In February 2004, I left the charismatic church for the evangelical church. I was finishing seminary when my wife and I, along with our one-month-old daughter, started attending Beverly Heights Presbyterian Church. It was a mainline congregation but one that was concerned about the growing apostasy of the Presbyterian Church USA.
It was also a historic church in the community, culturally and politically conservative by local standards, and self-described as evangelical. The church hoped to leave the PCUSA for the slightly more conservative Evangelical Presbyterian Church. Little did I know that I would spend the next twenty years in ministry in this congregation, and later leave the increasingly liberalized EPC denomination as well. Within a year of arriving, I was the pastoral intern as I finished my M.Div. After graduation, I was hired as the Assistant Pastor. After a few years more, once we were in the EPC, I was hired as the Associate Pastor.
After ten years of associate ministry, I accepted the call as Senior Pastor. When I took the call I believed my mandate for ministry was to lead the church in such a way that would maintain the standards of excellence Beverly Heights had fought for, won and handed down. I honestly had very little change in mind for the ministry. I wanted to keep things stable as we steadily moved in the direction we were accustomed to and had enjoyed for many years.
Beverly Heights was a great church, in many ways, but it was also a comfortable church. Comfort was the unspoken essential to which many quietly subscribed. I saw myself a little like the captain of a cruise ship. The image was apropos, given the socioeconomic environment of the church. The facilities were older and traditional but impressive and the aesthetic was beautiful to behold. The staff was excellent, highly trained, and extremely competent in performing every task. Our music was gorgeous, our publications were professionally produced; everything was executed expertly.
The Session was populated by successful professionals who knew how to manage organizations and the congregation was filled with several appreciative donors who were generous, and would visit the church on weekends when they weren’t traveling or otherwise busy. They paid our salaries and we provided them spiritual goods and services; the world was admirably arranged. I was free to drive the boat in the waters of orthodoxy provided those waters were placid and the experience remained enjoyable. If ever the ministry brought us too close to high winds and big waves, I was quickly reminded of how uncomfortable the passengers might become.
Avoiding seasickness was a top priority. But there were also many godly men and women, who were committed to the faith and interested in living out that faith consistently and coherently. Sometimes tensions emerged between what I saw as “residents” in the church and “tourists” of the church, but mostly things were congenial, and for the most part, we behaved as a Christian congregation. For a long time, things went pretty smoothly, but in March 2020, COVID-19 changed everything.
As we faced the challenges of Covid, I believe our Session and congregation lived out our Christian convictions faithfully. However, the trials of Covid revealed two fundamental weaknesses. First, we discovered that our church was not as prepared as we thought to live out our Christian faith in the moment of trial, where there was real and consequential risk. Second, it became clear the rate of negative change in the culture was beginning to move exponentially. If the church wanted to be faithful to Christ in this changing world, then it needed to make some necessary (sometimes painful) changes.
The situation I experienced at Beverly Heights was not unique to our church. Much of the evangelical church in America went through the same testing. 2020 was a year of apocalypse, not because of the pandemic, but through the pandemic, Christ tested his church to uncover things. Cracks were found in the hull of the ship. Some of the cracks were there for a long time, others were just forming, but all of them were being revealed.
The Blessings of Apocalypse
Apocalypse is a blessing and judgment is a grace. You might not think this is true at first, but it is. We’ll consider judgment later, but for now, we want to focus on the blessing of apocalypse. Apocalypse is not a movie genre or the world-ending catastrophic event often predicted by so many media outlets. Neither can it be reduced to the “final battle” prophesied by dispensationalists who warn us of the coming end of the age.
An apocalypse is disruptive to the status quo, but its essence is far more humble than we might think. Apocalypse is an act of revelation; apocalypse simply reveals the nature of things. It reveals as it uncovers hidden things, hidden either because we cannot see them or because our senses are dull. The church is in regular need of apocalypse and we should think of apocalypse more like an ordinary means of grace in the life of the church rather than as a special event.
It wasn’t long after the birth of the church that the church needed a healthy dose of apocalypse to help bring it back to faithfulness. G.K. Beale, in his excellent book We Become What We Worship, has a chapter exploring the apocalyptic grace offered to the church in the book of Revelation.
Beale argues throughout his book that idolatry conforms the worshipper to the dead and empty image of the idol leading to spiritual deafness, dullness, and ruin. Beale points out that the early church was in danger of Roman idolatry, and suggests that Revelation chapters 2-3 were written to warn the church about the dangers of compromise. Christ’s prophetic word to the seven churches was an apocalyptic grace offered to the universal church that revealed an ongoing temptation that would lead to the church’s spiritual peril. To avoid such peril, Christ exhorts the church to listen and overcome its compromise so that it can inherit the promise of eternal life. Beale writes,
“The formula of Revelation is addressed to the church, which is the continuation of the true covenant community from the Old Testament. But like Israel, the church has also become compromising, spiritually lethargic and has entertained idolatrous allegiances, so that the parabolic method of revelation is instituted. The parables throughout the book not only have a judicial effect on the unbelieving but are meant also to shock believers caught up in the church’s compromising complacency by revealing to them the horrific, beastly nature of the idolatrous institutions with which they are beginning to associate and to resemble. As in Isaiah, Ezekiel and Jeremiah, John is addressing a covenant community, the majority of which is unfaithful and compromising in one way or another.”1
Beale suggests that the church in Thyatira is a case study of the danger of the universal church’s compromise and dullness through idolatry. Such a church needs to be awakened and revived by apocalyptic grace. The Christians in Thyatira were far too lax in their concern over the woman Jezebel who promoted sub-Christian morality and taught that idol worship and the worship of Jesus were compatible. 2
Such teaching cannot be tolerated, and so Jesus tells the church, “But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols” (Revelation 2:20 ESV). The church in Thyatira was anesthetized, but Jesus loves his church, and so he is willing to share hard truth with her and a vivid apocalyptic vision to rouse his deaf bride and bring her to repentance. Beale’s summary is helpful,
“The idols [Jezebel] was teaching about were economic idols, as Baal was for the Israelites. Israel did not think they were denying Yahweh, but they also worshiped Baal for prosperity of the economy. It appears that, under Jezebel’s influence, they saw no inconsistency in doing this, since the nations around Israel also worshiped multiple gods. Jezebel was teaching something similar in the church of Thyatira, though in an updated Christian guise. The Thyatiran Christians, however, “tolerated” her teaching. Though they may have disagreed with her views, the church officials did not think her ideas destructive enough to discipline her and to disallow her from teaching any more within the church. John wants to shock the sluggish Christians so that they will discern the gravity of the situation. Therefore, in Revelation 17 John draws back the apocalyptic curtains in order that the church at Thyatira can see the spiritual reality of Jezebel. There John paints Jezebel in her “true colors.” For example, the phrase “they will eat her flesh” in Revelation 17:16 is reminiscent of Jezebel’s destiny in 2 Kings 9:36, they “will eat the flesh of Jezebel.” Jezebel’s destruction likewise happened according to the “word of the Lord” (2 Kings 9:36), as is true of Babylon in Revelation 17:17.”3
Nothing less than the full force of a gracious apocalypse was needed to awaken the church to its dangerous compromise with Jezebel.
Jesus enacts his apocalypse upon the church because the need is urgent and the dangers are real. The church is unaware of just how perilous her situation is. Beale goes on to state that church leaders in Thyatira may have been captivated by what they thought was a spiritually attractive figure and were blind to the full, true ungodly nature of Jezebel.
But Jezebel and her followers, who present themselves as teachers and leaders in the church, are actually pseudo-Christian. In reality, Jezebel is nothing less than the presence of Babylon in the midst of the church. Jezebel becomes the apocalyptic embodiment of the religious-economic system of the ungodly Greco-Roman empire who seeks inroads within the church so that she might influence and control the church.
Such compromise with the world is devastating, but the church is largely unaware of the dangers Jezebel represents nor overly unconcerned with its encroaching infidelity. The church has forgotten its first love, the love of her savior, and so Jesus must administer strong medicine to bring her back. Jesus speaks apocalyptically, “Behold, I will throw [Jezebel] onto a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her I will throw into great tribulation, unless they repent of her works, and I will strike her children dead. And all the churches will know that I am he who searches mind and heart, and I will give to each of you according to your works” (Revelation 2:22–23 ESV). Jesus uncovers Jezebel, reveals her for who she is, and declares what will happen to those who follow after her.
This prophetic word is jarring, stinging even. It is a hard, painful word for the church to hear, but it is meant to be painful. As C.S. Lewis said, “Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”4 The church has grown deaf, like the idols and she is called to hear what the Spirit says to the churches. The church is asleep and she must be reawakened. Beale goes on to describe the seriousness of the situation and the necessity of the sting for the sake of the church,
Therefore, the point in Revelation 2:19-20 and following is this: as long as the church of Thyatira allows “Jezebel” to teach such things about idol worship within the confines of the church, the church itself is beginning to have spiritual intercourse with the devil’s whore and with the devilish beast himself, upon whose back she rides in chapter 17. She is the opposite of the pure woman of Revelation 12:1-2, who symbolizes the true people of God. John is saying to the Christians in Thyatira: “Oh, you want to tolerate this idolatrous teaching that you do not think is too bad —well, if you do, you are dealing with the devil himself, and you will be destroyed.” What they thought was insignificant compromise and sin was really a crack in their spiritual dikes that could have let through a flood of spiritual evil, overwhelming them (cf. Rev 12:15). [So Jesus must] shock the Christin readers into the reality that compromise with the ungodly state and economic system (the beast) is equal to idolatry and to following the satanic dragon himself (cf. Rev. 12:3, 13:1-18).5
Awake O Sleeper
Two thousand years later Jezebel is still tempting and afflicting the church. She continues to make inroads, she continues to seduce the church and weaken its leaders. She tempts the church with money, power, and influence as she flaunts herself before our eyes. The church catches a glimpse of her beauty and thinks to itself, “how can something this beautiful be so bad? Will it really harm anyone if we listen to her, if we bow down and burn just a pinch of incense?”
Over and over again, evangelical leaders of the church today fall victim to Jezebel. Little by little, good men give their strength over to this woman until one day the church no longer resembles the bride of Christ but the whore of Babylon. We who see this happening lament with the words of William Wordsworth, “The world is too much with us; late and soon ~Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.”
Apocalypse is not a world-ending event, it is the grace of God poured out on the church to reveal to us what must be seen. Because Jesus is the head of the church, he will unmask every imposter and reveal to us the true nature of our devotion. Jesus will expose the church and all that looks beautiful to the eye of the world so that we can see it for what it truly is. When Jesus does this (and he does it with regularity) then it will necessarily be disruptive to our neatly curated, respectable, and winsome “American evangelical” faith.
Apocalypse shows us the ugly truth and once we see it, we cannot unsee it, though we may be tempted to ignore it. We may want to put our heads in the sand and pretend that everything is ok. We may listen and succumb to the sublet lie that we have not compromised the faith because our ministry is successful, and who can argue with success? But in every generation, Jesus comes to the church to offer apocalyptic grace by confronting our dullness. It is time for the church in America to wake up. Or as the Apostle Paul said,
“For at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.” (Ephesians 5:8–17 ESV)
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
The great apocalypse of this generation was the 2020 pandemic caused by COVID-19. Covid was God’s gracious, loving, yet painful megaphone to rouse a deaf world. Many in the evangelical church were not ready to receive this grace. Some rose to the occasion, others diminished.
Covid was an opportunity for purification in the church, it was a great sorting out and a time for truth-telling. In the end, Covid revealed a great number of cracks in the hull of the evangelical church. Several years after the pandemic, it is now time to name what was seen.
Photo by Peter Hansen on Unsplash
- G. K. Beale, We Become What We Worship : A Biblical Theology of Idolatry. Downers Grove Ill. Nottingham England: IVP Academic; Apollos, 2008. ↩︎
- For more thoughts on Jezebel and how her spirit can ruin the church, see my article Evan-Jezebel. ↩︎
- Ibid, Beal. ↩︎
- C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, First Harper Collins paperback ed. New York NY: 2001. ↩︎
- Ibid, Beal. ↩︎
The Parrhesians 