These speculators were all wrong, and they’ve all been wrong because they lack the kind of imagination a faithful reading of Revelation requires, wanting to reduce everything to literal predictions. But as we have seen, we should not look for one, single end-time wild thing. Instead, dissident disciples should discern the dragon behind the wild things of every age, including our own day. Scot McKnight and Cody Matchett

Dissident disciples are the first to realise they are in a battle—not with flesh and blood, but with the principalities and powers that snake their way into the seven churches. Scot McKnight and Cody Matchett

Loving the cooler weather! I rode out to Bunnings and around the edge of town and down to Riverbend Estate. #cycling #Narrabri #Biketooter

Arrogance begins at the top of the empire, or rather, the system rewards the arrogant and lines up everyone else in a hierarchy of status. Scot McKnight and Cody Matchett

Those who saw the power and glory and reach of Babylon (=Rome) were stunned—everyone except the dissidents, the oppressed, the slaves, those captured, and the poor. In other words, most everyone! Scot McKnight and Cody Matchett

Dissidents rightly perceive opulence for what it really is: showy disdain for the normal way of life, followed by the rest of the population. It is a showcase of rampant indulgence, with lustful desire and conspicuous consumerism on full display. Scot McKnight and Cody Matchett

To become a dissident living against the grain of the Babylons of our world, Christians need to have eyes to detect the presence of anti-God systems and institutions. Scot McKnight and Cody Matchett

The biggest problem facing the seven churches was Babylon. And the biggest problem we still face in our churches today is Babylon. Babylon is past and it is now; it is tomorrow and it is future as well. But it is only the future because Babylon is always. Scot McKnight and Cody Matchett

The speculators, who read Revelation as predictive prophecy, promote reading all this stuff as something future, yet to come, and those who read in this way fail to form a Babylonian hermeneutic for the church today. They miss what John is doing—developing a discipleship for dissidents. Scot McKnight and Cody Matchett