The Joshua Victor Theory

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. The Olympics always feature dramatic stories of the struggle, perseverance, and the hard-fought victories of athletes, and the hardships and intense training that preceded their competition for the gold medal. The attention focused on the athletes is intense; often they are flattered with praise—but just as quickly they can bear the brunt of criticism, suspicion, or doubt, for their failures inside and outside of the game. Every athlete faces the specter of discouragement and the temptation to quit, when the road gets tough. The stakes are high, with the whole world competing, only once every four years, and with only 3 medals to be captured in each event Last week Pastor Roschke drew on the imagery of the “race” that we are running “by faith” as Christians. How “Team Emmanuel” is being cheered on by the cloud of witnesses in heaven, who are encouraging us as we run the race, with...

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. As we have been surveying the book of Revelation these past weeks, you’ve probably noticed that it is a very visually descriptive book. John witnessed glorious visions of heaven and earth, all of which he was instructed to write down. Sometimes the descriptions seem to flow like a stream of consciousness, as though John were grasping at a multitude of images to try to relate what he was seeing. Things too glorious and wonderful to fully put into words. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then thousands of words fall short to describe the glory. But, on the other hand, we shouldn’t think that John was grasping at straws and at a loss for what to say. On the contrary, inspired and directed by the Holy Spirit, John’s descriptions are highly intentional and specific. They borrow from and point us back to many rich Biblical pictures and prophecies, found in the Old and New Testament. Today’s chapter, Revelat...