Alright so we know it’s not a roadmap of end times by now, but what on earth WAS John of Patmos saying when he wrote this epic and crazy story? We’ve got to the scene with the dragon and beasts now (yep - coming at you with 666 chat this morning) and as a side-note it still blows our MIND how many people were raised with terrifying, entirely wrong teaching on this stuff. This story is about same thing the rest of the bible is about: God is good, evil is real and coming for you, but Jesus is on the throne. The beast was the Roman Empire - no serious scholars disagree on that. Empire, and all it’s lying, deceiving, masquerading about who we should worship and how we should live. Conquer, dominate, and tell ourselves God is on OUR side. Those of us whose politics demand we’re already 100% anti-empire should make no mistake: the imperial cult is still whispering to us all.
Hannah refers to the propensity we have for empire building, as you’ll notice from the video below, this is not new to us.