dreams, words, life

I taught on the apocalyptic literature of the Bible, the books of Daniel and Revelation, at Bethany Bible School last Saturday.

I enjoyed both my study of these texts in the weeks leading up to last weekend and the actual presentation and interaction with students around these books.  For the sake of clarity and simplicity, I chose three main features of biblical apocalyptic literature (based on  my own reading and re-reading of Daniel and Revelation).

1. Dreams and Visions
2. Prophetic Words
3. Exhortations for Right Living

The three are inter-related.  Dreams and visions are the means by which God, sometimes through angels, communicates to human beings (e.g., Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, John of Patmos).  Yet, because those dreams or visions usually are cryptic, those who receive them seek understanding through prophets.  The prophets give words to the visions, that is, they provide interpretation.  Finally, however, neither the dreams nor their interpretations are ends in themselves but calls to right living for the ones to whom they have been given.  Thus, the prophet’s job is not only to interpret but to exhort, to urge on toward faithfulness.

One example may be drawn from Daniel 4.  King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon has a dream of a large tree with its top in the heavens (one is reminded of the tower of Babel in Genesis 11).  The tree is beautiful, its reach vast, its fruit abundant, its shade and its branches a shelter for many.  This is the vision.
 
On the other hand, in spite of its beauty, its appearance is terrifying for the king, for he also hears a “holy watcher” command that the tree should be “cut down” (Dan 4:13ff).  Nebuchadnezzar, as with his dream of a great statue in chapter 2, does not have words for his fear.  And it is precisely those words which might bring relief.  So Nebuchadnezzar calls upon Daniel for interpretation.  Daniel tells him that the tree is not really a tree, but the king himself, his greatness and his sovereignty (4:22).  As for the tree being cut down, Daniel tells Nebuchadnezzar that his kingdom will be taken from him “until [he has] learned that the Most High has sovereignty over the kingdom of mortals, and gives it to whom he will” (4:25).  This is the interpretation, the prophetic words which explain the dream.

Finally, although Nebuchadnezzar’s fate is sealed—he will be driven from human society (4:25)—it is so only in the absence of Nebuchadnezzar’s own repentance.  The decree of heaven for Nebuchadnezzar is fixed as Nebuchadnezzar is—not as Nebuchadnezzar might be.  And because even now there is hope for Nebuchadnezzar, or at least to leave him without excuse, Daniel gives the word of exhortation.

“Atone for your sins with righteousness, and your iniquities with mercy to the oppressed, so that your prosperity may be prolonged” (4:27).

This is the call to right living.  Of course, the king did not heed it, and had to find out the hard way that God is God over even Nebuchadnezzar’s realm (4:28ff.).

These categories may also be applied to the New Testament’s apocalyptic offering, Revelation, which will be the subject of my next post.

-Joe

faith of our fathers

Perhaps an alternative title to this blog should be "conversations with Pastor Ntapo", as so many of my insights into African culture and biblical interpretation come in give and take with him. Let that be preface to today's entry.

After a separation of several weeks over the holidays, we met back up in our Bible School office last Thursday. He filled me in on one of the sermons he had preached on a recent Sunday.

He tracked for his people the journey of Abram in Genesis 11-12. Abram, he recalled, left Ur of the Chaldeans with his father Terah, who died on the way to Canaan in the land of Haran (11:31-32). From there, God summoned Abram to continue on his father's journey into "the land that I will show you" (12:1). Later, Pastor Ntapo, continued, "Abram went down to Egypt" (12:10).

His point: Abraham's feet touched down in every place where his descendants would go; his journey anticipated theirs.

Indeed, the Israelites came out of slavery in Egypt to Canaan, and back also to the land of the Chaldeans, to captivity under the Babylonians. And just as Abraham would also go up from Egypt (Gen. 13:1),and later his descendants, so also, in centuries later, his descendants would come back from Babylon. From slavery to freedom. From freedom to slavery. And back again.

As Pastor Ntapo recounted the story, I remembered that Jesus too, went down to Egypt and back up again. "Out of Egypt I called my son," wrote Matthew, applying the words of the prophet Hosea to the boy Jesus (Mt. 2:15; Hos. 11:1). "I also touched on that," said the pastor when I brought up Jesus' journey. "Jesus did the same thing [as Abraham] on the other side."

Thus I observed, as I had in previous encounters, the importance to my African brothers in the faith of the reality that the way which we walk has been prepared beforehand for us by our ancestors. Their experience then is ours now; their suffering, ours; their redemption, ours. More than that, in the words of another pastor at Bethany Bible School when recalling one of last year's lessons on the Israelites' wilderness wandering, "the God who helped them is the same God today."

Because of the story--of Abram and Sarai, Moses and Miriam, of Jesus--"I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us" (Rom. 8:18). The story is hope. Without it there is naught.

-Joe