The Last Temple (Tyndale House, 2012) is the conclusion of a three-part fiction series based on the NT book of Revelation from Hank Hanegraaff and Sigmund Brouwer. The series presents a competing vision for what the literal fulfillment of Revelation looks like. In Hanegraaff and Brouwer’s interpretation, Revelation speaks to the immediate future realities facing the city of Jerusalem and the persecuted church in Rome and throughout the Roman empire.
The tale follows the adventures of Gallus Sergius Vitas, Roman general and one-time member of Nero’s inner circle, as he continues his quest to understand the mystery behind his release, a mystery that is tied up with the symbolism in the treasonous letter of Revelation. After meeting John the Beloved himself, Vitas faces his own torturous death and survives. He then aims his political clout toward revenge and even insurrection against that beast of a man, Nero. Along the way, the continued struggles in Judea finally come to a head in Jerusalem’s terrible fall at the hands of Titus.
This book brings to an end a saga which perfectly captures Roman and Jewish life in the 60s (A.D.). What Hanegraaff and Brouwer were able to accomplish was truly breathtaking. As historical fiction goes, this series was top notch. They brought you inside the gates of Jerusalem to witness intrigue, rebellion and outright slaughter. You were whisked into the maze of tunnels under Jerusalem to witness secret trysts and the concealment of priceless Jewish treasures. The dark terror that inhabited Nero’s mansion and plagued those closest to him was almost palpable. And the forlorn suffering of those condemned to die in the arena is something I won’t easily forget. The author’s attention to detail bring the years before A.D. 70 to life as we follow the characters around the Roman world, from Rome to Alexandria, on sea and over land, to dungeons, arenas, and even to the cross itself on a hillside in Judea. We are inside and outside Jerusalem in the years leading up to its devastation, and the story is believable yet mysterious and keeps you guessing until the end.
With this title, I had to go back and read the first two books in the series first. I wasn’t sure what to expect and was pleased to find it wasn’t a polemic against other end times positions so much as it was a very well conceived story in its own right that does follow a partial preterist interpretation of the Book of Revelation. It’s a rewarding tale which also serves to show how the Book of Revelation may have been understood in its own day. Even if you are skeptical of a preterist view of Revelation, this series will still prove inspiring as it brings to life a story of struggle that both the early church and the people of Israel endured. I highly recommend it.
Disclaimer: This book was provided by Tyndale House Publishers. I was under no obligation to offer a favorable review.
About Book Briefs: Book Briefs are book notes, or short-form book reviews. They are my informed evaluation of a book, but stop short of being a full-length book review.
Al Mohler sees the writing on the wall. A “new Moral McCarthyism” will soon be asking each Christian this question: “Do you now or have you ever believed that homosexuality is a sin?” Based on our answer, they stand ready to denounce us as backward, hateful bigots.
Mohler’s comments come in the wake of President Obama announcing that Pastor Louie Giglio would pray the invocation at his upcoming inauguration. A quick about face happened when a liberal watchdog group uncovered the fact that Giglio once preached an “anti-gay” message. It turns out that Giglio’s message was standard, orthodox Christian teaching on homosexuality, and hardly anti-gay as such things go. The Christian message has always been that all sinners need salvation, and to be a man or a woman, is to be a sinner. Sin comes in a variety of flavors, and homosexuality is just one of many. Sure some Christians have been more hateful and more vocal about that sin than others, but faithful Christian pastors, have always been careful to condemn the sin, and remind everyone that we are all equally guilty of offending a holy God.
Russell Moore commented on the outcry that the NY Times and others helped to circulate, as follows:
After a couple of days of firestorm from the Left, Giglio announced this morning that he would withdraw.
Here’s why this matters. The statement Giglio made that was so controversial is essentially a near-direct quotation from the Christian Scriptures. Unrepentant homosexuals, Giglio said (as with unrepentant sinners of all kinds) “will not inherit the kingdom of God.” That’s 1 Corinthians 6:9-10. Giglio said, “it’s not easy to change, but it is possible to change.” The Bible says God “commands all people everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:30), the same gospel, Giglio says, “that I say to you and that you would say to me.”
The Christian faith in every expression has held for 2000 years that sexual immorality is sinful. This same Christian faith has maintained, again in every branch, that sexual expression outside of conjugal marriage is sin. And the Christian faith has maintained universally that all persons are sinners and that no sinner can enter the kingdom without repentance. This is hardly new.
The “shock” with which this so-called “anti-gay” stance is articulated by the Left is akin to the Pork Producers Association denouncing a Muslim Imam’s invitation because he is “anti-agriculture” due to Koranic dietary restrictions.
In fact, by the standards of this controversy, no Muslim imam or Orthodox Jewish rabbi alive can pray at a presidential inauguration.
This can be an important moment as America, the media, and President Obama’s administration to consider a simple question. Are people of faith no longer welcome as they continue to hold the beliefs they have held since their foundation? Must they jettison their sacred texts and adopt new views to be accepted as part of society? If they do not, will they be marginalized and demonized even as they serve the poor, care for the orphan, or speak against injustice?
Moore doesn’t wonder but declares, “When it is now impossible for one who holds to the catholic Christian view of marriage and the gospel to pray at a public event, we now have a de facto established state church.”
Moore goes on, and I encourage you to read his entire piece on this subject. But I think you get the picture. To even hint that you ever have believed or held that homosexuality is anything but commendable, upright behavior, is to break today’s moral code. If there is no forthright and frank repentance or clarification, then you are out of the “in club.” You are outside the bounds and not fit to speak in the public square. No, not even to merely pray at a public event.
Mohler’s piece explains this point further, and he also demonstrates that Giglio’s withdrawal was more of a dis-invitation than cordial back-out. Giglio was not so much saving face as standing by his principles, and ensuring that this furor dies down so as not to encourage a misunderstanding of the gospel. Maybe Giglio should have made a bigger to-do about his harsh treatment by the McCarthyites. Maybe he should have been firmer. There could be merit to these reflections, but we are not Giglio and don’t need to go there.
Instead, I think we should ponder why this takes us by surprise. Some aren’t surprised, but most are. We have been lulled to sleep by the compatibility of Protestant Christianity with America’s self-help capitalist gospel. We have been sold a bill of goods by well-intentioned practitioners of the American Christian cult. The cult that equates freedom and democracy, lady liberty and all she stands for, with the cross of Christ and the Bible’s gospel. No, the America which once taxed Baptists for not participating with the official state church in Massachusetts and elsewhere, the public which reveled in the printed tabloid’s lurid details of the public sex-lives of Alexander Hamilton and other leaders, and the humanistic upper class which once embraced Charles Finney and Billy Sunday’s religious appeal to reform the brutish man’s spirit by taking away his brandy — that is much like the America we find today who so readily condemns anyone who doesn’t embrace moral relativism and the libertarian virtue of the time.
Christianity in America today is far less persecuted and far more lightly treated than it has been in most other times and places around the world. We have enjoyed an exceptional period of freedom and ostensible public respect. But such a time is soon to end. Now fewer Americans believe homosexuality is a sin, than those who don’t. And this drastic change in the public’s perception has come about in just a few short years. Meanwhile, the church has hemmed and hawed and often evolved in its views along with the culture and our current president. But as Mohler reminds us, the time for thin-skins and hesitation is past. We risk having no gospel at all, if we do not address homosexuality as sin.
So even as the faithful determine to not give in to culture’s demands on this front, we should be mindful, as Joe Carter reminds us, that Jesus has promised us that the world will hate us. We shouldn’t be surprised. And in light of such a knee-jerk tendency to be alarmed over any expression against homosexuality, we Christians should be especially careful in how we phrase our answer to their incessant question. We will too readily be misunderstood. Christians need to stand against homosexuality, but not as a goal in itself. We need to stand for morality, but not bereft of the grace and mercy which make Christianity unique. We must be resolute but not compassionless.
Christians everywhere, in pulpit or pew, in the office cubicle or the backyard party, need to be ready for “the question.” We can’t be afraid to “come out of the closet” with our views on this vitally important matter. Being ready means being informed, and we should be well read on the condition of homosexuality, and armed with careful and Christian reflection as to its cure. We need most of all to know the gospel and how it speaks to people everywhere, straight and gay. And we need to be broken and humble rather than cocky, defensive or stand-offish. We need to be the very heart and mind of Jesus when it comes to answering this question. We need to speak His words, in His manner and with His winsomeness. May our careful speech woo the lost to Christ. And may the darker these days get help us to draw closer to the light of truth and be ever more effective as an outpost in this sin-darkened world (Phil. 2:15-16).
Thanks to Zondervan, I am hosting a book giveaway on my blog for one free copy of Half the Church: Recapturing God’s Global Vision for Women by Carolyn Custis James. Click here to read my review or check out the book trailer or the product page at Zondervan.com.
Details on the contest below.
Contest is now closed.
Congratulations to Andrew Smith, our random winner from the contest.
Many books are written to inform. Of those, several aim to change the reader’s opinion of the given topic. Only a few succeed in forcing the reader to rethink previous assumptions and actually see the world through an entirely new perspective. It takes a special talent to draw a reader out of their shell and get them to really engage with the vision the author is struggling to convey.
In Half the Church: Recapturing God’s Global Vision for Women, Carolyn Custis James gives us a book of this exceedingly rare kind. She has a burden to share and she draws the reader in and delivers her message well. Her book is a riveting account of the trials of women in today’s world and a passionate plea aimed primarily at women, to take up the call and make their lives count for the kingdom of God.
Carolyn Custis James builds a case on the creation story of man and women being joint image-bearers for God called to subdue His world. She approaches the text with insight from studying today’s patriarchal societies of the Middle East. Her insight into the first few chapters of Genesis, the tales of Ruth and Esther and to several stories in the New Testament is alone worth the price of getting this book. She brings a fresh perspective and makes these passages come alive, yet she is not offering an innovative rewrite that unfaithfully handles God’s Word.
This book awakened in me a new awareness of the horrible prejudice and persecution women around the world endure. In India, girls between 1 and 5 are twice as likely to die as boys. They die of neglect and deprivation — no one cares for girls. And if they do make it into the young teenage years, they are open to being trafficked as a way to get rid of them. The fathers make a little bit of money out of it and get rid of the disgrace that is their daughter. The girls are abused in horrific ways. Not just India, in China a father is quoted as saying, “We don’t have to have daughters anymore!” This is his exclamation upon learning of technology that enables sex-selective abortion.
With the backdrop of such a world-wide low view of women, the author approaches the state of women in today’s church. She argues that too often our message for women only applies if they have a husband and children, and if their husband is living (or hasn’t left them). We ignore other women, and more than 50% of women are not in this class. She doesn’t denigrate motherhood, but she challenges us to see that being a woman is so much more than just having a motherhood role.
She stops short of openly challenging a complementarian position. Her message actually is worth listening to, by people on all sides of that debate. There are plenty of ways women can be involved in church-based and other ministry and yet not transgress Scriptural prohibitions. James shows how the very word “helper” (in Hebrew it is ezer) from Gen. 2 which describes the women, is usually a military term and often applied to God’s help for Israel. She shows how the language describing the Proverbs 31 women betokens a valorous, military context. She is literally, a “woman of valor”. The book calls women to champion the needs of suffering women, to rise up to God’s kingdom task of living out the gospel in this fallen world. These messages are needed by women in all kinds of churches.
While I still am bound by the word of God to see some divisions of roles in the home and the church, I was challenged to rethink just how much room and need there is for women to be active participants in the ministry God calls us to. I do think some of the church today is endeared of a traditional view which is not necessarily biblical. Our prizing of the motherly role, which is special (and which Carolyn Custis James seems not to give enough props to), can nevertheless be a message of despair for women who long to have children or long to be married but aren’t. Do we communicate to them that they should just sit around and wait, dolefully for Mr. Right? Or do we empower them to serve God with their whole being in a fulfilling way as women?
The book will stretch your mind and cause you to think, but it will be worth it. I encourage you to pick up a copy of this well written, riveting book. I highly recommend it.
Disclaimer: This book was provided by Zondervan for review as part of the Half the Church Blog Tour. I was under no obligation to offer a favorable review.
You can pick up a copy of this book at Amazon.com or through Zondervan, direct.
The following excerpts are taken from St. Patrick’s “The Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus”, one of only two documents that were certainly written by St. Patrick himself and preserved for future generations by careful copyists. The letter tells of a brutal act done by Coroticus and his men– the murder and capture of several newly baptized converts of Patrick’s. I cannot reproduce the entire letter, but you can find it here. The translation I’m using is that found in The Wisdom of St. Patrick: Inspirations from the Patron Saint of Ireland by Greg Tobin (Ballantine Books: New York, 1999).
1. I, Patrick, a sinner and poorly learned, as is well known, speak to you as the true and anointed bishop in Ireland. I believe with certainty that all that I am I have received from God; and so I live among barbarians and foreigners, a stranger and an exile for the love of the Father— and He is my witness that this is so. I would never, of my own will, speak so harshly and sternly as I feel I must, but I am compelled to by the zeal of God and the truth of Christ, and for the love for my friends [neighbors] and children [sons], for whom I have given up my homeland and my family, and even risked my very life unto the point of death. Though I am despised by some, I have dedicated my life– if I am worthy– to my God to teach these heathen tribes.
2. I have written these words myself and sent them to be given, delivered, and handed to the soldiers of Coroticus. I do not call them my own people nor fellow citizens of the holy Romans, but because of their evil deeds [I call them] the cohorts of demons…. I denounce them as bloodthirsty men who seek to gorge themselves on the blood of innocent Christians, whom I have “given birth to” [begotten] in countless numbers for God and confirmed in Christ.
4. Therefore, I do not know for whom I should more rightly grieve. Should I weep for those who were killed or captured, or for those whom the devil has enslaved?…
5. So let every God-fearing person know that those who murder their own families, who kill their brothers like ravening wolves, who devour the people of the Lord as they would eat bread–they are forever estranged from me and from my God, whose missionary I am. As is said, “The wicked have destroyed Your law, O Lord,” the law that He has of late– and at the end of time– graciously sown so successfully in Ireland to become firmly established there with God’s grace.
7. Therefore I earnestly beseech those of you who are holy and humble of heart that it is not correct to seek favor from such as their kind, or even to eat or drink with them, nor should alms be accepted from them until they have done the most severe penance, pouring out their tears to God’s satisfaction, and until they have freed the baptized servants and handmaidens of Christ on whose behalf He died and was crucified.
9. …We know that a murderer cannot stand with Christ. And he who hates his brother will be called a murderer, and “He who hates his brother lives in death.” More offensive is he who stains his hands with the blood of those children of God whom He has recently won over to His ways through my own paltry efforts here at the utmost ends of the earth.
10. Could I have come here, to Ireland, without the guidance of God, or for reasons that were human and secular? Who compelled me on this mission? It is because of the Holy Spirit that I am bound to remain forever separated from my family. Does this forgiveness that I have shown to the very people who once enslaved me and pillaged the male and female servants of my father’s household come from within me? In the eyes of the secular world, I am a free man, the son of a Roman decurion. But I have traded my noble birthright, without shame or second thought, for the advantage [benefit] of others. In a word, I am Christ’s slave; I serve Him by ministering to foreign tribes for the sake of the indescribable glory of eternal life that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
11. …I do not seek anything for myself. It was not by my own grace, but God who put within me this sincere care in my heart, that I should be one of His hunters and fishers of souls, whom God had long ago foretold would come in the end of days.
12. I am the target of resentment and jealousy. What shall I do, O Lord? I am openly despised. Look, all around me Your sheep lie torn and spoiled, and by these very soldiers of Coroticus at his evil orders. Far removed from the love of God is anyone who betrays my newly won Christian into the hands of the Scots and Picts. Voracious wolves have eaten the Lord’s flock, just when it was increasing in Ireland with tender care…. So do not be pleased with this calamity; it is unacceptable, unjust, and irredeemable all the way to hell.
13. So who among the holy saints would not shudder to make merry or partake of a feast with men such as these? They have filled their houses with the stolen property of dead Christians; they live only to plunder….
15. I do not know what more I should say or how I can speak of those dead children of God who were ruthlessly struck down by the sword….
16. For this reason I cry aloud in sadness and grief: O most beautiful and beloved brothers and sons whom I confirmed in Christ, and whom I cannot number, what shall I do for you now? I am unworthy to help either God or man. The injustice of wicked men has overcome us….
17. Consequently, I grieve for you. Indeed, I deeply mourn for you, my dearly beloved ones. Yet, I also rejoice within myself. For I see that I have not labored without result, and my journey [exile] to an alien land was not without purpose. And though this was an unspeakably horrible crime, I thank God that you were baptized believers when you left this world for paradise. I can see you in a vision: you have embarked upon your journey to a place where there is no more night, no sorrow, and no death. Freed from your chains, you will romp like young lambs and the wicked will be like ashes beneath your feet.
18. You will reign with the apostles and the prophets and the martyrs. You will win eternal kingdoms, just as He Himself promised: “They shall come from the east and west, and they shall sit with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.” While “outside [heaven] lie the dogs, the evildoers, and the murderers.” And “liars and blasphemers shall be damned to the lake of eternal fire.” The apostle rightly says: “When the just man shall barely be saved, where will the sinner and the ungodly lawbreaker expect to find himself?”
20. I witness before God and His angels that, though I lack learning, all shall be as I have predicted. For these words that I have written in Latin are not mine; they are from God and His apostles and prophets, who have never lied. “Whoever believes will be saved; whoever does not believe will be damned.” Thus God has spoken.
21. My first and sincerest request is that the servants of God who shall come into possession of this letter, do not conceal or withdraw it, but be sure that it is read aloud in public, and even when Coroticus himself is there. I pray that God will inspire the hearers to come to their senses and, even at this late stage, that they should repent of the evil they have committed– the murder of the Lord’s brothers– and that they should release the baptized women whom they have taken prisoner and sold. In this way they may yet deserve to live in the grace of God, and they may be restored whole, here and for all eternity. Peace be to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. Amen. [bold emphasis is mine, words in brackets are part of the translation]
Patrick lived from around A.D. 390 to 460. It’s refreshing to see how Bible-rooted so much of Patrick’s thinking was– we are not all that removed from his theology and passion. I was struck by his connection of “hunters and fishers of souls” with Old Testament prophecy, something my study has only recently revealed to me. Patrick also considered his mission field the “utmost ends of the earth”. He viewed his ministry as fully within the “end times”, too.
From the above selection, it should be obvious that Patrick viewed himself as a missionary. He was on a mission to save the lost souls of Ireland. God blessed His efforts, we can fairly say. Above all, this selection reveals the heart of Patrick. He is broken over injustice and sin. Yet the horrors of hell motivated him to warn all not to be complicit with Coroticus’ evil deeds.
Patirck was a man on a mission– a missionary. And he was equally enthralled with “the indescribable glory of eternal life that is in Christ Jesus our Lord”. We do well to ponder St. Patrick on this, his special day.
The Last Temple (Tyndale House, 2012) is the conclusion of a three-part fiction series based on the NT book of Revelation from Hank Hanegraaff and Sigmund Brouwer. The series presents a competing vision for what the literal fulfillment of Revelation looks like. In Hanegraaff and Brouwer’s interpretation, Revelation speaks to the immediate future realities facing the city of Jerusalem and the persecuted church in Rome and throughout the Roman empire.
