond it is not the millennium or the utopia that they thought it would be. But that keeps them going forward and then they can predict, they can see. Like Jesus is predicting what occurs in 70 AD.

Attached to that, he's got these visions of the great banquet and these parables and the work of God. He's not wrong. It's a failure to understand prophecy when you don't understand the flexibility of the images and the time as it works out. I just finished reading a wonderful book

by Ellen Davis called Biblical Prophecy. It is a wonderful book. But not long ago I was reading people who were totally wrapped up in Albert Schweitzer's idea that Jesus predicted the end of the world within a generation, and therefore he was wrong and you can't be God and all this sort of thing. I'm thinking, what a short-sighted understanding of prophecy. Prophecy is like a world of magical images that just excite the people, motivate them to change. You get the change, the image has done its work, now let's move on.

And we're going to need those images in the next generation too. So that's how I see it. What would be the criteria for determining when we see a manifestation of Babylon? Because if it's as pervasive as you say, how do we determine? And this might not be a manifestation of Babylon. Well, we developed eight, seven. I think that we originally had eight, but we decided to keep it at seven because it's the book of Revelation.

One is there's an anti-God theme that is a revelation of Babylon. Anti-God of Israel, anti-God manifested in Jesus. A second is opulence. Opulence is a manifestation of consumerism in our day. That's the language we use along with globalization. But opulence is the benefit to the rich by way of exploiting and exploitation of the poor. It's murderous. So there's persecution against the people of God. This is why so many evangelicals like to claim persecution, because they've been schooled in the fact that persecution proves that you're right, and because they believe in some kind of scheme that at the end of times there will be persecution against the people of God. But persecution is a characteristic

of Babylon, but so also, I think, is branding. And this isn't a theme in Revelation, but it's everywhere present by anybody who knows how things worked in the Roman Empire. Rome was sort of like World War II veterans leaving the little slogan, Killroy was here. Everywhere they went, everywhere Rome had been, you could see results. The streets, the mail system, the buildings, the gods, the worship centers, even the worship of Caesar or the adoration of Caesar, the emperor worship of the Roman Empire. Militarism was a very big part of Rome, and Rome was brilliant in its military powers. They knew how to use it, they made people citizens, they captured people. Economic exploitation? There is no text in the ancient world like Revelation 18's description of

the cargo and ships that were headed to Rome and up the Tiber River that would drop off in the little island in Tiber right there at Rome. And then I think the last characteristic to me should not be a surprise to anybody is arrogance, narcissism. What it says in Revelation 18-7, here's the quotation, I am not a widow, the woman says, I will never mourn, in her heart she boasts I sit enthroned as queen. That's Babylon. In other words, I'm the greatest in the world. Now, if you don't see connections to what's happened in American

sense of superiority in the world and the critique of Europeans of American arrogance and American exploitation of others, if you don't see that when you're reading Revelation, then you've been co-opted by believing America is innocent and every other nation in the world is guilty. But if you operate with a theopolitical hermeneutic, which is what I call what we're doing. Now, my editor wouldn't let us use that language, he said. Only seminary people talk like this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. luck like this. But I mean, when you see it as Babylon is timeless, then you say, you know, we have too much of this in the United States. You know, our friends who are, you're

not too far from Canada, they're such a humble people compared to Americans. The Irish are the same way. And the British, they have a little bit more arrogance about them. But by and large, they all pale in significance when it comes to arrogance to the United States. And that's exactly what Babylon was all about. They're the greatest in the world. And there is no such thing. There is no such thing. There may be the greatest basketball player in the world was Michael Jordan, okay? But he was rivaled by Oscar Robertson. But there is no such thing as the greatest church in the world. There is no such thing as the greatest nation in the world. Because the greatest nation is the nation in which you live and have your being. And God has made a world of nations, and every

nation has a right to its own, let's say, sovereignty and its own story. I mean, it is a bit debated though. You wouldn't say LeBron. I mean, you would just easily say Jordan, not LeBron. I mean, how old are you? How old I I'm with you on the Jordan thing. It's just me and a me and Derwin gray actually have, well, you know, he's a student of yours because he's, he says it's LeBron. I mean, no, no knock on MJ, but yeah. Michael Jordan I think because the way LeBron is so powerful he just bulls over people. Michael was so agile he broke away from people and I think that's and his jump shot was just so pristine and mean, LeBron is a great basketball player. I mean, he's, he's one of the greatest, but I'm from Chicago and we think, we think Michael

is the greatest ever. Well, I, and the game was a lot, if I remember, I mean, I'm not, I don't follow basketball a lot, but it's a lot rougher back then. I mean, the Pistons, they would just pounce on Jordan, you know? And especially when he first came up, he was pretty scrawny and it's just not like that anymore, right? But I mean, the physical, to me, I grew up in a gymnasium. My father was a coach and I played college, small college basketball. I look at the NBA as seven footers who are wrestling with one another rather than basketball. And I'm

not kidding you. I prefer women's basketball the way they play over men's basketball. Cause it's not just force. It's not just athletic ability. It's skill and teamwork. Back to revelation. So would you put, where does imperialism, does that fit into a manifestation of Babylon, a nation that is extending its power and influence beyond its borders? Would that be part of it too? Yeah. Militaryism was one of our characteristics. Oh, okay. And economically, economic exploitation, that's all about the imperial. It's empire. The whole

thing is empire. Arrogance, opulence, economic exploitation, image, brand. I mean, they just mow down people if you've gotten their way. And if they needed more wheat, they went to war and conquered a country and stole all their wheat and brought it home to the ports and distributed it to the people in Rome. Which I think what, what Rome did in this might open up another can, but what Rome did explicitly and in your face, I think a lot of the similar stuff can be said of America more implicitly. A lot of stuff people don't know about. I mean, just the fact that we have that America, I don't, not we, but the America has 750 military bases and over 80 different countries. Like most people don't know about

that. And I asked people, you know, like how many, how many, um, Syrian military bases do you have close to your home here in America? It's like, well, no, we don't, we wouldn't let another country have them. We wouldn't let another country have a military base in Canada or in the Caribbean, let alone like in my backyard. And I believe the Romans, I mean, Romans, what's a Roman, the people in Rome who had power thought they were right. Yeah.

Yeah. The people in Rome who had power thought they were right. Yeah, yeah. And they didn't see these things as anything other than the spreading of Pax Romana. And if it took a war. And killing a whole village, that was a part that was the price of Pax Romana. And I think that's characteristic of any empire. It's characteristic of Russia, who wants to rule all of Europe. It's characteristic of Germany under Hitler. It's characteristic of China at times. Japan had the chutzpah to think it was one of those nations. The United States thinks it won

all those wars, and now it's in charge of all these countries. And yes, America is arrogant and it has imperial designs. So you have no problem saying America is a manifestation of Babylon. Yes. And to the degree it's corrupt, yes. Yes. But I wouldn't say that means that the Germany is not. It's not the only day that Italy is not.

I mean, Italy doesn't have designs like this anymore. But, you know, Tony Blair worked pretty hand in hand with helping. So, you know, I'm not going to let anybody off the hook. I'm not I don't have any I don't have any dog in this game where I have to defend the United States. If it's corrupt in its exploitation and economic policies, if it's corrupt, if it's extending its military domain, if it's arrogant, it needs to be called out. Do you see this as a bipartisan issue or do you see one side of the aisle is more

like Babylon than the other? I don't enter into partisan politics in any way, shape or form. I'm willing to criticize Biden and Trump. Harris if she wins, I don't feel any loyalty to them being right all the time. I think that I have a responsibility to affirm what is good and to criticize what is bad or corrupt. I mean, if she or he, whoever wins the presidency, has an economic policy that I like and don't like, I don't think I have to be critical of it, but if they decide that they're gonna go full bore on military buildup, I'm gonna say something. If they're gonna, if they're going to exploit the poor Mexican immigrant workers. I'm going to say something.

I'm shocked at how the democratic party has, in my opinion, limited, you know, it's like you hear soundbites, you read stuff here and there, but their rhetoric has become almost, it almost sounds like a neocon. Like they have become a lot more hawkish and militaristic than they have characteristically been. At least that's a perception that, and then obviously the Republicans are that everybody knows that the militarism of the Republic party, that's not a shock. It's just like, it seems like the other side now is becoming just as much, if not more even like I even hear sometimes more like, Hey, we need to pull off these kind of like proxy wars and stuff

and not be creating new wars and stuff. I hear some spaces a little bit more on the right than on the left. And it used, it's almost like it's kind of flipped a little bit. Well, I think this is all done for the sake of votes and image management. Because I do think that I was very surprised how hawkish President Biden was about Israel and Hamas. It just didn't sound like the Democratic Party. But I think that this is a crucial election season and there's voters out there. I just don't trust political gamesmanship. Scott, thank you so much for your time.

Again, the book is Revelation for the Rest of Us, a prophetic call to follow Jesus as a dissident disciple. It's available on Amazon or wherever books are sold. Scott, thank you so much for your time. Many blessings on your life and ministry. Thank you, Preston. Good to be with you. time. Many blessings on your life and ministry. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.