How, then, does Paul model leadership, and how does he instruct us about Christian leadership? I don’t pretend that I will exhaust this topic in a single evening, but I would like to offer a selection of answers for us to consider and to incorporate into our own vision for our work as Christian leaders. And while “Christian leadership” is a very broad term that embraces a wide variety of leadership roles in a wide variety of Christian ministries, what I have to suggest this evening, it seems to me, applies to any Christian leader in any area of ministry.

1. Paul exhibits stunning integrity in terms of the alignment of his message with his life and practice.

Moreover, he regards this integrity – what he would call “walking straight in line towards the truth of the gospel” in Galatians – to be absolutely foundational and essential to his credibility as a leader in the Christian movement. This comes out most fully in his letter to the Christians in Galatia, where rival teachers have been promoting a version of the gospel that would re-incorporate the Christian movement within Torah-observant Judaism and, thus, hopefully win some acceptance for the movement.

In the opening paragraphs of this letter, Paul boldly calls own a curse: “even if we or an angel from heaven should proclaim to you a gospel contrary to what we proclaimed to you, let that one be accursed! As we have said before, so now I repeat, if anyone proclaims to you a gospel contrary to what you received, let that one be accursed!” (Gal. 1:8-9 NRS). For Paul, what matters is not following this leader as opposed to that leader; what matters is following a leader who is faithful to the genuine gospel. Our leadership only has value – and only enjoys God’s blessing – to the extent that we live in line with, and faithfully pass along to the people in our care, the genuine good news of God in Christ. Following Paul’s pattern, we must refuse to accommodate the gospel’s claim on our collective lives to suit the tastes of our congregations or the society around us. Rather, we are called to preserve the challenge that the gospel poses to the world and call our people to conform their practice to the gospel, not vice versa. This is the gospel that has power from God to transform, to justify, to bring us in line with God’s own righteousness.

A close corollary of this is that a reliable Christian leader makes pleasing God, not pleasing people, his or her top priority. As Paul immediately went on to say: “Am I now seeking human approval, or God’s approval? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still pleasing people, I would not be a servant of Christ” (Gal. 1:10 NRS). If we are faithful to God in the midst of people who are also faithful to God, we will no doubt also enjoy their approval much of the time. But we can never sacrifice God’s approval in order to enjoy human approval, which also means we need to learn how to discern God’s approval and disapproval.

This is a great challenge for those who minister in the church and other Christian circles. Whether in the day-to-day practice of ministry, in the week-to-week business of running a church or performing a teaching ministry or even engaging in pastoral counsel­ing, we will always face temptation to please people—those people who employ us, who finance our ministries, who recommend us, who use their influence for us. This is even harder for some of us who are, for one reason or another, inclined to be “people-pleasers.” Paul challenges us to remember that in every encounter, in every decision, in every intervention there is One whom we must please, there is One to whom we, as slaves of Christ, are answerable.

Paul presents himself as a model of integrity in Christian leadership. Integrity connotes “wholeness,” “oneness,” not going in two directions at the same time. Paul’s integrity springs from a desire to serve God faithfully above all else, indeed from a refusal even to desire anything besides being found faithful to God. In a Christian leader’s choices and actions, we should be able to observe a person who seeks to please God rather than desiring the approval of humans (1 Thess 2:4, 6). We misuse our ministry and abuse the gospel when we make it a means to enhance our standing in the eyes of humans, and in fact we become slaves to public opinion rather than slaves of Christ. Such a person would disobey Christ’s call when summoned to lead in an unpopular direction. Paul’s team had the courage to bear witness to the truth of God whether in the face of a hostile society (as in Thessalonica or Philippi, where he was driven out of town), or in the face of the displeasure of other Christ-followers who were not ready to go where the truth of God in Jesus Christ would lead them (as in Antioch and Galatia, where Jewish Christians were not willing to recognize that it no longer mattered to God whether one was a Jew or a Gentile, only that one was “in Christ”). At the end of Galatians, Paul points to the scars he bears on his body as the final proof of his integrity: he was willing to pay any price for faithfulness rather than compromise himself for the sake of acceptance, convenience, the alleviation of uncomfortable tension, even the avoidance of hardship.

If we are to be effective Christian leaders, we, too, must walk straight in line with the gospel, conforming our own conduct to the implications of the gospel message rather than behaving in ways that are out of line with that gospel. Nothing can undermine a Christian leader’s credibility faster and more completely than merely “talk­ing the talk” while not “walking the walk.”

As a consequence of his integrity, Paul could offer his manner of life and the disposition of his heart as an example to those in his care to follow. He shows an intentional commitment to lead by example in the area of discipleship:

“Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.” (1 Cor. 11:1 NIV)

“Join together in following my example, brothers and sisters, and just as you have us as a model, keep your eyes on those who live as we do.” (Phil. 3:17 NIV)

The living example set by the Christian leader is of central importance. This forms the core of the leader’s message, author­ity, and legacy. And Paul expected all Christian leaders who would come alongside him and come after him also to proclaim the transfor­mative power of the gospel not only with their lips but in their lives, presenting living examples of the fruit of Christian faith. The Christian leader must take seriously the need to overcome challenges to personal integrity and to make his or her life congruent with the call of disci­pleship – setting “an example in speech and conduct, in love, in faith, in purity,” as he puts it to his own protégé, Timothy (1 Tim 4:12 NRSV; see 1 Tim 4:12-16; 2 Tim 2:20-22; Tit 2:7-8).

Such integrity provides the leader with the most genuine form of authority, and it gives the sisters and brothers around the leader a living example of the Christian life to encourage them in their own attempts to take up the challenge of discipleship. Ultimately, however, the Chris­tian leader must embody his or her faith consistently in thought, word, and action for the sake of the health of his or her own soul. What, in the end, would it profit a leader to save the whole world but forfeit his or her own soul? Or, as Paul put it in 1 Corinthians 9, “I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified” (1 Cor. 9:26-27 ESV).

2. Paul chooses transparency to the power of the Holy Spirit and the indwelling life of Christ over projecting an impressive, impenetrable façade and over powerful performance.

2 Corinthians merits particularly close study for those who are Christian leaders because Paul’s credibility as a leader in the eyes of many in the Corinthian congregations is explicitly at stake. Other Christian teachers have made their way to Corinth and gained a foothold in Paul’s congregations by means of playing up to their cultural expectations of what makes someone a strong and credible leader. In a culture that highly valued the art of public speaking, they put on a good show and spoke with great eloquence. In a culture that valued pedigree and reputation, they made sure that the Corinthian believers knew of their impeccable pedigree within the ancient people of the Hebrews and produced letters of recommendation – whether from the leaders in Jerusalem or from “satisfied customers” in other Christian congregations we do not know. They cemented their appearance of authority and credibility through intimidation – through not being timid about putting members in the congregation in their place and “lording it over them,” as Paul suggests. And they were trying to drive a wedge between the congregations and Paul by pointing out all the ways in which Paul failed to measure up to them when it came to being worthy of leadership.

The situation sharply raises the question: What ought to give a Christian leader credibility and legitimacy? What makes a person a worthy Christian leader? What ought we to value in ourselves as the source of our credibility and legitimacy in our role as leaders?

Paul draws our attention first to the incredible stakes involved in Christian ministry: it is a task that invites some to move from a state of natural life towards the possibility of eternal life; at the same time, the work of the gospel also means, for those who reject it, moving from a state of being dead to God here towards the state of being dead hereafter for eternity: “For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to the one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things?” (2 Cor. 2:15-16 NRS). Who is sufficient for these things, indeed? Not me, not any one of us, in our natural strengths or in whatever skills we are able to learn. The implied answer to Paul’s question is this: Only God is sufficient for these things.

And so, unlike these rival teachers who have made their way to Corinth, who want to put on an impressive display and have the Corinthians put their confidence in these teachers themselves, Paul wants to lead in such a way that the Corinthians encounter the power of God and place their confidence in God. What is important to him is not that he be seen to be an accomplished, polished, gifted individual, but that the life-giving power of Christ be seen at work in his own life – and thus become real for the people whom he leads, so that they can discover and have confidence in the life-giving power of Christ at work in their own lives as well. For Paul, our legitimacy and our credibility as Christian leaders comes not from what we project about ourselves through performance and appearance, but from the reality of what God is bringing to life within us – the life and power of Christ at work within us. Thus he writes of himself and the other members of his leadership team:

For we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’ sake. For it is the God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us, … always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh. (2 Cor. 4:5-7, 10-11 NRS)

The more we seek to project an impressive façade, the more opaque we become to the power of God. Those whom we lead see a strong leader, but what they really need to see is God’s presence and power shining through, because that is the only power that can bring them from death to life, from slavery to sin to the freedom of obedience to God from the heart, from fear in the face of the world’s injustice and power to the courage that only those who know that they will live forever can possess.

The disciple, therefore, must be free from evaluating worth, including his or her own worth, according to the criteria used by the worldly person. Rather, all that counts now is “the new creation” coming into being as a per­son is transformed into the likeness of Jesus (2 Cor 5:16-17). There is no more room for “boasting in appearances” (2 Cor 5:12). This frees the disciples to “live no longer for them­selves but for him who died for them and was raised again” (2 Cor 5:15). Jesus’ death on our behalf changes the object and purpose of our lives. Rising up the social ladder, gaining prestige, collecting wealth, making a name for your­self—these are no longer the goals of life, for they are no longer valid criteria for measuring a person’s ultimate value. The example of Jesus pro­claims advancement to involve serving and preferring others over yourself, investing yourself not in your reputation or standing in the community but rather in advancing the well-being of the community, caring for the weak members of the community. Jesus’ resurrection gives us the assurance that the new agenda will result in the experience of full and abundant life. As Christian leaders, it is imperative that these gospel truths become real and visible in our own lives, so that those whom we lead can more easily embrace the path to life as well. And that means becoming leaders who don’t allow the image of ourselves that we wish to project to get in the way and instead consistently make space for those whom we lead to encounter the life-giving and life-changing power of God.

3. Paul invests himself in prayer on behalf of those for whom he bears responsibility before God.

As we read through Paul’s letters, we cannot fail to notice how much Paul speaks of constantly and faithfully remembering his congregations and his coworkers in prayer – in some cases hearing about what, specifically, Paul is praying for in regard to the believers in his care. I want to read a number of these to you, first because I think any window into Paul’s prayer life is worth peeking through, but also because I think Paul’s prayers give us some very specific direction for how we also ought to be praying for the brothers and sisters that we seek, in whatever way, to lead. Thus in regard to the Christians in Ephesus, Paul says:

“I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers. I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power.” (Eph. 1:16-19 NRS)

And from the same letter:

“I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” (Eph. 3:16-19 NRS)

In regard to his friends in Philippi, Paul says:

“It is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.” (Phil. 1:9-11 ESV)

And in regard to his converts in Thessalonica:

“To this end we always pray for you, asking that our God will make you worthy of his call and will fulfill by his power every good resolve and work of faith, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.” (2 Thess 1:11-12)

Finally, in regard to Christians in Colossae that came to faith through the work of Epaphras, one of Paul’s co-workers, but for whom Paul nevertheless feels a certain responsibility:

“For this reason, since the day we heard [of your faith], we have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God.” (Col. 1:9-10 NRS)

The frequency, passion, and mere fact of Paul’s praying for his congregations impress on us the importance of following his example in our own ministries, what­ever form they take. If we embrace Paul’s agenda for his converts as revealed in his prayers as our own agenda, we will seek nothing less for them than their coming to the full knowledge of the love and hope that we have in Christ, their receiving God’s full empowerment of their disciple­ship, and their continuing to move in the direction of blamelessness before Christ on the day of judgment. As we invest ourselves in such prayers, we forge a deeper, more constant, and more purposefully focused connection with those in our care. Our love and desires for them come to be shaped more and more by God’s heart for them. These prayers, however, will also shape the priorities that drive our work as leaders and give greater direction to our interactions with those in our care. Such focus will position us to become more effective instruments of God’s work in the lives of those we lead.

Two more facets of Paul’s prayer life commend themselves to us for our imitation.

First, notice how he begins his report of his prayers on behalf of the Christians in Ephesus: “I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers” (Eph 1:16). This suggests to us that we take up the spiritual discipline of reflecting on, and giving thanks for, how we have seen God at work in the people we lead, the progress that they have made in discipleship, the ways in which the Spirit’s fruit is evident in their lives. Paul’s example calls us regularly to take stock of the good, of the godly work, that we see happening in our people. Like Paul, we will also find ourselves refreshed and encouraged as we respond to God in gratitude for the good that God is bringing into being in the midst of those whom we serve. This practice also cannot help but elevate our esteem and appreciation for them, which, as they discern the same in our bearing towards them, will be a subtle source of encouragement to them as well.

Second, Paul concludes his second prayer over the Ephesians with the words of this benediction: “Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever; Amen.” (Eph 3:20-21 NRS). As we pray for our people to come to a deeper knowledge of God and their hope, and to follow the Holy Spirit ever further on the path to blamelessness before Christ at his coming, we pray to the God who can do far more for them “that all we can ask or imagine.” This should give us confidence in God’s ability to bring these things to pass, the same confidence and encouragement that it gave Paul in the midst of his ministry to these sometimes-quite-difficult congregations.

4. Paul was not a lone wolf, but deeply valued his teammates and other partners in ministry.

It is probably important for some Christian leaders to hear this, because some of us – and I count myself in this number – are inclined to be solo leaders. Some of us want to do our own thing, do it on our own, perhaps even keep it to ourselves. I have often encountered people who have an image of Paul as such a lone wolf – someone who defied Peter to his face, who split from Barnabas and went off in his own direction, who was something of a heroic missionary because he stood apart and stood alone. But nothing could be further from the truth about Paul and his leadership. I haven’t done the math myself, but Luke Timothy Johnson made the claim that one could count up to forty named individuals who were, at one point or another, part of Paul’s ministry team. Paul had a huge network of colleagues in ministry leadership! Paul’s achievements for the kingdom of God were not the work of a solo leader; they were attainable only because Paul cultivated and relied upon many team members over the course of his decades of church planting.

Priscilla and Aquila, Christian leaders in their own right, gave Paul a base of operations in Corinth and facilitated his work there. They would go on to establish a base for him in Ephesus, having been left there by Paul as a kind of advance guard. He probably believed that their personal support for Paul would be important to facilitate his reception among the Christians in Rome, hence his care to establish the fact of his connection with them in the closing greetings of his letter to the Roman Christians, who were strangers to Paul but not to many of the people who had worked with Paul over the decades prior to his planned visit to Rome. Titus was a clearly valued and trusted ministry colleague, and it was Titus who was instrumental in reconciling Paul to his alienated converts in Corinth (notice how often Titus is mentioned, and what Titus has been doing behind the scenes, in 2 Corinthians). Paul relied on Timothy to make sure that the new converts in Thessalonica remained grounded in the faith after Paul was essentially driven out of town – what could have felt, however, like desertion to the fledgling believers. And, of course, Paul’s letters to Timothy and Titus show how Paul entrusted the consolidation of mission work in Ephesus and Crete to these trusted partners. When Paul writes his letter to the Christians in Colossae – which he also intended to be read to the Christians in neighboring Laodicea – he was writing to congregations that he had not himself planted, but that had been planted through the work of Epaphras. The list could go on and on, but the point should be clear: Paul was not a solo leader, but one who cultivated a network of colleagues in ministry; who knew the strengths of each and how, in some cases, they complemented his own; who relied not only on himself, but on these trusted colleagues and teammates, accomplishing far more in the end for the kingdom because he had formed this extensive network.

5. Paul challenges others to embrace the ways in which they have been gifted by the Holy Spirit for the purpose of “building up the body of Christ,” “for the work of ministry” to which each believer is called and equipped in some fashion to contribute, for the sake of the full functioning of the body.

In both Romans and 1 Corinthians, Paul speaks about the ways in which the Spirit endows each and every Christian with some spiritual gift – which also means that the Spirit endows each and every with the responsibility to exercise that gift to the benefit of the larger Body of Christ.

For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness. (Rom. 12:4-8 NRS)

To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses. For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. (1 Cor. 12:7-12 NRS)

The very metaphor of the Body – many cells, organs, limbs performing their distinctive functions so that the Body as a whole can be fully functional – presents each believer with the question: how has the Spirit shaped, gifted, and placed me so as to contribute to the functioning of the whole? What is my function, my positive contribution, to the Body and, through the Body, to the world to which the Body is called to minister in the name of its Head, Christ? Paul envisions congregations in which each person enters less with the mindset of looking to get something, which inevitably leads to becoming disgruntled when we don’t get what we want or enough of what we want, and to enter consistently with the mindset of looking to be a gift to the other people here with us, to become consistently an instrument by means of which God can touch another person’s life for growth, healing, restoration, encouragement, relief – whatever the need might be.

A third passage is particularly important for us to hear insofar as we find ourselves in any leadership capacity in the church.

He himself gave apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the oneness that comes from the faith and from knowing the Son of God – until we all attain to maturity, to measuring up to Christ’s stature in all his fullness – in order that we should no longer be children, tossed this way and that and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by the wiles of their deceitful scheming. But, speaking the truth in love, let us grow in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love. (Eph 4:11-16)

Paul here articulates a healthy model for ministry, one that needs to be universally grasped and enacted if the church hopes to keep up with the needs of the world. Paul instructs Christian leaders to equip and spur others on to fulfill their own vocations in the body of Christ and to advance the work of the kingdom of God in this world. Those of us who are called into leadership roles within the church are called to fulfill an equipping role. The work of ministry belongs to all the saints. Many in our congregations and ministry areas need to be awakened to this truth and equipped to rise to their great calling and responsibility before God. Some of us who are leaders in the church may need to recover the focus of our own work, moving away from the model of doing ministry on behalf of those whom we lead toward the model of helping those whom we lead discover the arenas of ministry to which they are called. I have known leaders for whom this is particularly challenging. They love to do the work of ministry; they are, for whatever reason, not sufficiently focused on equipping the saints for the work of ministry.

* * *

Paul’s example has more to teach us about Christian leadership than what I have outlined above, but perhaps it is sufficient for one evening to mull over these five facets of Paul’s leadership. I would encourage each one of us to think about the degree to which we reflect these convictions and practices in our own spheres of responsibility and about the ways in which we might move more fully in these directions where it will benefit the experience of those whom we lead, our own exercise of leadership, and, indeed, our own progress towards Christ-likeness and “the holiness without which no one will see the Lord,” to borrow a phrase from one of Paul’s ministry colleagues.

Trustees’ Distinguished Professor of New Testament and Greek

Ashland Theological Seminary ●ddesilva@ashland.edu

Education:

Ph.D. (Religion/New Testament), Emory University, 1995. Dissertation: “Despising Shame: The Social Function of the Rhetoric of Honor and Dishonor in the Epistle to the Hebrews” (advisor: Luke T. Johnson).

M. Div., Princeton Theological Seminary, 1990. Thesis: “Paul’s Defense of His Apostolate In 2 Corinthians: Conflicting Understandings of Apostolic Legitimation and Their Implications for the Gospel” (advisor: J. Christiaan Beker).

A. B. (English), Princeton University, 1987. Thesis: “Old Wine, New Wineskins: The Reform of Anglican Homiletics during the Seventeenth Century” (advisor: Seth Lerer).

Academic Employment:

Ashland Theological Seminary, Ashland, OH

Trustees’ Distinguished Professor, 2006-present; Professor, 2002-2006; Associate Professor, 1998-2002; Assistant Professor, 1995-1998.

Courses taught: New Testament Introduction; Biblical Greek; Exegetical Greek; Latin; Engaging Texts and Contexts (= Biblical Exegesis and Hermeneutics); Encountering Scripture Beyond Translations; Specialized Exegetical Courses (Galatians; 2 Corinthians; 1 and 2 Thessalonians; Hebrews; James & Jude; 1 Peter; the Revelation of John); Judaism in the Second Temple Period; The Apocrypha and the Christian Church; Apocalyptic Literature; Dead Sea Scrolls; New Testament Backgrounds; Social-Scientific and Rhetorical Approaches to Biblical Interpretation; Senior Seminar in Biblical Studies; Methodist Doctrine/Theology of John Wesley; Biblical Foundations of Formational Counseling (D. Min.); The World of the New Testament (D. Min.); The Bible on the Ground (D. Min.)

Asbury Theological Seminary, Orlando, FL

Adjunct Faculty (Exegesis of Revelation, Spring 2015; Exegesis of Galatians, Fall 2018)

Colombo Theological Seminary, Colombo, Sri Lanka

Visiting Professor of New Testament (Exegesis of Galatians, August 2010; Exegesis of Revelation, September 2010; Hebrews, July 2013; 2 Corinthians, July 2013; Second Temple Period, January 2017; Hebrews, January 2022)

Trinity School for Ministry, Pittsburgh, PA

Visiting Professor of New Testament (The Apocrypha and the Christian Church, June 2010; June 2022)

Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, CA

Visiting Professor of New Testament (Exegesis of 1 Peter, Summer 2004)

Regent College, Vancouver, BC

Visiting Professor of New Testament (Exegesis of 1 Peter, Summer 2021; Exegesis of Galatians, Summer 2025)

Candler School of Theology, Atlanta, GA

Assistant Instructor, 1994-1995; Adjunct Faculty, 1992-1994

Publications

1. Academic Books

Archaeology and the World of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2025).

Archaeology and the Ministry of Paul (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2025).

Judea under Greek and Roman Rule (Essentials of Biblical Studies; New York: Oxford University Press, 2024).

Ephesians (New Cambridge Bible Commentary; Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2022).

Discovering Revelation: Content, Interpretation, Reception (London: SPCK and Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2021).

Fourth Maccabees and the Promotion of the Jewish Philosophy: Rhetoric, Intertexture, and Reception (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2020).

The Letter to the Galatians (New International Commentary on the New Testament; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2018). Translated into Korean (Seoul: Revival and Reformation Press, 2022).

Galatians (Baylor Handbooks on the Greek New Testament; Waco: Baylor University Press, 2014).

The Jewish Teachers of Jesus, James, and Jude: What Earliest Christianity Learned from the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).

The Letter to the Hebrews in Social-Scientific Perspective (Cascade Companions; Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2012).

Jude, in James and Jude, with John Painter (Paideia Commentaries; Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2012).

The Apocrypha (Core Biblical Studies; Nashville: Abingdon, 2012).

Global Readings: A Sri Lankan Commentary on the Letter to the Galatians (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2011). Sinhalese translation (Kohuwala, Sri Lanka: CTS Publishing, 2015).

Seeing Things John’s Way: The Rhetoric of the Book of Revelation (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009). Korean translation (tr. Kyusung Jang; Seoul, Korea: Christian Literature Center, 2023).

Despising Shame: Honor Discourse and Community Maintenance in the Epistle to the Hebrews (Revised Edition) (Studia Biblica 21; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2008).

4 Maccabees: Introduction and Commentary on the Greek Text of Codex Sinaiticus (LXX Commentary Series; Leiden: Brill, 2006).

An Introduction to the New Testament: Contexts, Methods & Ministry Formation (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2004; 2^nd ed., 2018). Chinese translation (Taiwan: Campus Evangelical Fellowship Press, 2013). Korean translation (Seoul: Christian Literature Crusade, 2013). Arabic translation (Beirut: Dar Manhal al Hayat, 2014). Vietnamese translation (Ho Chi Minh City: Institute for Bible and Theology, 2019).

Introducing the Apocrypha: Message, Context, and Significance (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2002; 2^nd ed., 2018). Chinese translation, 2010.

New Testament Themes (St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 2001).

Honor, Patronage, Kinship and Purity: Unlocking New Testament Culture (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000; 2^nd ed., 2022). Published in Armenian as Պատիվ, հովանավորչությունը, ազգակցություն և մաքրության: Բացահայտելով նորկտակարանյան մշակույթը (Springfield, MO: Assemblies of God World Missions, 2016). Korean translation (Seoul: Holy Wave Plus Publishing, 2019). Chinese translation in process.

Perseverance in Gratitude: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000). Published in Spanish as Hebreos: Un commentario socio-retórico (Salem, OR: Publicaciones Kerigma, 2023).

The Hope of Glory: Honor Discourse and the New Testament (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1999; repr. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2009). Published in Portuguese as A Esperança da Glória (Säo Paulo, Brazil: Paulinas, 2005).

4 Maccabees (Guides to the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha; Sheffield: SAP, 1998).

Despising Shame: Honor Discourse and Community Maintenance in the Epistle to the Hebrews (Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series 152; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995).

2. Books for Ecclesiastical or other non-academic Audiences

How to Read Galatians (Cambridge: Grove Books, Ltd., 2025).

Christian Faith and Doctrine: An Annotated Catechism for the Global Methodist Church (Franklin, TN: Seedbed, 2024).

One Another: The New Testament Prescription for Transformation (Franklin, TN: Seedbed, 2021). With accompanying DVD containing eight session videos.

A Week in the Life of Ephesus (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2020). Korean translation (Gyong-si, Korea: Jireh Publishing House, 2021).

Hebrews: Grace and Gratitude (Nashville: Abingdon, 2020). With accompanying DVD containing six session videos.

Galatians (OneBook Daily/Weekly Series; Franklin, TN: Seedbed Publishing, 2019). With accompanying DVD containing six session videos.

In Season and Out: Sermons for the Church Year (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2019). Korean translation (Seoul, Korea: GoodSeed Publishing, 2023).

Day of Atonement. A Novel of the Maccabean Revolt (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2015).

Transformation: The Heart of Paul’s Gospel (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014). Korean translation (Gyong-si: Jireh Publishing House, 2019).

Unholy Allegiances: Heeding Revelation’s Warning (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2013). Published in revised form, with an additional chapter, as Reading Revelation: From Ancient Asia Minor to Modern South Asia (Kohuwela: Columbo Theological Seminary Publishing, 2017; Sinhalese translation, 2019; Tamil translation, in process).

Apocrypha (Immersion Bible Studies; Nashville: Abingdon, 2013).

Sacramental Life: Spiritual Formation through the Book of Common Prayer (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2008).

Paul and the Macedonians (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 2001).

Praying with John Wesley (Nashville, TN: Discipleship Resources, 2001).

Bearing Christ’s Reproach: The Challenge of Hebrews in an Honor Culture (N. Richland Hills, TX: Berkeley Institute for Biblical Archaeology and Literature Press, 1999).

The Credentials of An Apostle: Paul’s Gospel in 2 Corinthians 1 through 7 (N. Richland Hills, TX: Berkeley Institute for Biblical Archaeology and Literature Press, 1998).

Untold Stories of the Bible (co-authored with Dr. Victor Matthews; Lincolnwood, IL: Publications International Ltd., 1998). Republished as Missing Stories of the Old Testament and Missing Stories of the New Testament (Lincolnwood, IL: Publications International Ltd., 2013).

3a. Books in Press

Archaeology and the Book of Revelation (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, forthcoming Fall 2026).

Living in an Unholy Empire: Revelation’s Call to a Higher Allegiance (revised and expanded edition of Unholy Allegiances: Heeding Revelation’s Warning; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, forthcoming in 2026).

3b. Books under Contract

Revelation (Word Biblical Themes; Grand Rapids: Zondervan).

The Biblical World in 100 Objects (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books).

The Revelation of John (NICNT; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans).

The New Testament and Christian Formation (Downers Grove: InterVarsity).

The World of the First Christians (London: SPCK).

Hebrews (Word Biblical Commentary; Grand Rapids: Zondervan).

4 Maccabees (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress).

4. Selected Articles in Journals and Collections of Essays:

Second Temple Judaism

“The Noble Contest: Honor, Shame, and the Rhetorical Strategy of 4 Maccabees,” Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 13 (1995) 31-57.

“The Wisdom of Ben Sira: Honor, Shame, and the Maintenance of the Values of a Minority Culture,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 58 (1996) 433-455.

“The Dead Sea Scrolls and Early Christianity,” Sewanee Theological Review 39 (1996) 285-302.

“Fourth Ezra: Maintaining Jewish Cultural Values Through Apocalyptic Rhetoric,” in L. G. Bloomquist and Greg Carey, eds., Vision and Persuasion: Rhetorical Dimensions of Apocalyptic Discourse (St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 1999), 123-139.

“Why Did God Choose Abraham?” Bible Review 16.3 (June 2000) 16-21, 42-44.

“The Sinaiticus Text of 4 Maccabees,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 68 (2006) 47-62.

“Seven Papyrus Fragments of a Greek Manuscript of Exodus,” Vetus Testamentum 56 (2006) 143-70.

“The Perfection of ‘Love for Offspring’: Greek Representations of Maternal Affection and the Achievement of the Heroine of 4 Maccabees,” New Testament Studies 52 (2006) 251-268.

“Judith the Heroine? Lies, Seduction, and Murder in Cultural Perspective, Biblical Theology Bulletin 36 (2006) 55-61.

“‘And Not a Drop to Drink’: The Story of David’s Thirst in the Jewish Scriptures, Josephus, and 4 Maccabees,” Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 16 (2006) 15-40.

“Never Without a Witness: The Apocrypha and Spiritual Formation,” Ashland Theological Journal 38 (2006) 77-89.

“Five More Papyrus Fragments from a Greek Codex of Exodus,” Bulletin of the International Organization of Septuagint and Cognate Studies 40 (2007) 1-29.

“Using the Master’s Tools to Shore Up Our House: A Postcolonial Analysis of 4 Maccabees,” Journal of Biblical Literature 127.1 (2007) 99-127.

“Jesus and James in the School of Ben Sira: The impact of an extracanonical sage on the first founders of Christianity,” Theologie für die Praxis 33 (2007) 84-97.

“Jewish Martytology and the Death of Jesus,” in Gerbern Oegema and James H. Charlesworth, eds., The Pseudepigrapha and Christian Origins: Essays from the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas (London: T. & T. Clark, 2008), 51-67.

“‘An Example of How to Die Nobly for Religion’: The Influence of 4 Maccabees on Origen’s Exhortatio ad Martyrium,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 17 (2009) 337-355.

“Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha” in Christopher Matthews, ed., Oxford Bibliographies in Biblical Studies (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010; rev., 2015; 2020).

“The Human Ideal, the Problem of Evil, and Moral Responsibility in 4 Maccabees,” Bulletin for Biblical Research 23 (2013) 57-78.

“Jews in the Diaspora,” pp. 272-290 in Joel B. Green and Lee M. McDonald, eds. The World of the New Testament: Cultural, Social, and Historical Contexts (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013).

“The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs as Witnesses to Pre-Christian Judaism: A Re-Assessment,” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 22 (2013) 21-68.

“The Hellenistic Period,” pp. 426-459 in Rick Hess and Bill Arnold, eds., Ancient Israel’s History: An Introduction to Issues and Sources (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2014).

“Ambrose’s Use of 4 Maccabees in De Jacob et Vita Beata: Some Correctives,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 22 (2014) 287-293.

“The Author of 4 Maccabees and Greek Paideia: Facets of the Formation of a Hellenistic Jewish Rhetor,” Bulletin for Biblical Research 26.4 (2016) 501-531.

“4 Maccabees,” forthcoming in Randall Chesnutt, ed., Blackwell Companion to the Old Testament Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell).

“The Apocrypha and the Earliest Christian Movement, Interpretation 72 (2018) 396-407.

“Biblical Theology and the Apocrypha,” pp. 534-549 in Gerbern Oegema, ed., The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021).

Letter to the Hebrews

“Despising Shame: A Cultural-Anthropological Investigation of the Epistle to the Hebrews,” Journal of Biblical Literature 113 (1994) 459-481.

“Exchanging Favor for Wrath: Apostasy in Hebrews and Patron-Client Relations,” Journal of Biblical Literature 115 (1996) 91-116.

“The Epistle to the Hebrews in Social-Scientific Perspective,” Restoration Quarterly 36 (1994) 1-21.

“Hebrews 6:4-8: A Socio-Rhetorical Investigation,” Tyndale Bulletin 50 (1999) 33-57, 225-235.

“Eschatology, Rest, and the Rhetorical Strategy of Hebrews,” Trinity Journal 21NS (2000) 25-43.

“The Invention and Argumentative Function of Priestly Discourse in the Epistle to the Hebrews,” Bulletin for Biblical Research 16 (2006) 295-323.

“How Greek Was the Author of ‘Hebrews’?” pp. 629-650 in Stanley Porter and Andrew Pitts (eds.), Christian Origins and Greco-Roman Culture. Early Christianity in Its Hellenistic Context. Volume 1 (Leiden: Brill, 2012).

“Rhetorical Argument and Artistry in Hebrews,” forthcoming in Mark D. Given, ed., The Oxford Handbook of New Testament Rhetoric (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press).

The Revelation of John

“The Social Setting of the Apocalypse of John: Conflicts Within, Fears Without,” Westminster Theological Journal 54 (1992) 273-302.

“The Revelation to John: A Case Study in Apocalyptic Propaganda and the Maintenance of Sectarian Identity,” Sociological Analysis (now Sociology of Religion) 53 (1992) 375-395.

“The Image of the Beast and the Christians in Asia Minor,” Trinity Journal 12NS (1991) 185-206.

“The Construction and Social Function of a Counter-Cosmos in the Revelation of John,” Forum 9:1-2 (1993) 47-61.

“Honor Discourse and the Rhetorical Strategy of the Apocalypse of John,” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 71 (1998) 79-110.

“The Persuasive Strategy of the Apocalypse: A Socio-Rhetorical Investigation of Revelation 14:6-13,” Society of Biblical Literature Seminar Papers 37 (1998) 785-806.

“A Socio-Rhetorical Investigation of Revelation 14:6-13: A Call to Act Justly toward the Just and Judging God,” Bulletin for Biblical Research 9 (1999) 65-117.

“Final Topics: The Rhetorical Functions of Intertexture in Revelation 14:14— 16:21,” pp. 215-241 in D. F. Watson, ed., The Intertexture of Apocalyptic Discourse in the New Testament (Symposium Series; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2002).

“Toward a Socio-Rhetorical Taxonomy of Divine Intervention: Miracle Discourse in the Revelation to John,” in D. B. Gowler, L. G. Bloomquist, and D. F. Watson (eds.), Fabrics of Discourse: Essays in Honor of Vernon K. Robbins (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2003), 303-316.

“The Revelation to John and the Practice of Christian Counseling,” Asbury Theological Journal, 60/1 (2006) 67-87.

“What Has Athens To Do with Patmos? Rhetorical Criticism of the Revelation of John (1980-2005),” Currents in Biblical Research 6.2 (2008) 256-289.

“X Marks the Spot? A Critique of the Use of Chiasm in Macro-Structural Analyses of Revelation to John,” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 30 (2008) 343-371.

“The Strategic Arousal of Emotions in the Apocalypse of John: A Rhetorical-critical Investigation of the Oracles to the Seven Churches,” New Testament Studies 54 (2008) 90-114.

“Seeing Things John’s Way: Rhetography and Conceptual Blending in Revelation 14:6-13,” Bulletin for Biblical Research 18 (2008) 271-298.

“The Strategic Arousal of Emotions in John’s Visions of Roman Imperialism: A Rhetorical-Critical Investigation of Revelation 4-22,” Neotestamentica 42 (2008) 1-34.

“Out of Our Minds? Appeals to Reason (Logos) in the Seven Oracles of Revelation 2-3,” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 31 (2008) 123-155.

“On the Sidelines of the πίστις Χριστοῦ debate: The View from Revelation,” pp. 259-274 in Michael Bird and Preston Sprinkle (eds.), The Faith of Jesus Christ” Exegetical, Biblical, and Theological Studies (Carlisle: Paternoster and Peabody: Hendrickson, 2009).

“Reading Revelation in Sri Lanka,” Asia Journal of Theology 27 (2013) 21-37.

“Rhetorical Features of the Book of Revelation,” pp. 69-84 in The Oxford Handbook of the Book of Revelation (ed. Craig Koester; New York: Oxford University Press, 2020).

“Testament of Levi and Revelation 4: Ascent to the Heavenly Throne,” pp. 52-58 in Ben C. Blackwell, John K. Goodrich, and Jason Maston, eds., Reading Revelation in Context: John’s Apocalypse and Second Temple Judaism (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2019).

“The Seven Spirits of God: The Holy Spirit or the Angels of the Presence,” Biblical Theology Bulletin 55 (2025) 115-123.

Paul

“Measuring Penultimate Against Ultimate Reality: An Investigation of the Integrity and Argumentation of 2 Corinthians,” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 52 (1993) 41-70.

“Recasting the Moment of Decision: 2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1 In Its Literary Context,” Andrews University Seminary Studies 31 (1993) 3-16.

“No Confidence in the Flesh: The Meaning and Function of Phil 3:2-21,” Trinity Journal 15NS (1994) 27-54.

“Meeting the Exigency of a Complex Rhetorical Situation: Paul’s Strategy in 2 Corinthians 1 through 7,” Andrews University Seminary Studies 34 (1996) 5-22.

“Worthy of His Kingdom: Honor Discourse and Social Engineering in 1 Thessalonians,” Journal for the Study of the New Testament, 64 (1996) 49-79.

“‘Let the One Who Claims Honor Establish that Claim in the Lord’: Honor Discourse in the Corinthian Correspondence,” Biblical Theology Bulletin 28 (1998) 61-74.

“Neither Tamil Nor Sinhalese: Reading Galatians with Sri Lankan Christians,” pp. 39-55 in Craig Keener and M. Daniel Carroll R. (eds.), Global Voices: Reading the Bible in the Majority World (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2013).

“Grace, the Law, and Justification in 4 Ezra and the Pauline Letters: A Dialogue,” JSNT 37 (2014) 25-49.

“Appeals to Logos, Ethos, and Pathos in Galatians 5.1-12: An Investigation of Paul’s Inventio,” pp. 246-64 in Stanley Porter and Brian Dyer, eds., Paul and Ancient Rhetoric (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2015).

“Honor, Shame, and the Letters of Paul,” pp. 26-47 in J. Paul Sampley, ed., Paul in the Greco-Roman World. Volume 2 (2^nd edition; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 2016).

“‘We Are Debtors’: Grace and Obligation in Paul and Seneca,” pp. 150-178 in Joseph Dodson and David Briones, eds., Paul and Seneca in Dialogue (Leiden: Brill, 2017).

“Sin, Slavery, Sacrifice, and the Spirit: The Human Problem and Divine Solution in Galatians,” pp. 99-113 in Nijay K. Gupta and John K. Goodrich, eds., Sin and its Remedy in Paul (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2020).

“The Spirit, Sanctification, and Salvation: What Paul Has Joined, Let No Theologian Rend Asunder,” Bulletin for Biblical Research 33 (2023) 304-323.

Other

“The Feast in the Text: The Sermons of Lancelot Andrewes,” Anglican Theological Review 76 (1994) 9-26.

“At the Threshold of Heaven: The Preaching of John Donne as Sacrament of the Word,” Anglican & Episcopal History, 43 (1994) 5-34.

“Investigating Honor Discourse: Guidelines from Classical Rhetoricians,” Society of Biblical Literature Seminar Papers 36 (1997) 491-525.

“1 Peter: Strategies for Counseling Individuals on the Way to a New Heritage,” Ashland Theological Journal 32 (2000) 33-52.

“Embodying the Word: Sociological Exegesis of the New Testament,” pp. 118-129 in S. McKnight and G. Osborne (eds.), The Face of New Testament Studies (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004).

“The Pattern for Preachers: Archbishop John Tillotson and the Reform of Ecclesiastical Oratory in the Seventeenth Century,” Anglican & Episcopal History 75 (2006) 368-400.

“Turning Shame into Honor: The Pastoral Strategy of 1 Peter,” pp. 159-186 in Robert Jewett, Wayne Alloway, Jr., and John G. Lacey (eds.), The Shame Factor: How Shame Shapes Society (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2010). Published with a new section (“Embodying 1 Peter Among Sri Lanka’s ‘Elect Resident Aliens’”) in Journal of the Colombo Theological Seminary 7 (2011) 21-56.

“Attentive to the Word: Biblical Scholarship and the Devotional Life,” Ashland Theological Journal 45 (2013) 29-52.

“Faith’s All-Star” (Hebrews 12:1-2) and “Advice to Christian Husbands” (1 Peter 3:7), pp. 129-130, 134-36 in Paul N. Jackson, ed., Devotions on the Greek New Testament, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2017).

“The Social and Geographical World of Pisidian Antioch,” “The Social and Geographical World of Rome,” “The Social and Geographical World of Roman Corinth,” “The Social and Geographical World of Ephesus,” “The Social and Geographical World of Smyrna,” “The Social and Geographical World of Pergamum,” and “The Social and Geographical World of Sardis” in Barry Beitzel, ed., Lexham Geographic Commentary on Acts through Revelation (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2019), 323-31, 430-49, 464-82, 537-53, 629-54, 665-73.

“The Story and Mission of God in Luke-Acts,” pp. 93-106 in Todd Still and Jason Myers, eds., Rhetoric, History, and Theology: Interpreting the New Testament (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, 2022).

“The Wesleyan Gospel,” pp. 107-130 in Michael Bird and Jason Maston, eds., Five Views on the Gospel (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2025).

“Reading 1 Peter among the Elect Resident Aliens in Sri Lanka,” pp. 247-257 in Mariam Kamell Kovalishyn, ed., The New Testament around the World: Exploring Key Texts from Different Contexts (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2025).

5. Contributions to Reference Works, etc.:

Introductions and Annotations to 4 Maccabees and Hebrews, New Oxford Annotated Bible, 6^th edition (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming).

Introductions and Annotations to Esther (Greek) and 1 Peter in Emerson Powery, et al., eds., The Westminster Study Bible (Louisville: WJKP, 2024), 1382-1398, 2085-2093.

“4 Maccabees” in Katharine Dell and David Lincicum, eds., The New Oxford Commentary on the Bible (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming).

“Honor/Shame” in Scot McKnight, et al., eds., Dictionary of Paul and His Letters (2^nd edition; Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2023), 443-446.

“Galatians” in Kenneth Collins and Robert W. Wall, eds., Wesley One Volume Commentary (Nashville: Abingdon, 2020), 772-82.

“Apocrypha, ‘Old Testament’,” in Daniel Gurtner and Loren Stuckenbruck, eds., T. & T. Clark Encyclopedia of Second Temple Judaism. Volume 2 (London: T. & T. Clark, 2020), 43-45.

Introductions and Annotations to 4 Maccabees and Hebrews, New Oxford Annotated Bible, 5^th edition (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2018), 1751-1773, 2147-2164.

“Jason, 4. The High Priest,” cols. 783-84 in Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception. Volume 13 (edited by Dale C. Allison, Jr., et al.; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2016).

“Exodus, The. II. New Testament,” cols. 467-71 in Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception. Volume 8 (edited by Dale C. Allison, Jr., et al.; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2014).

“Revelation,” pp. 215-220 in Oxford Encyclopedia of Bible and Ethics. Volume 2 (gen. ed. Robert Brawley; New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).

“Hebrews,” pp. 625-653 in Fortress Commentary on the Bible: New Testament (ed. Margaret Aymer, Cynthia Briggs Kittredge, and David A. Sanchez; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2014).

“Clean and Unclean,” pp. 142-149 in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, 2^nd edition (Joel B. Green, gen. ed.; Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2013).

“Rhetorical Criticism,” pp. 273-283 in Oxford Encyclopedia of Biblical Interpretation (gen. ed. Stephen McKenzie; New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).

Introductions and Annotations to “Wisdom of Ben Sira,” “2 Esdras,” “4 Maccabees,” and “Additions to Daniel,” in The Common English Bible Study Bible (ed. Joel B. Green; Nashville: Abingdon, 2013).

Introduction and Annotations to 4 Maccabees, Outside the Bible (3 vols.; ed. James Kugel, Lawrence Schiffman, and Emmanuel Tov; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2013), 2362-2398.

“The Apocrypha and the Old Testament Scriptures” and “The Apocrypha and the New Testament,” pp. 265-268 in Edward A. Engelbrecht (gen. ed.), The Apocrypha: Lutheran Study Edition with Notes. English Standard Version (St. Louis, MO: Concordia, 2012).

“Pseudepigrapha,” Oxford Encyclopedia of the Books of the Bible (ed. Michael Coogan; Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 212-28.

“Apocrypha,” in Cambridge Dictionary of Judaism (ed. Judith Baskin; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 19-21.

“Circumcision” in Dictionary of Scripture and Ethics (ed. Joel B. Green; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), 139-40.

“Clean and Unclean in Dictionary of Scripture and Ethics (ed. Joel B. Green; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), 145-47.

“Deuterocanonicals/Apocrypha” in Dictionary of Scripture and Ethics (ed. Joel B. Green; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), 221-24.

“Hebrews” in Dictionary of Scripture and Ethics (ed. Joel B. Green; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), 360-61.

“Nations, Peoples, and Empires, Part II,” in Gordon D. Fee and Robert Hubbard (eds.), Eerdmans Companion to the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2011), 492-95.

Introduction and Annotations to 4 Maccabees, New Oxford Annotated Bible, 4^th edition (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2010) 359-380.

Introduction and Annotations to Hebrews, The Wesley Study Bible (ed. Joel Green and William Willimon; Nashville: Abingdon, 2008), 1483-1497.

“Honor and Shame,” in Tremper Longman and Peter Enns (eds.), Dictionary of the Old Testament: Wisdom and Poetical Books (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2008), 287-300.

“Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha,” in Craig A. Evans (ed.), The Encyclopedia of the Historical Jesus (New York and London: Routledge, 2008), 15-22.

“Martyr and Martyrdom in Jewish Late Antiquity,” in Craig A. Evans (ed.), The Encyclopedia of the Historical Jesus (New York and London: Routledge, 2008), 386-393.

“Maccabees, Fourth Book of” in Katherine Doob Sakenfeld (gen. ed.), The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 2008), 746-750.

“Social Scientific Criticism, NT” in Katherine Doob Sakenfeld (gen. ed.), The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 2009), 311.

“Hebrews, Epistle to the” in Katherine Doob Sakenfeld (gen. ed.), The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. Volume 2 (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 2007), 779-786.

“Gratitude,” in Katherine Doob Sakenfeld (gen. ed.), The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. Volume 2 (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 2007), 662-663.

“Apocrypha/Deuterocanonicals,” in Katherine D. Sakenfeld (ed.), New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. Volume 1 (Nashville: Abingdon, 2006), 195-200.

“Cultural Relationships in the World of the New Testament,” in Stanley Porter (ed.), Dictionary of Biblical Criticism and Interpretation (London: Routledge, 2006), 67-69.

“Hebrews,” “1 & 2 Peter,” and “Jude” in C. A. Evans (ed.), Bible Knowledge Background Commentary, vol. 3, pp. 199-256 and 289-340 (Elgin, IL: Cook Communications/ Chariot Victor Publishing, 2005).

Introductions and Notes on 1-4 Maccabees and 1-2 Esdras, pp.1405-1470, 1493-1611 in Richard Foster, Dallas Willard, Walter Brueggemann, and Eugene Peterson (eds.), The Renovaré Spiritual Formation Bible (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2005).

“Apocrypha,” pp. 53-57 in K. J. Vanhoozer (gen. ed.), Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2005).

“4 Maccabees,” pp. 888-901 in J. D. G. Dunn and J. W. Rogerson, eds., Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003).

“Honor and Shame,” pp. 431-436 in D. W. Baker (ed.), Dictionary of the Old Testament: Pentateuch (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2002).

“Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha,” pp. 58-64 in C. A. Evans and S. Porter, eds., Dictionary of New Testament Backgrounds (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000). Repr. in D. G. Reid, ed., Dictionary of the New Testament (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2004).

“Honor and Shame,” pp. 518-522 in C. A. Evans and S. Porter, eds., Dictionary of New Testament Backgrounds (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000).

“Patronage in the Greco-Roman World,” pp. 766-771 in C. A. Evans and S. Porter, eds., Dictionary of New Testament Backgrounds (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2000).

“Ruler Cult,” pp. 1026-1030 in C. A. Evans and S. Porter, eds., Dictionary of New Testament Backgrounds (Downers Grove. IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000).

“Sirach,” pp. 1116-1124 in C. A. Evans and S. Porter, eds., Dictionary of New Testament Backgrounds (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000).

“Testament of Moses,” pp. 1192-1199 in C. A. Evans and S. Porter, eds., Dictionary of New Testament Backgrounds (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000).

“3 and 4 Maccabees,” pp. 661-666 in C. A. Evans and S. Porter, eds., Dictionary of NewTestament Backgrounds (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000).

“Wisdom of Solomon,” pp. 1268-1276 in C. A. Evans and S. Porter, eds., Dictionary of New Testament Backgrounds (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000).

“Writing and Literature — Jewish,” pp. 1289-1299 in C. A. Evans and S. Porter, eds., Dictionary of New Testament Backgrounds (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2000).

“Grace,” pp. 524-526 in D. N. Freedman, ed., Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000).

“Maccabees, Third and Fourth Books of,” pp. 839-841 in D. N. Freedman, ed., Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000).

“Exaltation, Enthronement,” pp. 359-63 in P. H. Davids and R. P. Martin, eds., Dictionary of the Later New Testament and Its Developments (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1997).

“Heaven, New Heavens,” pp. 439-43 in P. H. Davids and R. P. Martin, eds., Dictionary of the Later New Testament and Its Developments (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1997).

“Repentance, Second Repentance,” pp. 1011-15 in P. H. Davids and R. P. Martin, eds., Dictionary of the Later New Testament and Its Developments (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1997).

“Visions, Ecstatic Experience,” pp. 1194-98 in the Dictionary of the Later New Testament and Its Developments (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1997).

6. Bible Translation and Editorial Work

Apocrypha Editor, The Common English Bible, Abingdon Press (2007-2011). Recruited translation teams for each book of the Apocrypha; edited their work after receiving reports from readability consultants and reading groups. Also served as first translator for Prayer of Manasseh, Psalm 151, and 4 Maccabees; consulting translator for the Epistle to the Hebrews; and editor for Revelation. Published in The Common English Bible with the Apocrypha (Nashville: Abingdon, 2011).

Translator/Reviser, The Apocrypha: English Standard Version, Oxford University Press. Responsible for the translation/revision of Sirach 1-26, Letter of Jeremiah, Prayer of Manasseh, Psalm 151, 3 Maccabees, 2 Esdras, and 4 Maccabees. Published in The English Standard Version Bible with the Apocrypha (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 1237-64, 1299-1301, 1378-1438. Further translated Tobit (following GII) for the Catholic Edition of the ESV (to replace the first ESV Tobit, which followed the GI recension, as did the RSV).

Contributing Editor, Lexham Septuagint Project, Logos Research Systems (2005-2007). Developed prospectus for project and guidelines for the work of contributors and recruited scholars to work on each book.

Revision Consultant, New Revised Standard Version (Updated Edition), Society of Biblical Literature (2022-2023). Reviewed and suggested emendations to translations and textual notes for 4 Maccabees and Hebrews.

7. Scholarly Presentations

“The Seven Spirits of God: The Holy Spirit or the Angels of the Presence,” Revelation and Apocalyptic Literature Group, Institute for Biblical Research, Novembe 22, 2024 (San Diego, CA).

“Reading Hebrews in a Sri Lankan Context,” Asian American Biblical Interpretation Group, Institute for Biblical Research, Novembe 22, 2024 (San Diego, CA).

“The Spirit, Sanctification, and Salvation: What Paul Has Joined, Let No Theologian Rend Asunder,” Annual Lecture, Institute for Biblical Research, November 18, 2022 (Denver, CO).

“Sin and Its Remedy in Galatians,” Annual Meeting of the Institute for Biblical Research, November 16-17, 2018 (Denver, CO).

“Reading 1 Peter with the Elect Resident Aliens in Sri Lanka,” Annual Meeting of the Society for Biblical Literature, November 17-20, 2018 (Denver, CO).

“Father Knew Best: Intertextuality and Argumentation in 4 Macc 18:10-18.” Greek Bible Section, 2016 National SBL Meeting (San Antonio, TX).

“The Author of 4 Maccabees and Greek Paideia: Facets of the Formation of a Hellenistic Jewish Rhetor,” Fifth Enoch Seminar Nangeroni Meeting, July 1-5, 2015 (Naples, Italy).

“Grace, the Law, and Justification in 4 Ezra and the Pauline Letters: A Dialogue,” Third Enoch Seminar Nangeroni Meeting, June 22-26, 2014 (Rome, Italy).

“Reading Revelation in Sri Lanka,” John’s Apocalypse and Cultural Contexts Ancient and Modern Section, 2012 National SBL Meeting (Chicago, IL).

“Progymnastic Training and the Rhetorical Composition of Hebrews,” Rhetoric and New Testament Section, 2012 National SBL Meeting (Chicago, IL).

“The Contribution of 4 Maccabees to Ambrose’s De Jacob et vita beata,” Function of Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha in Early Judaism and Early Christianity Section, 2012 National SBL Meeting (Chicago, IL).

“Neither Tamil Nor Sinhalese: Reading Galatians in Sri Lanka,” 2011 Annual Meeting of the Institute for Biblical Research (San Francisco, CA).

Panelist, Review of The Common English Bible, 2011 Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature (San Francisco, CA).

“James and the Testament of Job: The Evidence for Intertextuality,” Letters of James, Peter, and Jude Section, 2010 National SBL Meeting (Atlanta, GA).

Panel Review of Seeing Things John’s Way, Rhetoric and New Testament Section, 2009 National SBL Meeting (New Orleans, LA).

“How Greek Is the Author of the Letter to the Hebrews: A Study of the Author’s Location in Regard to Greek Paideia,” Hebrews Group, 2008 National SBL Meeting (Boston, MA).

“Out of Our Minds? Appeals to Reason (Logos) in the Seven Oracles of Revelation 2-3,” Rhetoric and the New Testament Section, 2008 National SBL Meeting (Boston, MA).

“‘An Example of How to Die Nobly For Religion’: The Influence of 4 Maccabees on Origen’s Exhortatio ad Martyrium,” Non-canonical Literature Section, 2007 National SBL Meeting (San Diego, CA).

“Five Fragments of a Greek Codex of Exodus,” International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies, 2006 National SBL Meeting (Washington, DC).

“Seeing the World Through John’s Eyes: Rhetography in Revelation,” Rhetoric of Religious Antiquity Seminar, 2006 National SBL Meeting (Washington, DC).

“Seven Fragments of a Greek Manuscript of Exodus,” International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies, 2005 National SBL Meeting (Philadelphia, PA).

Panelist for discussion on “The Strategic Evocation and Shaping of ‘Story’ in the New Testament,” Rhetoric of Religious Antiquity Seminar, 2005 National SBL Meeting (Philadelphia, PA).

“The Sinaiticus Text of 4 Maccabees,” Short Paper, 2005 SNTS Meeting (Halle, Germany).

Panelist for discussion on “Priestly Discourse in the New Testament,” Rhetoric and New Testament Section of the 2004 National SBL Meeting (San Antonio, TX).

Panelist for discussion on “Miracle Discourse in the New Testament,” Rhetoric and New Testament Section of the 2001 National SBL Meeting (Denver, CO).

“Final Topics: The Rhetorical Functions of Intertexture in Revelation 14:14— 16:21,” presented as part of panel discussion on “The Intertexture of Apocalyptic Discourse,” Rhetoric and New Testament Section of the 1999 National SBL Meeting (Boston, MA).

“The Persuasive Strategy of the Apocalypse: A Socio-Rhetorical Investigation of Revelation 14:6-13,” 1998 National Meeting of the SBL (Orlando, FL).

“Investigating Honor Discourse: Guidelines from Classical Rhetoricians,” 1997 National SBL Meeting (San Francisco, CA).

“Honor Discourse and the Socio-Rhetorical Strategy of Matthew’s Gospel,” 1997 Midwest Regional Meeting of the SBL (Chicago, IL).

“Worthy of God’s Kingdom: Honor Discourse and Social Engineering in 1 Thessalonians,” 1996 National SBL Meeting (New Orleans, LA).

“The Wisdom of Ben Sira: Honor, Shame, and the Maintenance of Minority Cultural Values,” 1995 National SBL Meeting (Philadelphia, PA) and Regional Meeting of SECSOR (Gainesville, FL).

“Despising Shame: A Cultural-Anthropological Investigation of the Epistle to the Hebrews,” 1994 National SBL Meeting (Chicago, IL); 1994 Southeastern Regional Meeting (Atlanta, GA).

“Meeting the Exigencies of a Complex Rhetorical Situation: An Investigation of the Integrity of 2 Corinthians 1-7,” 1993 Southeastern Regional Meeting of the SBL, Charleston, SC.

8. Invited Lectures & Presentations:

“Recovering a Scripture-Shaped Ethos in a Polarizing Age,” New Room Pastors’ Retreat, Black Mountain, NC, February 25-27, 2026.

“The Spirit, Sanctification, and Salvation: What Paul Has Joined, Let No Theologian Rend Asunder,” Graduate Forum, ACTS University International Graduate School, Gyeonggi-do, Korea, November 2, 2023.

“Reading Revelation with John’s Congregations: Developing a Culture of Discernment and Resistance” and “God’s Grace, The Free Gift That Costs Us Everything: Grace and Obligation in Paul and his World,” Korean Evangelical Society of New Testament Studies, Seoul, Korea, November 4, 2023.

“The Social and Cultural Context of the Early Christians: What Difference Does It Make for Theology and Mission?” and “A Case Study in Social and Cultural Context: Living Together as God’s Family in a Greco-Roman Household,” Institute for Missional Studies, Samil Christian Church, Seoul, Korea, November 6, 2023.

“Listening to the Book of Revelation: From Roman Asia to Modern Egypt,” a series of nine presentations for the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, Synod of the Nile Pastors Conference, Alexandria, Egypt, June 27-29, 2023.

“Does Your Bible Have the Apocrypha,” Museum of the Bible Speaker Series, March 14, 2023 (Washington, DC).

“Living our Baptismal Covenant” and “A Rule of Life,” Christ Episcopal Church, San Antonio, TX (December 2-3, 2022).

“The Letter to the Hebrews and Christian Formation,” Christian Union Student Retreat, Princeton University (virtual, May 18, 2022).

“The Apocrypha: What Every Christian Should Know,” South Africa Theological Seminary, September 21, 2020.

“Grace: The Free Gift That Costs Us Everything,” Life Enrichment Series, Florida College, October 24, 2019.

“Revelation and the Gospel of Rome: Empires in Conflict (or, Two Tales of One City),” Bergdall Endowed Lectureship in Biblical Studies, Huntington University, March 26, 2019 (Huntington, Indiana).

“Patronage and Stewardship in the Early Church,” Patronage Symposium, Arab Baptist Theological Seminary, October 3-5, 2018 (Beirut, Lebanon).

“Reciprocity and Patronage in the New Testament: What Does It Mean for the Gospel Today?” Honor-Shame Conference, Wheaton College, June 19-21, 2017.

“Reading Revelation as If John’s Churches Mattered,” Winter Pastors’ School, Stetson University, January 31-February 2, 2017.

“The Book of Revelation,” continuing education event, Near East School of Theology, Beirut, Lebanon, September 5-9, 2016.

“A Political Reading of the Revelation of John: Creating a Culture of Critique and Resistance,” Arab Baptist Theological Seminary, Beirut, Lebanon, February 26, 2015.

“Reading Revelation in the (2)1^st Century,” Second Presbyterian Church, Louisville, KY, January 17, 2015.

“Transformation: The Heart of Paul’s Gospel,” Educational Opportunities Tours “Journeys of Paul” tour, November 1-12, 2013 and October 11-24, 2014.

“The Jewish Teachers of Jesus, James, and Jude,” 2013 Spring Ecumenical Lecture, Mount Aloysius College, April 11, 2013.

“Attentive to the Word: Biblical Scholarship and the Devotional Life,” The Fire of the Word (Renovare Conference, Denver, CO), May 4-5, 2012.

“Revelation and Roman Imperial Ideology: Apocalypse as Call to Resistance,” New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, April 12, 2012.

“The Jewish Teachers of Jesus, James, and Jude: The impact of Ben Sira, Tobit, and 1 Enoch,” Florida Southern College, April 2, 2012.

“Heeding the Book of Revelation Without Playing End-games,” Educational Opportunities Tours “Sixth Celebration Cruise,” January 15-24, 2012.

“Menschenbild, the Problem of Evil, and the Problem of Theodicy in 4 Maccabees,” Institut für Evangelische Theologie, Universität Osnabrück, August 23, 2011.

“The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs: Jewish or Christian? A Re-assessment,” English-German Colloquium, Institute for the Study of Early Christianity and the Evangelische-theologisches Seminar, Universität Tübingen, July 18, 2011.

“Turning Shame into Honor: The Pastoral Strategy of 1 Peter,” St. Mark’s United Methodist Church, Lincoln, NE, October 25, 2010.

“Is Your Bible Thick Enough? Challenging the New Testament Canon,” Colombo Theological Seminary, Colombo, Sri Lanka, October 1, 2010.

“The Apocrypha and Evangelical Christians,” Colombo Theological Seminary, Colombo, Sri Lanka, September 17, 2010.

“The Challenge of Revelation for Christian Formation,” Vanderbilt Presbyterian Church, Naples, FL, March 20, 2010.

“Preaching Through Hebrews,” Pastors’ Clinic, Sandberg Leadership Center, Ashland Theological Seminary, August 2009.

“The Heart of the New Testament Message: Toward a Biblical Theology,” 2008 Fall Lecture Series, Ashland Theological Seminary.

“Preaching Through Revelation,” Pastors’ Clinic, Sandberg Leadership Center, Ashland Theological Seminary, February 2009.

“Jesus and James in the School of Ben Sira,” Theologisches Seminar Reutlingen, Germany, June 13, 2007.

“Honor, Shame, and Paul,” McManis Lecture, Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL, April 2006.

“The Jewish Teachers of Jesus and James: What the Leaders of Judean Christianity Learned from the Apocrypha” Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, February 22, 2006.

“The Jewish Teachers of Jesus, James, and the author of Hebrews: What early Christian Leaders learned from the Apocrypha,” Hampden-Sydney College, October 27, 2005.

“Never Without a Witness: The ‘With-God’ Life in the Intertestamental Period,” Renovaré 2005 International Conference (Denver, CO).

“Living Like You’ll Live Forever,” Ashland University Convocation, March 23, 2005.

“Reading the Bible at Qumran, Alexandria, and Ephesus,” public lecture given on April 4, 2004, “From the Dead Sea Scrolls to the Forbidden Book” exhibit, John S. Knight Center, Akron, Ohio.

“Across this Threshold,” Ashland University Baccalaureate Service, May 11, 2001.

9. Selected Book Reviews

Jewish and Greco-Roman Environments

J. J. Collins, The Scepter and the Star, Interpretation 50 (1996) 426-428.

Alan K. Bowman, et al, eds., The Cambridge Ancient History: Volume X, The Augustan Empire, 43 B.C.-A.D. 69, Asbury Theological Journal 52 (1997) 91-92.

J. J. Collins, Jewish Wisdom in the Hellenistic Age, Ash T J 33 (2001) 114-115.

J. W. van Henten, The Maccabean Martyrs as Saviours of the Jewish People, Ash T J 33 (2001) 115-116.

Peter Enns, Exodus Retold: Ancient Exegesis of the Departure from Egypt in Wis 10:15-21 and 19:1-9, Ash T J 33 (2001) 115.

Social World of the New Testament

Bruce J. Malina, The New Testament World and Windows on the World of Jesus; Pheme Perkins, Gnosticism and the New Testament, Perspectives in Religious Studies, 22 (1995) 79-82.

L. Michael White and O. Larry Yarbrough, eds., The Social World of the First Christians:

Essays in Honor of Wayne A. Meeks, Christian Century 113 (1996) 237-239.

Halvor Moxnes (ed.), Constructing Early Christian Families: Family as Social Reality and Metaphor, Andrews University Seminary Studies 37 (1999) 327-329.

Gospels and Acts

David Bauer and Mark Powell (eds.), Treasures Old and New: Contributions to Matthean Studies, Ash Th J 30 (1998) 115-16.

Jerome Neyrey, Honor and Shame in the Gospel of Matthew, AUSS 38 (2000) 166-168.

Paul

Jürgen Becker, Paul: Apostle to the Gentiles, Christian Century, 111 (1994) 504.

Daniel Boyarin, A Radical Jew: Paul and the Politics of Identity, Christian Century, 112 (1995) 581-82.

Don Garlington, Faith, Obedience and Perseverance: Aspects of Paul’s Letter to the Romans, Critical Review of Books in Religion 9 (1996).

Ben Witherington, III, Conflict and Community in Corinth: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on 1 and 2 Corinthians, Andrews University Seminary Studies 35 (1997) 156-158.

Gordon Fee, Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, CBQ 59 (1997) 577-78.

Michael Gorman, Participating in Christ: Explorations in Paul’s Theology and Spirituality, JTS, forthcoming.

Hebrews and General Epistles

George H. Guthrie, The Structure of Hebrews: A Text-Linguistic Analysis, CBQ 57 (1995) 395-97.

Thomas Long, Hebrews, Theology Today 54/4 (1998) 576-77.

Victor Pfitzner, Hebrews, CBQ 61 (1999) 163-64.

N. C. Croy, Endurance in Suffering: Hebrews 12.1-13 in its Rhetorical, Religious, and Philosophical Context, RBL 2 (2000) 452-54.

Barth Campbell, Honor, Shame, and the Rhetoric of 1 Peter, RBL 2 (2000) 459-62.

Luke T. Johnson, Hebrews, Interpretation 62/2 (2008) 198-200.

Revelation and Apocalyptic Literature

Philip E. Hughes, The Book of Revelation, Trinity Journal, 13NS (1992) 106-108.

Jürgen Roloff, The Revelation of John, Princeton Seminary Bulletin, 15 NS (1994) 207-209.

Jean-Pierre Prévost, How to Read the Apocalypse, Biblical Theology Bulletin 25 (1995) 94.

Bruce Malina, On the Genre and Message of Revelation: Star Visions and Sky Journeys, JBL 116 (1997) 763-65.

Sverre Bøe, Gog and Magog: Ezekiel 38 — 39 as pre-text for Revelation 19,17-21 and 20,7-10, JSNT 26 (2003) 127-128.

Stephen Smalley, The Revelation to John, Biblical Theology Bulletin, forthcoming.

Edmondo F. Lupieri, A Commentary on the Apocalypse of John, CBQ 71 (2009) 409-411.

Richard Hays and Stefan Alkier, eds., Revelation and the Politics of Apocalyptic Interpretation, CBQ 76 (2014) 793-795.

New Testament Introduction, Biblical Interpretation and Theology

John Carroll and Joel Green, The Death of Jesus in Early Christianity, TrinJ 18NS (1997) 102-105.

D. A. Carson, D. J. Moo, and Leon Morris, An Introduction to the New Testament, Christian Century, 109 (1992) 497-98.

Vernon Robbins, Exploring the Texture of Texts and The Tapestry of Early Christian Discourse, Ash Th J 30 (1998) 123-26.

Ian G. Wallis, The Faith of Jesus Christ in Early Christian Traditions, CBQ 58 (1996) 568-569.

10. Published Sermons

“What On Earth Are Good Protestants To Do With Saints?” Ashland Theological Journal 44 (2012) 35-39.

“A Summons to Sobriety,” Preaching 19/3 (Nov/Dec 2003) 53-54.

“Keeping God’s Sabbath,” Preaching 18/1 (July-August 2002) 39-42.

“What’s Wrong With a Little Murder,” Preaching On-line, July 2001.

“Our Wake-Up Call,” Preaching 16/3 (2000) 29-32.

“Giving Rebirth for Immortality,” Preaching 14/6 (1999) 32-37.

“Convictions,” Pulpit Digest, January/February 1995, 64-70.

“Scribes Trained for the Kingdom,” Ashland Theological Journal 29 (1997) 1-6.

(See also In Season and Out, listed above under #2.)

11. Publications for Devotional Use and Church-based Curriculum:

Revised and updated edition of, and new companion DVD for, Bruce M. Metzger, Breaking the Code: Understanding the Book of Revelation (Nashville: Abingdon, 2019).

Contributor (Week 2: Biblical Foundations) to Canvas: A Portrait of God, Canvas: A Portrait of Grace, Canvas: A Portrait of the Holy Spirit, Canvas: A Portrait of Jesus, and Canvas: A Portrait of Humanity (Nashville: Abingdon, 2018).

“Commentary 1: Connecting the Reading with Scripture” on Galatians 1:1-12 (Ninth Sunday after the Epiphany) and 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2 (Transfiguration Sunday) in Joel B. Green, et al., eds, Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship: Year C, Volume 1, Advent through Epiphany (Louisville: WJKP, 2018), 292-294, 307-309.

Introductions to Matthew, Colossians, 1 & 2 Timothy, Philemon, Hebrews, 1 & 2 Peter, and Jude, The CEB Student Bible (gen. ed. Elizabeth W. Corrie; Nashville: Abingdon, 2015).

“Episode 6: Hebrews,” pp. 63-70 in Participant Guide 1: Creating the Covenant and accompanying video, Covenant Bible Study (Nashville: Abingdon, 2014).

Invitation to the New Testament: Participant Guide (co-authored with Emerson Powery; Disciple Short-Term Studies; Nashville: Abingdon, 2005).

Invitation to the New Testament: Digital Video Disk (with Emerson Powery and guests Amy-Jill Levine, K. K. Yeo, and William Willimon; Disciple Short-Term Studies; Nashville: Abingdon, 2005).

Afterlife: Finding Hope in the Face of Death (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 2003).

“Remember Your Baptism: Living Out the Christian Rite of Transformation,” Conversations 8.1 (2010) 86-91.

“Before Baptism: John the Baptizer and Jewish Purification Rites,” Adult Bible Studies Illustrated 2/1 (2009) 19-22.

“Philippians, 1 & 2 Thessalonians,” in New International Lesson Annual 2009-2010 (ed. Nan Duerling; Nashville: Abingdon, 2009).

“1 John and Revelation: God’s Community Now and in the Future,” in New International Lesson Annual 2006-2007 (ed. Nan Duerling; Nashville: Abingdon, 2006).

“1 and 2 Corinthians: Called to Community,” in New International Lesson Annual 2005-2006 (ed. Nan Duerling; Nashville: Abingdon, 2005), 345-454.

“Introduction to Hebrews,” video segment for Disciple I: Revised Videos (Nashville: United Methodist Publishing House, 2005).

“Hebrews: Living in Faith,” Adult Bible Studies June-July-August 2004 (Nashville: United Methodist Publishing House, 2004).

“An Advent Sonnet,” Trinity Seminary Review 25.1 (2004) 67.

“A Sure Foundation,” pp. 327-333 in The Upper Room Disciplines 2003: A Book of Daily Devotions (Nashville: Upper Room Books, 2002).

“Link-tionary” (Nashville: United Methodist Publishing House), November 1999, March 2000, July 2000, December 2000, April 2001, and August 2001 issues. This material has been re-issued in three annuals edited by Douglas Wingeier, Keeping Holy Time: Year A, Year B, and Year C (Nashville: Abingdon, 2001-2003).

“Introduction to Daniel,” video segment for Disciple IV (Nashville: United Methodist Publishing House, 2001).

“The Sermon on the Mount,” Adult Bible Studies Teacher (United Methodist Publishing House) 9/1 (September-November 2001) 8-10.

“The Churches at Philippi, Ephesus, and Colossae,” Adult Bible Studies Teacher (United Methodist Publishing House) 8/4 (June-August 2000) 2-5.

“The Uniqueness of the Gospel of Mark,” Adult Bible Studies Teacher (United Methodist Publishing House) 6/3 (March-May 1998) 2-4.

“Clement of Alexandria,” “William Tyndale,” and “John Donne,” in For All the Saints (ed. Clifton Guthrie; Akron, OH: Order of Saint Luke Publications, 1995).

12. Music Publications:

“Johannine Benediction,” SATB anthem, Folio Vol. 2.3, pp.30-31, Abingdon Press, 1992; re-release, World Library Publications, 2010.

“Behold the Lamb,” SATB anthem, Abingdon Press, 1995.

“Ring We Now of Christmas,” handbell arrangement, Abingdon Press, 1998.

“O Clap Your Hands,” SATB anthem, Abingdon Press, 2001.

“Comfort, Comfort Ye, My People,” SATB anthem with ensemble, Abingdon Press, 2001; re-release, Concordia Publishing House, 2010.

“Transfiguration Prayer,” SATB a capella anthem, World Library Publications, 2008.

“Renaissance Suite” (organ arrangements of five dances by Tielman Susato), Church Music Workshop vol. 11, nos. 1 (Jan-Apr), 2 (May-Aug), and 3 (Sep-Dec), Abingdon Press, 2001.

“O Clap Your Hands,” TTBB anthem (re-arrangement of SATB anthem), Abingdon Press, 2009.

Two Renaissance Suites (organ arrangements of ten dances from Tielman Susato’s Danserye [1551]), Concordia Publishing House, 2011.

Chorale Prelude on Allein Gott in der Höh (“All Glory Be to God on High”), pp. 54-57 in Hymn Prelude Library, volume 1, edited by Kevin Hildebrand, Concordia Publishing House, 2012.

Chorale Prelude on Die güldne Sonne (“The Golden Sun”), in Hymn Prelude Library, volume 3, edited by Kevin Hildebrand (Concordia Publishing House, 2013).

A Time to Dance: Baroque Gigues for Organ (arrangements of gigues by Handel, Pachelbel, and Bach), Beckenhorst, 2014.

“The Lord at First Did Adam Make,” SATB anthem, Concordia Publishing House, 2014.

Chorale Prelude on Herzlich tut mir verlangen (“O Sacred Head, Now Wounded”), in Hymn Prelude Library. Vol. 5, edited by Kevin Hildebrand (Concordia Publishing House, 2014).

Chorale Prelude on King’s Weston (“At the Name of Jesus”), in Hymn Prelude Library. Vol. 6, edited by Kevin Hildebrand (Concordia Publishing House, 2014).

Chorale Prelude on Nicaea (“Holy, Holy, Holy”) pp. 26-29 in Hymn Prelude Library, volume 7. Edited by Kevin Hildebrand. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2016.

Seven Renaissance Dances (organ arrangements of seven additional dances by Tielman Susato), Concordia, 2015.

“One Thing Have I Desired,” SATB anthem, Concordia Publishing House, 2015.

“Them Bones,” SATB anthem, Concordia Publishing House, 2016.

Chorale Prelude on Song 13 (“Holy Spirit, Truth Divine”) pp. 143-145 in Hymn Prelude Library, volume 9. Edited by Kevin Hildebrand. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2016.

Chorale Prelude on Veni Emmanuel (“O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”), pp. 68-69 in Hymn Prelude Library. Vol. 11, edited by Kevin Hildebrand (Concordia Publishing House, 2017).

13. Instructional Media

The Apocrypha: Witness Between the Testaments (BI 291), Mobile Ed Courseware, Logos Bible Systems, Faithlife Corporation, 2015.

The Cultural World of the New Testament (NT 201), Mobile Ed Courseware, Logos Bible Systems, Faithlife Corporation, 2015.

Introducing the Epistles and Revelation: Their Setting and Message (NT222), Mobile Ed Courseware, Logos Bible Systems, Faithlife Corporation, 2017.

Exegetical Study: Letter to the Hebrews (NT 362), Mobile Ed Courseware, Logos Bible Systems, Faithlife Corporation, 2017.

The Seven Cities of Revelation (AR 271). Mobile Ed Courseware, Logos Bible Systems, Faithlife Corporation, 2018.

“Artemis of the Ephesians”; “Ephesus: Commerce and Community”; “Satan’s Throne: Religion in Roman Pergamum”; “Corinth: Business and Order”; “Miletus: City of Paul’s Farewell”; “Sardis: City of the Living Dead“; “Rome: Center of the Empire”; “Qumran: Monastic Center for the Truly Strictest Sect of Judaism”; “Alexander and his Successors”; “Paphos: An Early Pauline Mission Field”; “Rhodes: Paul’s Rest Stop on the Way to Jerusalem”; “Roman Corinth: Many Gods and Many Lords“; “I Have Finished the Race: The World Behind Athletic Images in the New Testament”; “Imperial Cult in Ephesus: ‘Those Who Worship the Beast and Its Image”; “Caesar Augustus: Imperial Ideology and Luke’s Infancy Narrative”; “Athens: ‘In Every Way a Religious People’”; “Colossae and Hierapolis: Epaphras’s Mission Field”; “The Flavian Dynasty: ‘When You See Jerusalem Surrounded By Armies’”; “Capernaum: Jesus’ Base of Operations in Galilee”; “Puteoli: Paul’s Rest Stop on the Way to Rome”; “Tyre, Merchant to the Nations”; “Smyrna, Faithful Devotee of Rome”; “Laodicea: City of the Lukewarm”; “Gebal: Survivor of Empires,” “Seeing Things on Patmos,” “Antioch in Pisidia,” “Herod’s Temple: ‘See What Huge Stones’,” “Herod the Great: Building a Legacy,” “‘Not One Stone Left Upon Another’: Jerusalem’s Destruction and Its Aftermath,” “Caesarea Philippi: City of the Gods,” “Jerusalem’s Water Supply and Pools,” “Jerusalem Between the Testaments,” “Bethsaida and Chorazin: Centers of Jesus’ Galilean Ministry,” “Tel Dan: Sacred City of the Northern Kingdom,” “Magdala: Mary’s Hometown,” “Machaerus: Where John the Baptizer Was Martyred,” “Beth Shean: Gentile Stronghold in the Heart of Israel,” “The Cities of the Decapolis: Gadara, Gerasa, and Hippos,” “Cenchreae: Port of Corinth,” “Beroea: Receptive Soil for Paul’s Gospel,” “Caesarea Maritima: Herod’s Great Port City,” “Thessalonica: First City of Macedonia,” “Philippi: Founding a Church in a Roman Colony,” and “Malta: Paul’s Safe Haven en Route to Rome” in the Cultural Context of the Bible video collection. Logos Bible Systems, Faithlife Corporation, 2014-2020.

“The General Epistles,” Seminary Now (https://seminarynow.com/pages/introduction-to-the-general-epistles), filmed February 27-28, 2023.

Academic Honors, Awards, Fellowships:

CBA Visiting Professorship, École Biblique et Archéologique Française, Jerusalem (Spring Semester, 2024).

Passing the Torch Renewal Leave Grant, Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church (2019; 2022).

Lilly Faculty Fellows Grant (2010-2011).

Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow (2006-2007; renewals in Summer 2011 and 2022).

Appointed the sixth Trustees’ Distinguished Professor of Ashland University (2005).

ECPA Gold Medallion Award Finalist, Reference and Academic Books, 2005 (An Introduction to the New Testament: Contexts, Methods & Ministry Formation [InterVarsity, 2004]).

Elected to the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas (2001).

SBL Regional Scholar (1995).

SBL (SECSOR) Graduate Student Paper Award (1994).

Emory University, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Tuition Fellowship (1990-1991; 1991-1992); Graduate Fellowship (1990-1994); Assistant Instructorship (1994-1995).

Professional Memberships Maintained

Catholic Biblical Association

Society of Biblical Literature

Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas (SNTS)

Ordination as an Elder in Full Connection in the Florida Annual Conference of the Global Methodist Church.

Academic Service:

Society of Biblical Literature

Co-chair (with Loren Johns), Function of Non-Canonical Literature Section (2009-2015).

Founding Chair, Rhetoric of Religious Antiquity Seminar (2005-2010).

Steering Committee, Rhetoric and the New Testament Section (2004-2010).

Steering Committee, Best Teaching Practices Consultation (2004-2010).

Ashland Theological Seminary

Department Chair, Biblical Studies (2005-2006; 2007-2010; 2011-2014)

Academic Affairs Committee (2005-2006; 2007-2010; 2011-2014)

Personal and Professional Development Committee (2001-2005; chair, 2004-2005).

Recruitment Committee, Ashland Theological Seminary (2002-2003).

Spiritual Formation, Chapel, and Student Life Committee (2003-2004, ex-officio as interim Director of the Chapel; 2010-2011).

Library Committee (1995-2001; chair, 1997-2001).

Other

Editorial Board, Biblical Theology Review (2020-present); Bulletin for Biblical Research (2015-2018); Common English Bible Review Committee (2011-2016); Rhetoric of Religious Antiquity Project (1999-2014); Emory Studies in Early Christianity (1999-2014); Journal for the Study of New Testament (1997-2003).

External Dissertation Examiner, Fuller Theological Seminary, Asbury Theological Seminary

External Reviewer, Andrews University Seminary Studies; InterVarsity Press

Consultant, United Methodist Publishing House (Disciple Series)

Employment in Pastoral Ministry

Interim Pastor, Port Charlotte United Methodist Church, Port Charlotte, FL (October 2, 2017-June 30, 2018).

One unit of Clinical Pastoral Education at Akron General Medical Center, Akron, Ohio (Summer 2003).

Substitute Preacher at various churches (primarily those where I have also been employed as Minister of Music [see below]).

Intern at St. George’s Episcopal Church, Helmetta, NJ (Fall 1989 to Spring 1990).

Campus Minister for Westminster Choir College, Nassau Christian Center, Princeton, NJ (September 1987 to 1989).

Employment in Music Ministry

Director of Traditional Worship and Organist, Port Charlotte Global Methodist Church, Port Charlotte, FL (July 2014-present).

Organist/Director of Music, Christ United Methodist Church, Ashland, OH (1998-2014).

Conference Organist, United Methodist Church Ohio East Area, 2009 and 2010.

Guest Organist, Friedenskirche (Evangelisch-methodistische Kirche), Tübingen, Germany (2006-2007).

Interim Chapel Co-ordinator, Organist, and Director of the Seminary Chapel Choir, Ashland Theological Seminary (2003-2004; Spring 1997).

Director of Choirs, First United Methodist Church, Ashland, OH (August 1995 to June 1998).

Organist/Choirmaster, Christ Our Hope Lutheran Church, Riverdale, GA (August 1990 to July 1995).

Accompanist, Candler Choraliers, Emory University, Atlanta, GA (1991-1992).

Organist/Choirmaster, St. George’s Episcopal Church, Helmetta, NJ (September 1985 to June 1990).

Tenor soloist with Candler Choraliers, Atlanta Bach Choir, Princeton University Glee Club, Princeton Singers, and Musica Alta.

1. Meeting Jesus

Principal Text: Revelation 1:1-2, 9-20

Collateral Material: Revelation 1:1-20; 5:1-14; 7:13-17; 19:11-16

Revelation, for all its strange images and for all the diversity of interpretations available, remains a Revelation of Jesus Christ, and should leave us ultimately focused on Jesus Christ, who is not merely the source of this message, but also its object and content. Speaking in his own idiom, John is nevertheless singing in concert with many other New Testament voices as he, too, “gives us Jesus.”

Unlike other authors, John shows us Jesus in all his radiance now, and calls us to consider the authority and power Jesus now has as the Glorified Lord of the churches (Rev 1:9-20), the coming judge of the world (Rev 19:11-20), and the one who holds the keys to death and hell (Rev 1:18; 3:7). Jesus is not as he was when he walked the roads of Palestine, but has entered into a transformed existence beyond all mortal experience: while the continuity between the two is critical to maintain, so is the distance, so that we might know the awesome majesty of the One whom we worship, and in whose name we go forth to serve as “priests” (Rev 1:6; 5:10).

The primary image for Jesus is that of the “Lamb,” and since that Lamb was slaughtered it is an image of redemption and of exodus (Rev 5:9-10), with Jesus both leading and enabling our pilgrimage from a land of oppression where God’s values and vision fail to be honored toward that land of promise where God’s reign is fully known, and where the Lamb will shepherd us in safety forever (7:13-17). Like the evangelists and Paul, John presents us with Jesus’ cruciform triumph over the powers of sin and Satan (Rev 5:5-7), and calls us to follow in that pattern as well, assured that death and deprivation for the cause of God is not defeat, but victory (Rev 12:10-12).

Whatever we might think urgently requires our attention, John draws our attention to the much more pressing crisis to which we must attend. On the one hand, John calls us to prepare to encounter Jesus as he returns at the head of the hosts of heaven:

“Look! He is coming with the clouds! And every eye will see him, even those who pierced him through. And all the families of the earth will wail on account of him” (Rev 1:7).

This is where John would direct his churches’ eyes, and away from the markets and docks laden with opportunities for wealth and the civic arenas filled with opportunity for promotion and “importance” for those who are willing to wink at the ills of the system that it all supports. If they keep placing themselves on “the day of wrath of God and of the Lamb,” what they must decide to do this day becomes that much clearer.

One of the greatest surprises of Revelation, however, is that we discover that the Lord for whom we watch and wait is already present, inspecting, evaluating, preparing to prune away the unfruitful, unfaithful branches or to remove the lampstands whose light fails to burn as it ought. As we prepare to meet him at his coming, we find him already standing in the midst of his churches affirming our works of faith, confronting our compromise, and encouraging our renewed devotion. Thus John calls us to be prepared to encounter Jesus as he walks in our midst, and to be mindful of the urgency of responding to what this Jesus would tell us, since by means of such response we might indeed avoid being left in a position to wail at his return.

When we call people to respond to the good news, or confront evil and oppression in families, businesses, and governments, or relieve the needs of the suffering, we do so not in fear of the overshadowing powers of the Enemy, but in confidence in the triumph of the Christ who sits at God’s right hand, invested with God’s power, and who is coming to bring justice to “every tribe, language, people, and nation” — he who is the beginning and the ending, and who will always have the last word over all who oppose God’s righteous reign. In that confidence, John dismisses us, sending us back to face the challenges to faithfulness in such a way that our choices, allegiances, investments, and acts all bear witness to that undying hope: “even so, come, Lord Jesus!”

2. What Is the Spirit Saying To Our Churches?

Principal Text: Two or three selected oracles (e.g., 2:1-7, 12-17; 3:14-22)

Collateral Material: Revelation 2-3

The seven oracles to the seven churches are probably among the more frequently preached-upon passages in Revelation. I say “oracles” rather than “letters” because, in fact, each begins with a modification of the oracular pronouncement formula “Thus says the Lord,” as in “These things say the One who holds the seven stars.” “To the angel of the church in Asia, write....” is not a variation of the letter-opening formula, but a command to the seer to record the oracle that follows.

I have seen these oracles used as the basis for a sermon series, which might at first raise questions about using them as the basis for a single sermon. From another point of view, however, it is difficult to see how one would avoid many redundancies preaching first on the oracle to Pergamum and, then, the following week on the oracle to Thyatira, which effectively faces the same challenges. Smyrna and Philadelphia show similar overlap. Furthermore, it is really the words of commendation and indictment — about 50% of each oracle — that really provide helpful material for a congregation’s self diagnosis, where other elements (for example, Jesus’ self-identification, or the specific warnings and promises) can be brought in much more briefly.

So my temptation would be to structure a sermon around three representative oracles — Ephesus, Pergamum, and Laodicea would probably be my own choices, since each presents a distinctive, and fairly clear, set of challenges facing a congregation as a means of setting up the main objective of the sermon: to attempt to extrapolate (or discern) from the way the Spirit addressed those congregations how the Spirit would now address our congregation, following the essential formula of these oracles.

What do we most need to bear in mind about Jesus?

What are we doing that bears effective witness to God and to Jesus, such that we hear Christ’s word of commendation?

What are we doing, or failing to do, such that this witness is stifled, muted, or betrayed? Where is our loyalty, our zeal, our full-blooded response to Jesus found wanting?

What do we need to keep before our eyes in order to change for the better, and respond as would please Christ as he stands in our midst?

3. Where’s Your Center?

Principal Text: Revelation 4-5

John sees in worship the power to transform perceptions, to instill motivations and holy desires, to make a lasting impact on those who participate. Revelation itself is full of liturgies (ritual acts and hymns; see Rev 4:1--5:4; 7:1-12; 19:1-8) and free-standing hymns (see Rev 11:15-18; 12:10-12; 15:2-4), and much of its drama emerges out of solemn rituals in the heavenly tabernacle (as in Rev 8:1-5; 15:5-8). Revelation was sent to be read aloud to the gathered Christian community in each city. The celestial hymns and liturgies were to be heard in the context of the gathered worshiping community on earth and would, in fact, complement and complete the worship of the Christian group on earth. I have included an example of a worship service that takes these chapters as its starting point, to suggest one way in which the experiential component of these visions might be facilitated.

John invited his congregations into an experience of liturgy and worship that re-oriented their minds and ambitions toward the realities of this world, that reminded them of the larger realities that surrounded this world and its history, and that made “present” and “palpable” for them the unseen realm in light of which they were to navigate their daily life. The hymns around the throne loudly proclaim the lordship of God and God’s Messiah, the “ruler of the kings of the earth” (Rev 1:5; cf. 11:15), the center of the cosmos, whose honor is rightfully lauded by creatures celestial and terrestrial. Christians have been made a part of God’s kingdom (Rev 1:6; 5:9-10), and are summoned to express and to live out their allegiance.

In a sermon on this opening liturgy, I would focus first on helping the congregation visualize and hear as fully as possible the scene as it unfolds, until the roof of the sanctuary gives way to a vision of ever-growing concentric circles around God and the Lamb acclaiming them for their beneficence. Then I would move to take a closer look at the hymns themselves, and the rationales they give for this ceaseless acclamation day and night:

“You are worthy, our Lord and God, to take the glory and the honor and the power, because you created all things, and because of your desire they existed and were created.”

“You are worthy to take the scroll” — that is, authority over the kingdoms of the world and over the consummation of their story — “and to open its seals, because you were slain and you bought back for God with your blood those from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you made them a kingdom and priests for our God, and they will reign upon the earth.... Worthy is the Lamb that had been slain to take the power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise.”

These hymns seek to awaken gratitude, and to evoke a centering response of gratitude at the very core of our being, a response that will move out into our whole being and doing, bringing integrity and integration to all of life.

How can we use life — the ongoing gift of life — to show gratitude toward God?

How would we live differently, were we to live fully as people who have been bought back, who now belong to Another?

How may we keep the gracious favor of God and the Lamb ever before our eyes as we move through the all-too-visible and pressing concerns and realities that try to draw us — our very souls -- into orbit around them rather than around God?

4. Who’ll Be A Witness?

Principal Text: Revelation 11:3-13

One of John’s core concerns is preserving and sharpening Christian witness, both through word and lifestyle. Consequently, the “witness” is a positive model throughout the book. John himself is a witness (1:2); Jesus is “the faithful witness” (1:5; 3:14); Antipas, who was killed in Pergamum, is commended as “my witness, my faithful one” (2:13); those who conquer the dragon do so by “the word of their witness” (12:11); the seed of the heavenly woman are those who “keep the commandments of God and hold to the witness of Jesus” (12:17). It comes as no surprise, then, that the most fully developed positive model or paradigm in Revelation is that of a pair of witnesses (11:3-13).

Since all the members of the seven churches are called to bear witness and to be witnesses, I think they would be less pre-occupied with the question “who are these two witnesses?” and more interested in the question “what does their story say about bearing witness?” The following would be major points:

1. Faithful witnesses have the support of God’s power and Spirit. Their testimony is not weak; however vulnerable they are, they are not victims.

2. God, not mortals, decides the term of their witness. When it comes time for their witness to be silenced, it is not because they have been defeated, but because they have accomplished their task: “when they complete their witness,” then the beast can ascend and kill them.

3. The career of the faithful witnesses follows the path of Jesus: confrontation with the powers on behalf of God’s truth, leading to death and disgrace, but sharing thereby in the assurance of vindication and resurrection to life.

4. Faithful witness is effective. The plagues and punishments never effect conversion or repentance (indeed, just the opposite), but the inhabitants of the great city do respond positively to the witness they have heard once they also see God’s vindication of the witnesses.

The pattern of the witnesses is the pattern for “overcoming” in Revelation, for, again, it is the pattern of Jesus. “The one who proceeds to overcome – I will grant to him or her to sit with me upon my throne, even as I myself conquered and sat down with my Father in his throne” (Rev 3:21). Witness to God and obedience to God’s commands to the point of death defines the victorious person, the person who successfully engages the contest of this life and emerges a winner.

Church history offers many examples of this paradigm of witness being enacted, whether in a Martin Luther King, Jr., or a Jim Elliott.

How, then, are we being called to bear witness? What are the truths about God and God’s vision for human community that need to be articulated boldly, even to our own risk or loss (to whatever degree), in our present situation? Who needs to hear these truths, such that they might be freed for a fuller life in line with God’s desires for them and in communion with the people of God?

5. Seeing Beyond the Media

Principal Text: Revelation 12:1-6, 17-18; 13:1-8

Collateral Material: Revelation 12-13

John gives us an example of the importance of voices from the margins — who are also themselves wrestling with Scripture and discovering a Scriptural perspective — for helping people closer to the center of a domination system see through the haze of legitimating propaganda.

I might take, as a starting point for such a sermon, John’s God’s-eye view of the Principate (the Roman government), its activity, its claims on its own behalf, and the ways in which its citizens respond to it. The distance between the public’s view and what is now the Scriptural view of the governing powers is striking, and serves to jolt us out of our own complacency about such questions in our own context. On what is our nation’s power and our leaders’ authority based? What do we marvel at in regard to our nation? What is the character of our nation’s policies as they are experienced either in social locations within America different from our own, or experienced in foreign locations?

What do we learn about ourselves and our national/imperial ideologies by listening to our brothers and sisters from other countries, or from the margins or less fully empowered spaces of our own country? What questions, at least, might be raised? (Hint — you’d have to have some such conversations.)

Imperial cult may not be a present reality here, though it is worth considering the kinds of pressures faced by our sisters and brothers in North Korea, where imperial cult is still a real thing, or Sri Lanka, where many in power regard Buddhism and patriotism to be inseparable. But where do we gather as Americans, and what collective behaviors or social practices do we engage in because they’re “normal,” “expected,” the “natural response” to being located here in this country? Where do we find religious rhetoric being used to place political figures beyond the realm of question as God’s agents – and those who dare to question anyway marginalized and excommunicated? And what would it look like for us to name and critique those practices where the testimonies of the prophets, apostles, and Jesus confronts us as we participate in those practices?

6. The Ultimate Three-Point Sermon

Principal Text: Revelation 14:6-13

Collateral Material: Revelation 4-5; 13; 17-18; 20

The passage that recounts the messages of the three angels who precede the reaping and harvesting of the earth — famous images for judgment — provides what is effectively a summary of the main challenges or assertions in Revelation:

The first angel (Rev 14:6-7) asserts God’s unique claim to honor and worship, based on God’s prior acts of creation and forthcoming acts of judgment. This effectively summarizes the effect and claims of chapters 4-5.

The second angel (Rev 14:8) announces the fall of Babylon, citing her seduction of all the nations as the principal cause, looking forward thus to the fuller treatment in chs. 17-18 of John’s indictment of the Roman imperial economy and its enforcement.

The third angel (Rev 14:9-11) lays out the incomparably greater disadvantage that inheres in persevering in disobedience toward God’s just claims, affirming the course of action chosen by God’s “holy ones,” who “keep God’s commandments and keep faith with Jesus.”

After these, two voices from him pronounce those who die in the Lord privileged or favored, since they will enjoy rest and the reward for their works, in striking contrast to the torment without rest that awaits those who violate God’s commandments in order to make peace with the beast.

The voice from heaven and the voice of the Spirit remind us that this life and the all-too-visible world are not our final home nor our ultimate audience. We are invited to strut and fret our hour upon this stage not to please the worldly-minded, but to seek the applause of heaven.

Keep God at the center.

Sober up and repent from any and all collusion with the Babylons of the world.

Refuse to pay the high price of a compromised discipleship.

It is a call for endurance, but the only hope we have for abiding rest in the presence of God and the reward of deeds well done.

7. Sleeping With The Enemy

Principal Text: Revelation 18:2-8, 21-24

Collateral Material: Revelation 3:14-22; 17-18

This is another risky one, but you can’t be faithful to Revelation without taking risks.

John looks long and hard at the Roman imperial economy and concludes that the resources and labor of a world is being siphoned off to cater to the excessive luxury and conspicuous consumption of an imperial power. He looks at the use of force and violence across the empire and concludes that it is deployed in the service of maintaining that economy and the political arrangements that make that economy possible. He looks at the official propaganda and sees it as nothing more than a cover up for greed, which is idolatry.

John’s vision forces us to look at Western economies differently. One evening, entertaining some international students, I brought up the question of how Revelation was read among Christians in their country, and, in particular, how they read the vision of Babylon. They looked at me like I was an idiot. Follow the goods. Follow the money. Follow the local impetus to collude with foreign powers for a piece of the action. How would anyone with an ounce of sense think about Babylon’s presence in today’s world?! While, yes, I did suggest in retort that the United States was not the Babylon John had in mind, I did have to admit that our consumer-driven economy, into which the goods of the world flow, was Babylonish in a world in which many developing countries struggle in the face of plague and starvation. What is our responsibility to such people? Is a world where all are fed and free to pursue the fullness of joy to be had in family, friends, and work worth giving up the present order? Is there something “Babylonish” to be protested in the current distribution and consumption of this world’s resources and wealth? As long as the hungry die for want of food while millions of others amass superfluous commodities, God’s priorities are certainly not being honored.

Whose interests does our country’s excessive consumerism serve? And what are we masking, both as individuals and as a population, with all this spending and stockpiling and displaying? To what extent have we really done an inventory of our spiritual and relational and moral poverty, wretchedness, blindness, and nakedness? Although I do not consider us to be living in the “age of Laodicea” — because the oracle to Smyrna equally well characterizes so many of our sister congregations in restricted nations, and the oracles to Thyatira or Sardis characterize many of our own churches alongside the oracle to Laodicea — nevertheless, on the matter of wealth and consumerism there is a lot to be gained by asking to what extent we share Laodicea’s misapprehension of the Gospel, distorted view of their own health, and therefore reproach.

Revelation poses questions about the use of power and use of force. Where these are employed for domination by one part of society over another, or by one nation over another, where power and force are used for the securing of endless resources for the use of a privileged few, the Whore is back in business and all her partners stand under God’s impending judgement. But Revelation also sets clear limits on the use of force to protest such harlotry. In a world where a Lamb conquers by dying and the dragon is defeated by believers who lay down their lives rather than collude with an idolatrous system, the path for resistance is clear. We are called to protest, to bear witness to what society could be if God were allowed to break in and reign, but not to defile ourselves with blood as God’s enemies have done.

An important facet of Christian witness involves “coming out” from Babylon, disentangling oneself from exploitative economics and from seeking and sharing in the benefits of unjust practices. God’s commitment to justice – to vindicate the deaths of the innocent and the faithful ones, to visit destruction upon those who have inflicted, or collaborated with those who inflict, destructive practices upon the earth and its inhabitants – impels us to learn how to “come out of Babylon,” both to witness to God’s justice and to avoid falling afoul of God’s justice.

If you haven’t been dragged from your pulpit by this point in the sermon, it would be appropriate to list a few ways in which you and your congregation already have taken steps to come out of Babylon, if any, and ways in which you can take other specific steps forward.

8. Looking For A Lasting Homeland

Principal Text: Revelation 21:1-4; 22:1-5

Collateral Material: Revelation 21:1-22:5

John shows us that our task involves far more than simply critiquing the society in which we live, pushing us also toward a vision for human community reflective of God’s desires for people. For John, this is a vision as different from the world he lives in as a pure bride is different from a depraved harlot. The contrast between the two cities, depicted as women from such different “walks of life” and of such different character, could not be more striking.

John has not given up on human society. “City” is not the problem. The agendas and ideologies around which the life of the city and of the webs of cities and lands caught in the orbit of the “great city” are the problem. John’s final vision is of human community, human urbanized society, organized around God – God’s reign, God’s light, God’s justice – at the center of all things. John has never seen anything like this in life, not in Rome, not in Ephesus, not even in Jerusalem. The latter is important. John does not suggest that a theocracy is the answer to the problems of godlessness in the world. Wherever he has looked at a human society that organized itself as a theocracy, he has seen God’s name and God-talk simply used to legitimate human domination.

The vision of William Blake for his native land is not John’s.

I will not cease from endless strife,

Nor shall the sword sleep in my hand

Till we have built Jerusalem

In England’s green and pleasant land.

Only God and God’s Anointed can usher in the consummate reign of God. All we can do is witness to that reign. That is an important point to be made in any such sermon on the New Jerusalem, as Blake’s approach has been far too common throughout Christian history.

A sermon on this text might take a two-part focus. The first part would involve unpacking what is truly distinctive about New Jerusalem as a model of human community, and how this is different from Babylon’s organizing principles. The second part would explore what it would mean for us to live in witness to our hope, both in speech and in lifestyle as people who refuse to be at home in Babylon.

The New Jerusalem is an inclusive vision, in which people from every ethnic group, every nation, every tribe, and every language are joined into one humanity, divided no longer by the barriers observed and erected by the fallen mind. In this new kingdom, the dignity of priesthood — of access to God — is bestowed upon all. The distinction between priest and lay person was fundamental to the hierarchy in Israel and Judea, and it was one important marker of status in the Greco-Roman world as well. In God’s kingdom, there is the absence of hierarchy, of haves and have-nots, of castes and divisions (Rev 1:5-6; 5:9-10). All are elevated to privileged status.

The new Jerusalem is clothed with the righteous acts of God’s holy ones (Rev 19:8), quite a different wardrobe from Babylon’s. Justice, mercy, keeping God’s commandments, keeping the testimony of Jesus — these adorn the alternative society. It is built on the foundations of the apostles (Rev 21:14), not on the foundations of violence or on the foundations of greed, but on the Gospel of the truth of God. The great distance between humanity and God is closed proportionately as righteousness and peace-making flourish. The city exists to bring peace and healing for the nations (Rev 22:2), rather than to establish “peace” by controlling, dominating, and subduing. The city faces no threat (the gates are never shut, Rev 21:25). Military conquest, international strife, struggles for maintaining a balance of power, are all done away with in the vision of the New Jerusalem. Resources are expended no longer in futile wars and power struggles but rather for the well-being of all.

New Jerusalem is a costly alternative. One cannot be a citizen of Babylon, profiting by her partnership and violence, and expect a welcome in the New Jerusalem (Rev 21:8, 27). Refusing to participate in those activities and pursuit that legitimate Babylon’s rule, however, will bring hardship. Throngs of faithful ones pass through great tribulation to arrive at the New Jerusalem, and the need for God’s consolation after a hard struggle with the powers of this world that resist such a vision is great, but assured (Rev 21:4; see also 7:13-17). The vision of New Jerusalem is not a “pie in the sky in the sweet by-and-by” compensator. It is a proclamation of God’s purpose for creation in light of which all human purposes and societies are judged, critiqued, weighed in the balance and found wanting. Christians are challenged not only to wait but to witness, hence to proclaim and protest, to encourage and direct, in light of God’s vision. Our society’s failure to enact God’s righteousness, however this failure manifests itself, cannot be legitimated either by our participation or our silence.

It would remain to flesh out the particulars of this witness. A few pointers:

1. Where an ideology stands in the way of perfecting God’s vision of a world at peace, whose inhabitants all have access to the gifts which God intended for all, and whose inhabitants accord one another the full respect due to children of God, Revelation calls us to unveil that ideology for what it is: yet another aspect of the dragon’s activity in leading people astray from God’s truth.

2. The foundations of the twelve apostles call us to build our lives individually, as families, and as communities of faith fully and squarely on the foundations of the apostolic witness. The visions for discipleship and community in the New Testament are our blueprints. As we see these blueprints more clearly, with the lenses of our own culture and location stripped away one by one, and as we build more closely on the foundation, our lives together will more surely reflect a way of being “community” that resembles the New Jerusalem and stands out more distinctly — and provocatively — from our own society.

3. Discovering ways of living beyond economic caste and ethnic/national boundaries in our life together and our cooperative ventures as a global church will bear witness to God’s urban planning, challenging the line within and around our society.

4. Pursuing policies and courses of action that extend healing, restoration, and dignity to the “other” — offering leaves from the tree of life to people in our own most “at-risk” areas and to people suffering dehumanization at the hands of the world’s domination systems — would capture yet another facet of witness to God’s vision.

If you are interested in reading more of my work on Revelation, I would recommend Discovering Revelation: Content, Interpretation, Reception (Eerdmans and SPCK, 2021), available here.

John implicitly encouraged the assemblies of God’s colonies in the seven cities of Roman Asia to invest themselves in doing what is righteous and just in God’s sight, such acts being the manner in which the bride, the New Jerusalem, prepared herself for the eschatological wedding to the Lamb: the “righteous deeds of the holy ones” constituted “the clean, bright linen” with which the bride would adorn herself (Rev. 19:6-8). These same deeds that “follow” those who die in the Lord (Rev. 14:13) exist forever in the adornment of the Christ-followers’ forever home.

As the church’s size and strength increased, so did the visibility of their collective mobilization to do what was righteous, good, and loving in the sight of their eternal ruler. The early Christians deplored the common practice of exposing unwanted infants, whose fate it might be to be taken to be raised as slaves, becoming prey for animals, or simply dying of exposure. They did not rely on the imperial government to institute a change in the laws; they made it their practice to search out the places known as sites for such exposure and adopted and raised the children they found – or else at least tended them and gave them an honorable burial if they were too far gone.[2] During a plague that struck Carthage in the mid-third century, Christians did not rely on the imperial government to retool the health care system; led by their bishop, Cyprian, they did the unthinkable and cared for the victims of the plague themselves, taking them into their own homes at tremendous risk to their own health. By the end of the third century, Christians had a reputation for the love that they cherished and acted upon in regard to one another and in regard to the vulnerable around them (cf. Tertullian, Apology 39). As Howard-Brook and Gwyther observed, “the communal context [of the ekklesia] created the possibility for an alternative reality.”[3]

The Church was not and is not limited in its impact to what it can achieve by political means or through political involvement. In our changed situation, in which Christians account for 25% of the global population and, in the West at least, have great freedom and significant resources, Christians do not have to be absorbed with the political scene and its polarizing clamor in order to do the work God has laid upon us and have a profound impact on the lives of millions. The Church, particularly if it is willing to work as a network of colonies of a single kingdom of God, can accomplish a great deal without any help from political authorities. This is not to be “apolitical,” but to be “otherly political,” to engage in our own constructive “politics” on behalf of the world and in service to God’s agenda for human beings.[4] This is not “building” the New Jerusalem. That is the purview of God. But it is a powerful means of witnessing to the life of the kingdom to which we profess allegiance and in line with whose laws we are called to be living now as we follow the instructions of Jesus and his ambassadors, the apostles. It is a means to anticipate the life of the Kingdom of God and incarnate it in the present, however ephemerally and partially. In so doing, we contribute to spinning the “fine linen” in which the Bride will ultimately be arrayed.

We have need of visionary inspiration to imagine alternatives to the well-worn ruts of the society in which we live, that taught us to imagine only the possibilities that it allowed – including the notion that any real social change has to happen by means of the powers and channels of the state. This is admittedly an area in which John offers less help, perhaps because John did not have the benefit of looking out over a world in which a full 25% of the population claimed allegiance to Christ.[5] As colonies of God’s kingdom that now enjoy a considerable population with considerable wealth – and that are part of a global network of such colonies that makes mockery of the power of national borders to constrain Christian interest and involvement – of what “righteous deeds” are we truly capable? What infrastructures could we create, quite apart from goading our government to do so, to address the pressing human needs that we identify?[6]

Revelation defines the task of churches in the United States to be to recover their identity not as gatherings of American Christianity but of colonies of the kingdom of God, the vanguard not of a return to a “Christian America” but the vanguard of the Christ whose “kingdom is not of this world” but that, we fervently pray, will one day supplant all the kingdoms of this world, including the nation we call “America.”

For a deeper dive into Revelation in its original context and in the history of its reception, check out my recent title, Discovering Revelation: Content, Interpretation, Reception (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans and London: SPCK, 2021).

(The stained glass window above is a representation of a design created by the Moravian Church, but one that would be appropriately adopted by all who call Jesus their Lord.)

[1] Wes Howard-Brook and Anthony Gwyther, Unveiling Empire: Reading Revelation Then and Now (New York: Orbis, 1999), 192-93.

[2] Referred to in N. T. Wright and Michael F. Bird, Jesus and the Powers: Christian Political Witness in an Age of Totalitarian Terror and Dysfunctional Democracies (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2024), 65.

[3] Howard-Brook and Gwyther, Unveiling Empire, 194. Pablo Richard (Apocalypse: A People’s Commentary on the Book of Revelation [Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1995], 135) also rightly notes that the “departure from Rome” that John urges (Rev. 18:4) involves not only resistance and refusal to participate but also issues a summons “to create alternatives.”

[4] Cf. Howard-Brook and Gwyther (Unveiling Empire, 192-93): “John’s vision expects the ekklēsia to be the place in which a new ‘government’ is born.”

[5] For one attempt to discern the guidance implicit in John’s vision, see David A. deSilva, Seeing Things John’s Way: The Rhetoric of the Book of Revelation (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 346-349.

[6] Under totalitarian regimes and similarly hostile environments, the “small efforts” may still be the only possible ones, but important nonetheless as symbolic acts of resistance and as the way to live humanly (see William Stringfellow, An Ethic for Christians and Other Aliens in a Strange Land [Waco: Word, 1976], 118-119; deSilva, Seeing Things, 345).

Revelation summons us to consider what is the “testimony” that we must bear in our contemporary setting. We might typically answer that Christians in any setting ought to be prepared to “share the gospel” – a fine response if we are prepared to understand “the gospel” as John would understand it. The gospel, for him, includes a call to allegiance to the one who is “ruler of the kings of the earth” and to obey the commandments of God, the one whose enthronement is forever. John himself modeled testifying also to the distance between the political, economic, policing, and ideological practices he observed in Roman Asia (and empire-wide), doubtless not with the hope that Roman officials or merchants or demagogues would change their practice but rather with the hope of alerting Christ-followers to disengage from all practices the one God would consider unjust – and would judge (cf. Rev. 18:4).

John was particularly piqued where other Christian teachers gave Christ-followers permission not to bear such witness. He commends the Christians in Ephesus for testing apostles and for rejecting the teaching and practices of the Nicolaitans (Rev. 2:2, 6). In the voice of the glorified Christ, he castigates believers in Pergamum and Thyatira for giving a hearing to the teachers he labels “Nicolaitans” and “Jezebel,” who make room for “commit[ting] fornication and eat[ing] what has been offered to idols” (2:20; cf. 2:14-15). The vigor and, frankly, venom of John’s denunciation underscores the seriousness with which he regarded their influence and its harm to Christian identity and witness.

“Eating food that has been offered to idols” probably involved being seen to be present and participating in the public festivities surrounding the cults of the city’s traditional and imperial deities. John probably uses “fornication” here in the metaphorical sense that will reappear in Revelation 17-18, namely as an image for “getting in bed” with existing social, political, and economic structures and their mechanisms of self-legitimation to derive some benefit from the same. What is so bad that Jezebel’s position must be declared “out of bounds” for Christian discourse and authentically Christian practice?

When Christians in Roman Asia sit alongside their neighbors eating food sacrificed to idols or making other required compromises to enjoy safety and even prosperity, their witness it blunted. By moving away from vocal witness and prophetic practice, they cease to raise the problematic issues regarding Roman imperialism in their neighbors’ consciousness. As Christians participate, even if only while holding their noses and crossing their fingers, as it were, in the religious legitimation that upholds the Roman order; as they continue to orient their hearts and practice toward the peaceful enjoyment of the goods offered to that regime’s loyal subjects; as they push living out their allegiance to God to private and safe spaces, they cease to maintain the critical distance that allows them to offer their neighbors the gift of calling them to align themselves with the one God and to discover alternative ways of being human together. They reinforce “the lie” rather than offer their neighbors a way out from continuing to live “the lie.”[3]

John cautions Christians in the contemporary setting in the United States not to forgo their summons to serve as the conscience of the State rather than as cheerleaders for it (or for any particular party).[4] He would continue to commend the importance of discernment in regard to the many voices that are vying for our attention – and for our allegiance – on behalf of these two major parties.[5] A significant number of Christians, identifying the cause of Christ with the cause of the Republican party under the specific leadership of Donald Trump, seem unaware of the danger of turning “the kingdom of our Lord and of his Anointed” into a prop for the agenda of one political party in “the kingdom of the world.” The language and trappings of Christianity supply the historic functions of “imperial cult,” lending religious legitimation to a party and identifying support for that party’s agenda with piety itself.[6] Indeed, they seem to have been seduced into doing so by the political party’s pretended alliance with longstanding interests of the “Religious Right.” John might well describe this political alliance as “fornication,” with the temporal power employing “sorcery” – deceptive wiles – to dupe Christ-followers. He might well indict prominent Christian leaders for playing the harlot, lending religious legitimation to the political agenda of political figures to enjoy the benefits of political patronage in return.

John would call Christ-followers to be careful about using the faith, which declares the lordship of Jesus and the impermanence of all temporal states, to deposit “religious capital into the coffers of political leaders.”[7] Where a party’s agenda aligns with the righteous vision of God, Christians can affirm it. The fact that so many Christians can identify elements in the agendas of both parties that so align – and so many elements in the opposing party, at least, that fail so to align – should motivate all believers to embrace the critical distance from both parties that Revelation encouraged in regard to the only “party” of Roman imperialism in his setting. Regrettably, it has rather caused Christians to condemn their brothers and sisters whose consciences led them to align with the opposing party.[8] Recovering the skill of listening to a broader swath of those who will be fellow citizens with us forever in the kingdom of God could lead Christians in either camp to be more discerning about the underside of the party with which they have aligned – and to use their voices prophetically to call each party into closer alignment with the righteousness of God.

Greg Carey has called attention to and criticized John’s use of the technique of “debasing” his opponents in Revelation, focusing particularly on John’s treatment of the rival prophet whom he labels “Jezebel.”[9] While I personally believe that Jezebel’s teaching was genuinely deleterious to Christian witness and posed a grave danger to her followers’ well-being and witness, the implications of Carey’s critique for Christians in 21^st-century America are important. Many believers have too quickly imitated John’s tactics of debasing and demonizing the “other,” generally in the interest merely of promoting or defending a political party’s agenda rather than preserving the identity and witness of the household of God. This serves the political beasts’ purposes well, but it bears witness to the world that our allegiance to our party is more important than showing reverence for the Lord of the everlasting kingdom who commanded his citizens to love their neighbors as themselves, to love their enemies (which fellow Christians, in any case, are not), and to avoid debasing speech as assiduously as avoiding murder (Matt 5:21-22, 43-45; 22:37-40). Again, we would do better to listen to Christians not aligned with our own political outlook so as to preserve our own critical distance from the party seeking our complete and unquestioning allegiance and, thus, to preserve the possibility of serving as the conscience for that party.

Readers interested in an in-depth exploration of Revelation and John’s persuasive strategies may wish to acquire this resource:

[1] See Brian Blount, Can I Get a Witness? Reading Revelation through African American Culture (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2005), 38, 46-47; Revelation: A Commentary (New Testament Library. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 118; David A. deSilva, Seeing Things John’s Way: The Rhetoric of the Book of Revelation (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 69-72, 331.

[2] See, further, deSilva, Seeing Things, 222-227.

[3] See, further, deSilva, Seeing Things, 333.

[4] Cf. Oscar Cullmann, The State in the New Testament (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1956), 90: “the Christian will .. remain in principle critical towards [the State], and … watch to see that at no point does the State … fall away from the divine order.”

[5] This would, in the present American context, include having a care to examine the truth about claims that we encounter and, especially, pass along so that we do not prove “false witnesses” in regard to either political party (cf. lying as incompatible with citizenship in the New Jerusalem in Rev. 21:8, 27; 22:15). William Stringfellow’s analysis of the strategic distortion of truth for political purposes, its effects on the people, and his challenge remain poignant: “Amidst babel … speak the truth” (An Ethic for Christians and Other Aliens in a Strange Land [Waco: Word, 1976)], 142).

[6] Wright and Bird rightly affirm that “the Church does not exist to provide religious sponsorship to anyone’s programmes.” N. T. Wright and Michael F. Bird, Jesus and the Powers: Christian Political Witness in an Age of Totalitarian Terror and Dysfunctional Democracies (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2024), 75.

[7] Wright and Bird, Jesus, 101.

[8] As Greg Carey rightly affirms: “Faithfulness to Jesus ought not to be aligned with a partisan political agenda.” Greg Carey, Rereading Revelation: Theology, Ethics, and Resistance (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2025), 125.

[9] Carey, Rereading Revelation, 23, 32.

It was therefore important for John to break any lingering spell – the “sorcery” – that this ubiquitous propaganda cast over Christ-followers and to do so in such a way as enabled steadfast resistance to what would prove, for several centuries at least, an undefeatable enemy of the Christian church and, thus, the “kingdom of our Lord and of his Anointed” (Rev. 11:15). Presenting his cure for the power of Roman imperial ideology in the form of an apocalypse or a prophetic communique – a word from the realm of God and the glorified Christ that John only mediated rather than as a sermon, tract, or typical letter (though Revelation is also a letter; Rev. 1:4) – allowed John to “re-mythologize” Rome and its imperial heads of state on the basis of the divine perspective of these entities revealed to him by the divine source. John presents this counter-ideology as a revelation – an “unveiling” – bestowed upon his audiences at God’s own initiative, with God’s own authorization (Rev. 1:1; 22:6). Only with such force behind it, it would seem, could John be sure that his content would jolt all of the Christ-followers out of the stupor of the worldwide deception of Roman political propaganda, a spell he claimed to have been cast over the Mediterranean by Satan himself (Rev. 12:9; cf. 13:14; 18:23; 19:20).[2]

John locates the origin of the Roman imperial system in the rebellious activity of the dragon, a facet of the dragon’s reaction to his defeat in the heavenly sphere and failure to thwart the accession of God’s Anointed to the heavenly throne. Scholars rightly look to the idolatrous phenomenon of imperial cult – the acclamation and ongoing worship of select emperors and family members as gods – as a major impetus for John’s opposition (Rev. 13:4, 8, 11-15). John selected this egregious violation of the first commandment as an obvious point at which Christian counter-witness must coalesce (14:6-7, 9-11; 15:1-2; 20:4-5). But John was intent on exposing other facets of Roman imperialism that called down God’s inevitable judgment.[3] Rome’s use of military force to unite and maintain its empire (felt with particular grief in Judea!), its parasitic economy siphoning off the wealth and resources of the provinces for its own conspicuous consumption, its self-aggrandizing ideology supporting a vision for “empire without limit” in terms of space and time, and its violent silencing of dissenting voices – most notably, for John, those who witnessed to the one true God and the one true kingdom without end – all cried out for justice (Rev. 6:9-11; 13:7; 16:5-7; 17:1-6; 18:3, 6-8, 11-17, 23-24; 19:1-2). Whether one locates Revelation in 68-69 or in the early 90’s, the memory of Nero’s brutal and farcically innovative executions of Christians in Rome would have left a lasting impression on John’s mind – and revealed the emperor to be just another tyrant, cruelty being a standard accessory in the tyrant’s wardrobe. Rome’s willingness to grant a small share in its pleasures and prosperity (what John would call its “fornication” or “seduction”) could not be allowed to stifle witness to its crimes or seduce God’s ransomed ones into silence or, worse, partnership (Rev. 18:4).

Once again it is important to take stock of the distance at which any modern nation stands from the target of John’s exposé. Christians in nations like North Korea face uncannily similar dynamics and endure coercive measures as severe as anything John foresaw. The situation in the United States is vastly different, of course, made even more complex by the once-popular ideology of being a distinctively “Christian nation” – an ideology that has made a comeback. Christ-followers have the political, economic, and social right to live lives that reflect and bear witness to Christ’s lordship. A major challenge in the present political climate, however, is to do so while maintaining critical distance from those very structures that we think we can manipulate to Christ’s advantage, lest we find ourselves in bed once again with the domination systems of the world, their contaminating ideology, their idolatrous claims on our allegiance. Howard-Brook and Gwyther perceptively remark that, in the First World context, “seduction, rather than the fear of persecution,” presents the greater danger to Christ-followers.[4]

Many Christians in America have made common cause with Donald Trump and his particular brand of Republicanism because they regarded this as a means by which to channel the power of the State to enact what they perceived to be a “Christian” agenda for American society. In the process, many lauded Trump as a “new Cyrus,” a figure that God would use to set this nation right in important ways.[5] Scenes of prominent Christian pastor-celebrities gathered around Trump, laying their hands on him in prayer, Trump holding up a Bible in front of a church, and AI-engineered portraits of Jesus standing behind a Trump on his knees, hands on Trump’s soldiers, gave him religious legitimation as a divinely-summoned political candidate and president using the language, practices, and images of Christianity.[6] Where John wrote in a context in which provincial elites led their neighbors to regard the Roman state and its rulers to be divine, in our context politico-religious elites have led vast numbers of their political party to declare a political figure and his movement to be instruments of the divine. It is a strikingly similar dynamic, merely tailored to Christian monotheism. Either way, “the religious or, if you will, the theological justification which the first beast absolutely cannot do without” is being freely and generously applied.[7]

John’s reaction to the use of religious language and forms to legitimate Roman power should give Christ-followers pause. John would caution Christians against the dangers of lending religious legitimation to political parties, personalities, and agendas without maintaining the distance that allows for both affirmation and critique, that continues to remind politicians of their accountability to God and God’s vision for the holy and just use of power, both in terms of the means and the ends. Revelation also problematizes the absolute loyalty that the MAGA movement demands and that its members, including many who identify themselves as Christians, appear to enforce against any who voice criticism of the regime. This is, rather, the loyalty that all Christians owe only to one regime – the kingdom of God and his Anointed, which will one day supplant the American state and any of its successors in the ongoing flow of history.[8]

John’s inconvenient insistence on dragging “Babylon’s” crimes into the light of day seems to be reflected in the increased attention given to America’s national “sins” throughout the first part of the 21^st century. John’s vision of God’s murdered witnesses crying out from beneath the heavenly temple’s altar for vindication (Rev. 6:9-11) resonates with modern prophets naming America’s acts of injustice that are still crying out for vindication – or, at least, recognition and admission. One can well understand why (privileged) Americans, as beneficiaries of the state, would react negatively to shining spotlights into the darker corners of our history and ongoing practice, preferring to educate the next generation in the expurgated “myth” of American history. It is more difficult to understand why Christians in America would not be unified in uncovering, owning, and leading the way in repentance for the immoral, unjust, and oppressive means that the United States and its agents have employed while advancing the interests of this nation or its people. In Christian practice, naming and repenting of sin always leads towards rehabilitation in God’s sight. It is never something to avoid or minimize. Awareness of groups whose souls cry out to God for justice against our own nation helps us avoid being taken in by the propaganda of the day concerning the nation, its destiny, its enjoyment of divine favor and to see it more clearly in the light of the God who, John assures us, hears the cries of those who have suffered injustice. That we are not so united indicates the amnesty some Christians are willing to give to the political powers in exchange for the benefits they receive. John would caution against this as political prostitution.

John’s demonstration of the superior power of God and God’s Anointed vis-à-vis the “Beast” and “Babylon” in his narration of the fate of these figures serves important goals for his audiences. Firmly believing oneself ultimately to be on the winning side facilitated accepting the costs of openly identifying with that side in the here and now of first-century Roman Asia. It emboldened believers to witness to these authorities, to call them out where they departed from the practices God affirmed as just, holy, and good, and ultimately to declare their absolute allegiance to God’s Anointed “ruler of the kings of the earth” (Rev. 1:5).

Walter Wink has perceptively observed that “the Dragon’s strategy is to eviscerate opposition by a sense of induced powerlessness… ‘Who is like the Beast, and who can fight against it?’ (Rev. 13:3-4).”[9] Howard-Brook and Gwyther go further and call this a “form of idol worship, if only in the negative sense of giving up hope that there is a force greater than empire to which people can turn in trust when empire seems overwhelming.”[10] Revelation both unmasked oppressors and repaired the will of their victims.[11] Allan Boesak demonstrated its power to continue to do so in apartheid South Africa, where affirming of the apartheid state that “it goes to perdition” (Rev. 17:11) was essential to continued resistance in the face of horrendous penalties. Where the state reassured itself and its security with every tightening of its grip, every abuse of power, every victim unjustly disappeared or killed, the discerning citizens of God’s kingdom saw the signs that “it goes to perdition.”[12] Christians in free democratic societies may also need to hear this word, as many have voiced despair in the face, for example, of the intransigent polarization over politics in the United States. No temporal power can ultimately stand in the way of the kingdom of God. This hope, this faith, is itself an act of resistance. And it can sustain witness even when it feels like whispering into a maelstrom.

(For a deeper dive into Revelation in its original context as well as the history of its interpretation, see my Discovering Revelation: Content, Interpretation, Reception [Eerdmans, 2021], available on multiple sites including Amazon.com)

[1] On this imperial “gospel,” see John Dominic Crossan, “Roman Imperial Theology” (pages 59-74 in In the Shadow of Empire: Reclaiming the Bible as a History of Faithful Resistance, edited by Richard A. Horsley; Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008).; David A. deSilva, Unholy Allegiances: Heeding Revelation’s Warning (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2013), 21-32; Discovering Revelation, 45-50.

[2] For detailed treatments of John’s revisionist account of the rise of the emperors and the practice and destiny of the Roman empire in Rev. 12:1-14:13; 17:1-19:10, see Wink, Engaging, 89-95; Bauckham, “The Economic Critique of Rome in Revelation 18,” pp. 338-383 in Bauckham, Climax; Carey, “Book of Revelation,” 164-174; deSilva, Seeing Things, 102-109, 198-209; Unholy Allegiances, 32-48, 65-76; Discovering Revelation: Content, Interpretation, Reception (London: SPCK and Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2021), 126-137, 147-163.

[3] It was not, as Oscar Cullmann suggests (The State in the New Testament [New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1956], 71), merely “the Roman worship of the Caesar” that accounts for the distance between Paul’s positive view of the political authorities and John’s castigation of the same as Satan’s minions, beyond which “the Roman State was a legitimate State, knowing how to distinguish between good and evil, as Paul testifies explicitly” (Cullmann, State, 78). As a result, I would also reject Cullmann’s limitation of the Church’s purview to “the province of religion-ideological excess” (State, 91), a limitation that John himself certainly did not recognize.

[4] Wes Howard-Brook and Anthony Gwyther, Unveiling Empire: Reading Revelation Then and Now (New York: Orbis, 1999), xxii-xxiii.

[5] N. T. Wright and Michael F. Bird (Jesus and the Powers: Christian Political Witness in an Age of Totalitarian Terror and Dysfunctional Democracies [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2024], 131) rightly warn that “to identify any leader as ‘YWHW’s anointed’ or a new ‘Cyrus’ is to invest a perilous amount of religious capital in a single individual.”

[6] Given the choices offered to the American people in 2016, 2020, and 2024, this is not to be taken as an implicit criticism of those who voted for Donald Trump. My concern here is with those who did so while failing to maintain the kind of critical distance that, I believe, John would have all Christ-followers preserve in regard to any and all political figures (and failing to maintain charity and respect toward their fellow Christ-followers and co-citizens for eternity whose consciences led them in other directions).

[7] Drawing on the insights of Allan A. Boesak, Comfort and Protest: Reflections on the Apocalypse of John of Patmos (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1987), 104.

[8] See, similarly, Oliver O’Donovan, “The Political Thought of the Book of Revelation” (Tyndale Bulletin 37 [1986]: 61-94), 81-82.

[9] Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 99; so also O’Donovan, “Political Thought,” 76.

[10] Howard-Brook and Gwyther, Unveiling Empire, 259.

[11] Wink, Engaging, 102.

[12] Boesak, Comfort, 115.

John shows us “a throne set in heaven” (Rev. 4:2) and the One “who lives into the ages of ages” (4:9, 10) seated forever on the throne of the cosmos, not merely for a spell on the throne of one of earth’s little fiefdoms. Concentric circles of angels, archangels, and all the company of heaven establish this center firmly in our minds as we hear their acclamations in ever-growing numbers. The reminder of God’s place in the cosmos immediately relativizes all temporal powers and authorities. God is, moreover, “the Almighty,” the Pantokratōr, whom John introduced as such in the opening paragraphs of his work (Rev. 1:8), keeping this term before his audiences throughout (Rev. 4:8; 11:15; 15:3; 16:7; 19:6, 15; 21:22).

While Pantokratōr is a frequent epithet of God in the Greek translation of the Jewish Scriptures,[2] the Christ-followers in Roman Asia could not but hear a contrast with the autokratōr, the reigning Caesar, named as such in inscriptions throughout these cities, whose stature is significantly diminished in the comparison. The power of the Pantokratōr is manifested in his creation (“all things, seen and unseen,” as the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed states) and, on this basis, all creatures owe God absolute allegiance and obedience: “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive the glory and the honor and the power, because you created all things and because of your will they existed and were created” (Rev. 4:11).

As Revelation’s visions unfold, John underscores the smallness of all political and other authorities – “the kings of the earth, the potentates, the generals, the rich, the mighty” – when set in comparison to God and God’s Anointed. In the face of God and the Lamb coming in judgment, to satisfy their “wrath” in the face of the cumulative injustice perpetrated on their earth against their own creatures by their own creatures, these seemingly powerful political, military, and economic figures cry out to the hills and rocks in their abject terror and powerlessness to cover them and hide them (Rev. 6:12-17). Whatever military power enjoyed by nations that pride themselves on such strength, John shows his audiences that the power and the forces at God’s disposal are exponentially greater and more fearsome (Rev. 8:6-9:19).[3] When John finally shows us the vast majority of the people who live in the cities alongside the Christians addressed by him, they appear as the deviant minority gathering around their idols and the demonic powers behind them, making the fatal error of setting their lives in orbit around false, secondary “centers” (Rev. 9:20-21).

By this stratagem, John might challenge Christians in America, for example, to remember that, while the American political scene is important, it does not enjoy ultimacy. The obsessive concerns and relentless agendas of one or the other major political parties are not the starting point for Christian engagement – though far too many Christians expressing themselves (and thus, “witnessing”) on social media seem to model otherwise. Our fixed starting point is the throne of God and of God’s Anointed, and the amplitude of the babel around us requires that we engage in continuous recalibration of our minds and intentions around this center. John would have us maintain the critical and affective distance we need to remain centered on God, the Lamb, and their global agendas, and that we approach our engagement in the “local” politics of the American scene from a firm grounding in that location. To the extent that we do so, and speak and act accordingly, we bear witness to the Pantokratōr to whom all owe their primary allegiance. To the extent that we allow ourselves to take our fundamental bearings from political tribes, we have been drawn into one 21^st-century equivalent of idolatry, giving primacy to circles and programs that are, at best, secondary.

A second scene at the center of the cosmos opens by drawing attention to a scroll in the right hand of God and raising the question, “Who is worthy to open the scroll and to break its seals?” (Rev. 5:2). As Revelation’s narrative unfolds, the opening of this scroll is connected with the manifestation of God’s judgments upon God’s rebellious creation and the hastening of the transfer of the kingdom of this world to the kingdom of God. The question is really, as one discerns from hindsight, “Who merits taking the reins of history and driving it on to its consummation?” John allows for a dramatic silence, a lack of action as no one comes forward. None of those who might be considered “masters of the world” or “economic titans” or the like have demonstrated that they are worthy. Only God’s Anointed one, Jesus, presented in traditional terms as “the lion from the tribe of Judah, the root of David” and appearing as a slaughtered-but-standing lamb, who is said to have “conquered so as to open the scroll and its seven seals” (Rev. 5:5).

Jesus’ means of “conquering,” of course, involved his giving over of his own life as a ransom: “you are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals because you were slain and you ransomed for God [people] from every tribe and language and population and nation, and made them a kingdom and priests for our God” (5:9-10). This is the pattern for “conquering” that John continues to hold up throughout Revelation. Holy ones participate in the defeat of Satan “because of the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony, and they loved not their lives even unto death” (Rev. 12:11). Those who stand before God and sing “the song of Moses … and the song of the Lamb” conquered by their consistent resistance to the pressure to worship the beast and to receive the mark of allegiance to the beast (15:1-2) which, in John’s vision, would also require “not loving their lives even unto death” (Rev. 12:11).

The Lamb’s way of conquest, pursued by those who “follow the Lamb wherever he goes” (14:4), is the way of faithfulness in witness and in deed, in stark contrast to the Beast’s manner of conquering. When we finally encounter the figuration of Roman heads of state in Revelation 13, we find them exercising rule through military strength (“Who is like the beast, and who is able to wage war against him?” Rev. 13:4), boastful demagoguery (“speaking big and slanderous words,” Rev. 13:5), and silencing the opposition (“it was granted to him to wage war against the holy ones and to conquer them,” Rev. 13:7).

In the vastly changed circumstances of the 20^th- and 21^st-century American representative democracy, in which vocal Christians have penetrated the highest echelons of government and occupy influential lobbies around the same, John’s vision of the means by which the Lamb has “conquered” and demonstrated his “worthiness” – and the contrast of this with the means employed by the Beast and his allies – raises poignant questions. Wright and Bird regard the concept of the kingdom of God to provide “a vision and vocation for faithful action that works to bring God’s kingship over every facet of human life.”[4] How we go about doing this is of great importance. Christians in America have been attracted to using the coercive power of the state to implement some of their goals for changing the direction of American society – and they have claimed that they are, in fact, making headway for God by doing so. “Dominion theology” asserts that Christians are to infiltrate society’s multiple networks of power to use their control of those structures to advance a “Christian” agenda for the transformation of society. Whatever case is to be made for such approaches, John does not seem to lend it support. Is it because he could not envision the time when it would be possible? It is impossible to say. The testimony he has left, however, only commends following Jesus’ example rather than relying on the coercive power of the state. In this, he would seem to be supported by a broader consensus among New Testament writers. As Wright and Bird suggest,

A good deal of the New Testament, following directly from the teaching and example of Jesus himself, is about the radical redefinition of power: power in weakness, power through humble service, power and indeed victory through self-sacrifice.[5]

“Conquering” is an image that too many Christians seem to be taking at face value and thinking that “beating” the opposition is intended, whether in verbal attacks, silencing opposing voices in the public arena, garnering enough votes (even if we need to redraw district lines to do so), and the like. How Christians promote their goals for human society is part of Christian witness, and John, at least, seems to suggest that those means also bear witness to the character of Jesus and his manner of “conquering.”[6] Imitating the means employed by worldly powers, which often involves “pandering to political leaders so that they might let us share their podium,”[7] carries with it the threat (or perhaps the promise!) of finding ourselves entirely comfortable in Babylon’s bed.

[1] Further on this subject and its potential impact upon John’s first-century audiences, see David A. deSilva, Seeing Things John’s Way: The Rhetoric of the Book of Revelation (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 97-100, 194-198; Unholy Allegiances: Heeding Revelation’s Warning (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2013), 36-42; Discovering Revelation: Content, Interpretation, Reception (London: SPCK and Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2021), 89-105.

[2] In the historical books and minor prophets, a translation of S^ebaoth; in Job, a translation of Shaddai. God’s sovereign rule is, of course, a principal theme running throughout the Jewish Scriptural tradition (see, further, deSilva, Seeing Things, 165-69).

[3] On Revelation and the dangers of militarism, see Greg Carey, Rereading Revelation: Theology, Ethics, and Resistance (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2025), 153.

[4] N. T. Wright and Michael F. Bird, Jesus and the Powers: Christian Political Witness in an Age of Totalitarian Terror and Dysfunctional Democracies (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2024), 8.

[5] Wright and Bird, Jesus, 72.

[6] Or, as Wright and Bird frame the matter, “We do well to remember that the whole purpose of Christian influence is not the pursuit of Christian hegemony but the giving of faithful Christian witness” (Jesus, 93).

[7] Wright and Bird, Jesus, 101.

All who have been gathered under the lordship of Jesus now constitute an alternative “kingdom,” one that stands alongside and will supersede the “kingdom of this world.” While John affirms alongside other early Christian voices that Jesus “loved us and freed us from our sins” (Rev. 1:6), the accent of Jesus’ redemptive work falls on the establishment of this alternative kingdom and the “ransoming” of people from every temporal demographic grouping for this alternative kingdom: “You are worthy … because you were slain and with your blood ransomed for God [people] from every tribe and language and population and nation and you made them a kingdom and priests for our God, and they will rule upon the earth” (Rev. 5:9-10).[3] We see this group – those who would constitute the citizenry of the New Jerusalem, whose names are registered in the Lamb’s scroll of life – again in 7:9-10: “a great crowd that no one could enumerate, from every nation and tribes and peoples and languages standing before the throne and before the Lamb, having clothed themselves with white robes and palm branches in their hands, and they exclaim with a great voice, saying, ‘Deliverance belongs to our God who is seated upon the throne and to the Lamb!’” (Rev. 7:9-10). As Kraybill rightly concludes, for John “the global church, encompassing all who truly know and follow Jesus, is the Christian’s most important place of belonging.”[4]

In John’s context, this awareness of the translocal, translingual, transnational, transtemporal nature of the Christian movement was likely intended to encourage the small communities of Christ-followers in any given city that they were part of something much larger – not nearly the deviant and powerless minority that their neighbors would have them believe themselves to be. They were part of a movement, a kingdom, that would grow beyond the capacity of people to enumerate, that would unite a greater variety of people across the ages than any empire had been able to unite by the usual means of conquest, coercion, and seduction.

John shared Daniel’s conviction that every empire that arises will also fall and that the kingdom of God would supplant every temporal state (cf. Dan. 2:21, 36-45; 7:15-27). This is the essence of the narrative of Revelation, the story of how “the kingdom of this world” becomes “that of our Lord and of his Anointed – and he shall reign into the ages of ages!” (11:15). John presents Jesus at the outset of Revelation as the “one like a Son of Man” and appearing in a manner reminiscent of the “Ancient of Days” (Rev. 1:12-16). These details take the audience back to Daniel 7 and serve further to identify Jesus as the one whose kingdom succeeds all the empires of the world. God’s acts of judgment upon these empires signal that God has taken the reins of history:

“We thank you, Lord God, the Almighty (pantokratōr), the One who is and the ‘he was,’ because you took your great power and you exercised kingly rule. And the nations were enraged, and your wrath came, and the time for the dead to be judged and to give the reward to your slaves – the prophets and the holy ones and those revering your name, the small and the great – and for destroying those who are destroying the earth.” (Rev. 11:17-18)

The scenes following the judgment of “Babylon” (another signal that “the Lord our God, the Almighty [pantokratōr], exercised rule,” 19:6) narrate the transfer of power from the temporal kingdoms to the reign of Christ and his faithful ones in the last era of “secular” history before the breaking in of eternity – the reign of “the souls of those axed on account of the testimony of Jesus and on account of the word of God, and whosoever did not worship the beast or its image and did not receive the stamp upon the forehead and upon their hand. And they came to life and reigned with the Christ for a thousand years” (Rev. 20:4). We note in passing the astounding privilege accorded those who had gone the farthest distance in demonstrating their allegiance to the kingdom of God and of his Anointed One. Finally, John narrates the transformation of history itself as God’s kingdom is fully manifested on (a new) earth in the New Jerusalem, which moves the throne of God and the Lamb to the terrestrial sphere (21:1-22:5).

The state, any state, is “something ‘provisional’,” not “something final, definitive.”[5] The preservation of any particular empire is not the Christ-follower’s highest priority. Living for – and as the loyal citizens of – the kingdom of God is. Indeed, to pray “may your kingdom come” (Matt 6:10) is to declare a fundamental detachment from the state as one is praying for its displacement! John would counsel, at the very least, keeping a certain cognitive and affective distance from any state. American readers are reminded that their hope is not ultimately in America. For all America’s strengths and potential, it is still another empire that will fall. If we identify America with our hope, we set ourselves in servitude to the powers of this age and we deny the hope that John, in concert with all the Scriptures that look forward to the kingdom of God, sets before us. We need, rather, “a hope which confronts the fallenness of the American principality; a hope … emancipated from moral naivete about any supposed unique destiny for the nation; a hope freed from vainglorious delusions that America is a holy nation.”[6] The eventual decline and fall of America, moreover, is no setback to God’s bringing about the consummation of the kingdom.

At the same time, John reminds us that our highest allegiance in the present is to the multinational, multilingual, multicultural body of people that Jesus has ransomed to constitute a kingdom for God (Rev. 5:9-10; 7:9-10), for these are the people who will be our fellow citizens “into the ages of ages.”[7] Embracing this theological conviction might move us to shift our interests and priorities away from those of the political party with which we identify toward the interests of our fellow-citizens of God’s kingdom, whatever the political entity in which they reside. The first question I ask about a person might shift, for example, from “is he or she in ‘my’ country legally?” to “is he or she a fellow citizen of the kingdom of God, to which – and to whose citizens – we both owe our primary allegiance and who, therefore, has a claim on my care?” Clarice Martin observed the power in John’s naming first-century slaves not merely as “bodies” (somata) – the common designation – but also “human souls,” reminding the readers of the humanity of the people that Rome has commodified (Rev. 18:13).[8] One wonders about the similar power of renaming those whom many in our society, including those in the halls of power, call “illegals” in ways that remind us all of their humanity that transcends their legal classification – and all the more those who belong to the household of faith.

The manner in which John draws attention to the kingdom of God also calls us to examine the lines that partisan politics draw vis-à-vis the lines that the population-ransoming work of Christ both draws and erases. This includes calling into question the tendency for political “tribalism” to lead many Christians to consider themselves more closely attached to and allied with the people of their political party than to other Christians whose consciences have led them to align with an opposing political party. John might have us rather keep in view that day when people ransomed from all manner of political parties will stand together in the one, unified kingdom of God – long after every nation that hosted those political parties has been buried in the sands of time – and to approach the short-lived politics of the present from that standpoint, not least for the sake of the witness it would bear.[9]

[1] J. Nelson Kraybill, Apocalypse and Allegiance: Worship, Politics, and Devotion in the Book of Revelation (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2010), 21.

[2] On the date of Revelation, see David A. deSilva, Seeing Things John’s Way: The Rhetoric of the Book of Revelation (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 34-37; Discovering Revelation: Content, Interpretation, Reception (London: SPCK and Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2021), 35-39. The dynamics would not have been significantly different, however, in one were to opt for the principal alternative date of AD 69-70. On the Sebasteion, see R. R. R. Smith, “The Imperial Reliefs from the Sebasteion at Aphrodisias,” Journal of Roman Studies 77 (1987): 88-138.

[3] So also Kraybill, Apocalypse, 101.

[4] Kraybill, Apocalypse, 176.

[5] Oscar Cullmann, The State in the New Testament (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1956), 5.

[6] William Stringfellow, An Ethic for Christians and Other Aliens in a Strange Land (Waco: Word, 1976), 155.

[7] Cf. N. T. Wright and Michael F. Bird, Jesus and the Powers: Christian Political Witness in an Age of Totalitarian Terror and Dysfunctional Democracies (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2024), 62.

[8] Clarice Martin, “Polishing the Unclouded Mirror: A Womanist Reading of Revelation 18:13” (pp. 82-109 in From Every People and Nation: The Book of Revelation in Intercultural Perspective, edited by David Rhoads; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005), 89.

[9] John’s vision of the people of God drawn out “from every tribe and language and people and nation” (5:9) also ever reminds us of the distance between any one national (or partisan) perspective and the perspective of the kingdom of God and God’s Messiah (deSilva, Seeing Things, 337).

A foundational presupposition is that the audiences to whom John actually addressed Revelation found his message to be immediately accessible and relevant to them. J. J. Wettstein, taking Rev. 1:3-4a with utmost seriousness, articulated this straightforwardly as early as 1752: “The Apocalypse was written specially for the benefit of certain people who were living at that time, and for the purpose of being understood by them.”^[4] John’s first audiences did not require some interpretative key to “unlock” the meaning of Revelation: Revelation was the key by which they could unlock the spiritual significance of what was going on all around them so that they could respond to those circumstances and their challenges in the manner that would be most advantageous in light of the eternal reign of God and God’s Anointed. Revelation provided an unveiling of prominent figures, practices, and landmarks in the Christ-followers’ landscape through the lens of the Scriptures and against the much larger canopy of both space and time, allowing his congregations to see their everyday situation in the light of eternity, lifting the veil of the propaganda spun both from the imperial center and the circles of the local elites and embraced wholeheartedly by the majority of the population around them – and by not a few of the Christ-followers themselves.^[5] In so doing, Revelation very much became, among other things, a “political” manifesto.

We would be wrong to divide Revelation into “political critique” of the political and economic system of the late first century Mediterranean, on the one hand, and “eschatological material” on the other hand. The cosmological and eschatological pictures painted by John’s narrative also directly challenge another cosmological and eschatological narrative – the one that legitimates Roman power as the provision of the benign gods for a restored Golden Age that will endure forever. Udo Schnelle was correct to claim, of somewhat hyperbolically, that “the Revelation of John only apparently portrays an event in distant worlds; the truth of the matter is the exact opposite, for it is entirely grounded in the present, this-worldly reality in which the churches to which it is addressed live.”^[6]

At the same time, the political meaning and relevance of Revelation is not limited to its first-century context. The political realities it addressed would be instantiated again and again throughout history.^[7] We have illuminating examples of bringing John’s critique of the political machines of his time and his summons to faithful witness in response to the same to bear on the politics of the post-WWII landscape. William Stringfellow applied Revelation’s word powerfully to the landscape of the United States of the Vietnam-era, Allan Boesak on the situation of non-white people in apartheid South Africa, and Wes Howard-Brook and Anthony Gwyther on the new economic empire captured by the catchphrase “global capital.”^[8] Admittedly, reading any political-economic system through the lens of Revelation will privilege – and possible amplify – its darker, demonic aspects. Nevertheless, Revelation, while only one canonical voice, provides an important counter-perspective. While Paul is heard to affirm that “there is no authority except from God” (Rom. 13:1), John reminds us that God is not the only invisible power operative upon these authorities. There is also the dragon, who summons political-economic-ideological beasts for his own purposes (Rev. 12:17-13:1). The actions of political authorities range from serving God’s purposes to open rebellion against God, God’s Anointed, and God’s people (Rev. 13:4-8; 17:13-14).

It is of great importance, therefore, to allow “God [to use] Revelation to illumine our theological and political landscape”^[9] alongside other scriptural witnesses to the authority of the State and the path of faithful engagement with these powers as those whose allegiance is ultimately to Another. At the same time, we need to take careful stock of the distance between the circumstances under which John’s first-century audience lived and those under which John’s twenty-first-century audiences live – though in many nations that distance is quite narrow, perhaps even imperceptible. The distance is great, however, in Western democracies, “in which it is possible to lobby legislators or otherwise influence the political process.”[10] Moreover, many of our most eschatologically minded Christian leaders – those most drawn to Revelation themselves, though generally from a very different perspective – are often well-connected within the politics, economics, and social networks of the dominant culture, even to the point of frequenting the White House and Capitol Hill. The question is not of whether to apply Revelation, but how to apply it, since it already exerts a strong influence on many Christians, some of whom exert, in turn, a strong influence upon American politics — and not consistently in a manner that challenges modern domination systems in a manner reflective of John’s own work in this regard.

In a series of five posts that will follow, I will trace out some of the more direct ways in which John addressed the political situation of first-century Roman Asia and positioned the Christ-followers within his orbit to respond to its challenges, moving from there to suggestions concerning how Revelation might continue to position us in our modern context. For the sake of focusing on contemporary relevance, I must forgo introducing a great deal of detailed exegetical discussion and contextual evidence concerning Revelation’s interactions with its first-century setting and refer readers to the extensive treatments of the same in other literature.[11]

[1] Allan A. Boesak, Comfort and Protest: Reflections on the Apocalypse of John of Patmos (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1987), 28.

[2] William Stringfellow, An Ethic for Christians and Other Aliens in a Strange Land (Waco: Word, 1976), 27.

[3] Oscar Cullmann, The State in the New Testament (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1956), 71.

[4] J. J. Wettstein, Novum Testamentum Graecum (2 vols; Amsterdam: Officina Dommeriana, 1752), 2.893; translated in Arthur W. Wainwright, Mysterious Apocalypse: Interpreting the Book of Revelation (Nashville: Abingdon, 1993), 133.

[5] See, further, David A. deSilva, Unholy Allegiances: Heeding Revelation’s Warning (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2013), 8-9; Seeing Things John’s Way: The Rhetoric of the Book of Revelation (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 93-117.

[6] Udo Schnelle, Theology of the New Testament (trans. M. Eugene Boring; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009), 771. I hesitate over the words “only apparently”: Even if John very much believed that the events of chapters 19-22, for example, stood at a great distance from him and his congregations, they are nevertheless still entirely relevant to the first-century audience’s orientation to their “this-worldly reality.”

[7] Boesak, Comfort, 28.

[8] Boesak, Comfort; Stringfellow, Ethic; Wes Howard-Brook and Anthony Gwyther, Unveiling Empire: Reading Revelation Then and Now (New York: Orbis, 1999).

[9] J. Nelson Kraybill, Apocalypse and Allegiance: Worship, Politics, and Devotion in the Book of Revelation (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2010), 22.

[10] Kraybill, Apocalypse, 175.

[11] On the context of Roman Asia, see the overviews in deSilva, Seeing Things, 29-63; Unholy Allegiances, 11-19. More detailed treatments can be found in Steven Friesen, Imperial Cults and the Apocalypse of John: Reading Revelation in the Ruins. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001); S. R. F. Price, Rituals and Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984); Roland H. Worth, Jr., The Seven Cities of the Apocalypse and Greco-Asian Culture (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1999);Roland H. Worth, Jr., The Seven Cities of the Apocalypse and Roman Culture (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1999); David A. deSilva, Archaeology and the Book of Revelation: A Visual Guide (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, forthcoming in 2026). On authorship, see deSilva, Seeing Things, 31-34; Discovering Revelation, 29-32.