When we encounter everything that is colorful and bizarre in the book of Revelation (which would more appropriately be called a letter), it is the approach of some to “decode” its strange symbols, maybe even decode and interpret them as current or near future events we might see in the news. But when we read Revelation 1 and meet a Jesus whose eyes are on fire, whose feet are metal, whose voice roars like crashing waves, from whose mouth protrudes…

Life in God is not a matter of being knowledgeable enough or obedient enough. It’s a matter of being born of God, completely remade by God. The whole self, the entire existence brought into reality by our creator and made perfectly in his image. If you ask John, that’s what it means to be alive. “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child.” (1 John 5:10)…

“God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.” – 1 John 4:16 All things begin in love, flow from love, are perfected in love, and return to love. Any tendency we might have had to conceive of love as an object or tool (even a good one) is thrown right out the window. It might not occur to us to conceive of love as that which surrounds us at all times,…

What do you imagine when you hear the word “antichrist?” A monster? A boogeyman? Actually, the term antichrist only appears in the letters of 1 and 2 John (nothing in Revelation as we might have expected), and it has nothing to do with monsters. John gives us a simple enough definition: “Those who do not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh – any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist.” (2 John 7) He also says…