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Kindle Notes & Highlights
These images hold together the vulnerable and intimate human Jesus with the all- powerful warrior Jesus who is capable of conquering evil.
That Christ is described as the one holding the key of David (3:7) is a way of signaling that Jesus is the Messiah expected from the Davidic line. This key of David opens a door that cannot be shut. Here, we can see a play on the idea that Jesus-followers might have been shut out of the synagogue, but Jesus has opened a different door.
In the biblical tradition, when God’s people worship other gods, they are committing a kind of adultery—they are cheating on God (see Hosea for a good example of this kind of prophetic thinking). John does not have sexual activity in mind here. He is concerned with worship and fidelity to God, because worshiping God alone is one of his big concerns. The way he conveys this is to point out that if you are worshiping other gods or kings, including eating meat sacrificed to them, you are cheating on God. You are religiously promiscuous.
It is helpful to remember that, throughout Scripture, the sea is a chaotic force, often associated with death. So when Jesus walks on water or calms the storm in the Gospels, it is a sign he has control over the chaotic and scary sea. The calm sea here functions similarly to remind us that God has control and that the sea is not a threat.
Despite this, at the heart of the message of these chapters is a challenge to readers not to desire what looks shiny and bright (because it is not actually of God and comes at a cost to others) and to withdraw from systems of inequality and oppression, lest one becomes corrupted by them.
For me, Revelation’s presentation of evil as something that becomes manifest in systems challenges me to think ethically about daily choices, such as where I buy my food (am I supporting industrial farming companies that are killing the earth and ruining local farmers’ lives?), where I buy clothes (are they reliant on child labor?), or how my power is sourced (is it green energy, or is it contributing to the destruction of the planet?).
