Day 89, 2 Peter, 1, 2, 3 John, Jude, Revelations 1-5

Oh geez, it's day EIGHTY NINE! One day left! Holy shit!

We've got six books today, which I think is our all time record. Most of them are pretty short and boring, so let's blow right on through this penultimate day of bible blogging!

Peter's second epistle is so darn different from his first epistle that most scholars suggest it was written by a later church figure around 150 CE. It deals loosely with the apocalypse, predicting the "glorious return of Christ," and has a lot of crossover with the letter of Jude, which we'll get to later.

Next up is John's first epistle, which my study bible explains is not so much a letter as a "tract" written to counter heretics who denied that Jesus's "incarnation" was real. It is presumed to have been written in Ephesus circa 95-110 CE. This letter has some nice stuff in it; the author talks a lot about LOVE and how gosh darn important it is: ""Whoever does not love abides in death," the author writes (1 John 3:14). YOU HEAR THAT, VOLDEMORT? Your horcruxes are nothing without LOVE!!!

Do I talk about Harry Potter too much in this blog? I guess I'm just psyched about FINISHING IT for the millionth time. Oh boy.

Anyway, John continues to lay on the hippie dippie crap about how God IS love, and that loving is synonymous with believing in God, yada, yada, yada. There's a nice little line in chapter 4 that rang a bell for me -- I think it must be pretty well known, although I don't know where I heard it: "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he loved us first" (1 John 4:18-19). Aaaawww. I wanna cry! Who has a tissue?

John's next two letters are really freakin' short, taking up only a page each. The second letter is written by a man called "the Elder" to a specific Christian community, warning them to beware of heretics who deny Jesus. The third letter is also written by the Elder, this time to his pal Gaius, asking him to provide hospitality to a group of Emissaries.

The "Elder" is such a cool alias. Wasn't there a KISS album about him? There totally was! It was their "concept" album. God, what a great band.

 

How do I know shit like this?  Don't I continually shock you with my bizarre inventory of really embarrassing knowledge?

Second to last is the letter of Jude, who directed his thoughts to all Christians rather than a specific congregation. How inclusive! His purpose in writing is to urge Christians to defend their faith against false teaching. As incentive he reminds us of historical wrongdoers, like the citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah, who were subjected to "a punishment of eternal fire" (Jude 1:7).

Finally, we arrive at the LAST BOOK OF THE BIBLE! Revelations -- or, the Revelation of John -- is an apocalyptic work written by the prophet John, presumably during the reign of Domitian (81-96 CE). Influenced by Old Testament works like Daniel, Isaiah, Zechariah, and particularly Ezekiel, it encourages Christians to stay devoted to their religion in the face of persecution. And it's pretty fucking surreal.

Revelations opens with a foreward and greeting, like most of the stuff we've read lately, then dives into the thrilling story of John's vision and commission. One day he was chilling on the island of Patmos, where he was preaching Christian doctrine to the people, and Jesus appeared to him, "clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters" (Revelations 1:13-15). That is such a badass description I don't even know what to say. Like any respectable Christian soldier, John collapses upon having the vision, but Jesus tells him to stop being a pussy and to write down everything he says, because it's important, gosh darnit!

The next two chapters contain seven letters to seven different churches, all of whom receive specific praises and admonishment. If I wasn't lazy, and thought it might interest you, I would explain this in more detail, but unfortunately I'm way too DGAF for such matters. Chapter 4 contains John's vision of heaven, where he sees God chilling on a giant throne surrounded by twenty-four elders and weird winged monsters, who "unceasingly... sing, 'Holy, holy, holy is God the sovereign Lord of all, who was, and is, and is to come!" (Revelations 4:8). They do this ALL DAY? Doesn't that get annoying?!

Anyway, John sees a scroll sitting next to God, and the angels start to debate who is worthy to open it. They can't think of anyone, and John starts to cry, but then one of the elders tells him to shut up because look who's coming! John wipes his tears away and sees a Zombie Lamb with seven horns and seven eyes take the scroll. All the elders bow down to him and sing a song about how great he is.

God, this is weird! This is even weirder than the scene in Tommy when his mom throws a champagne bottle at the TV and baked beans start pouring out. Anyway, what will the scroll contain? No one knows! Come back tomorrow for the final entry to find out.