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Two Kinds of a Love Story
“Love means never having to say you’re sorry” is certainly one of the most memorable movie lines that has come out of Hollywood. This was spoken twice in the 1970s film Love Story and was adapted and parodied numerous times in the following decades. Those who have seen the movie know that it was spoken is all seriousness in the movie and in some ways still reflects a twisted perception of the nature and maturity that should be associated with love.
The popularity of this quotation provides opportunity to show how diametrically opposed this sentiment is to the idea of real love expressed by Christ in one of his 7 letters. Most congregations in Roman Asia and North America have grown and expanded on the basis of the single portrait of love presented in Rev. 1:5, “To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood.” This picture focuses on one’s pleasurable reception of gifts from God. After all, who would not want to be rid of all the guilt associated with all their evil deeds, thoughts, and inclinations? Apparently Christ did not think this definition of love was sufficient for the congregations in Asia since he clearly expands the implications of his love in the letter to the congregation in Laodicea.
One of the traits of a half-truth is that it attempts to take part of the truth and make it all of the truth. It seems that too many believers want the half-truth that Christ gives in Rev. 1:5, but not the other part of the truth that he reveals in Rev. 3:19. Before Christ finishes his redemptive work for the believers at Laodicea, they must be rebuked and undergo discipline in the spirit of love. If he loves them, he will rebuke and discipline them, but none of this will be effectual if the believer does not have a repentant heart. Unlike the Hollywood version of Love Story, the love story that Christ invites us into demands that we say “I’m sorry,” and say it many times (and mean it).
At the present moment congregations think they are getting by with ignoring the full disclosure of the truth of Christ’s love. “Come to Christ,” they advertise, with references only to “freedom from sin.” Not a whisper, not even a faint whisper, about Christian discipline. The congregation at Laodicea had to learn the hard way that the only way that either Christ or the world will take a congregation seriously is when they advertise their Jesus as one who reproves and disciplines those whom he loves and at the same time demands their zeal and repentance.
PAGANS PERSECUTING PAGANS
GRANT
Graeco-Roman Antiquities & the New Testament
There are things you can tell about an entire ocean even if you have only one cup of water from it. Naturally a scientist would like to have as many cups and as broad a sampling as possible, but even a single cup is of some help. The same is true when investigating the world of the New Testament. You can learn something even from one ancient document, though the explorer of the ancient world would like to have as many documents as possible.
I hope once a week to present a small sample of information that mirrors some aspect of the ancient world surrounding nascent Christianity.
PAGANS PERSECUTING PAGANS
A student of Revelation might assume that Christians were the only religious group harassed and persecuted by the Romans. However, the historical record testifies otherwise. On more than one occasion in the 1st century AD Jews felt the brunt of Rome’s ability to punish religious dissent. In the Graeco-Roman period there are even examples of one polytheistic, pagan religion persecuting another polytheistic, pagan religion. Probably the best documented example of the Roman Senate persecuting and suppressing a pagan religion comes from the 2nd century BC. This episode is usually referred to as the “Senatorial Decree concerning the Bacchanalia” (Senatus consultum de Bacchanalibus), occurring 186 BC. This event is documented by an important bronze inscription coming from the time of the Senatorial decree itself as well as by the narrative of the later Roman historian Livy, writing during the reign of the first Emperor Augustus (27 BC-AD 14).
Part of the reason for Rome’s pogrom against these worshippers of Bacchus was because they corrupted traditional Roman moral values and traditional Roman religion by their worship and activities; the spread of their religion was considered anti-Roman. Livy notes (Roman History 39.8, 13)
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| Wild female worshipper of Bacchus known as Maenad |
To their religious performances were added the pleasures of wine and feasting, to allure a greater number of proselytes. When wine, lascivious discourse, night, and the intercourse of the sexes had extinguished every sentiment of modesty, then debaucheries of every kind began to be practiced, as every person found at hand that sort of enjoyment to which he was disposed by the passion predominant in his nature. Nor were they confined to one species of vice—the promiscuous intercourse of free-born men and women; . . . . From the same place, too, proceeded poison and secret murders, so that in some cases, not even the bodies could be found for burial. . . . . There were more frequent pollution of men with each other than with women. If any were less patient in submitting to dishonor, or more averse to the commission of vice, they were sacrificed as victims. To think that nothing was unlawful was the grand maxim of their religion. The men, as if bereft of reason, uttered predictions, with frantic contortions of their bodies; the women, in the habit of Bacchantes, with their hair disheveled, and carrying blazing torches, ran down to the Tiber.
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| Wild female worshipper of Bacchus known as Maenad |
In order to rescue Italy from the religious and moral chaos associated with these Bacchic celebrations, the Senate ordered the cessation of these festivals and an order “was then given to demolish all the places where the Bacchanalians had held their meetings; first in Rome, and then throughout all Italy; excepting those wherein should be found some ancient altar or consecrated statue” (Roman History 39.18). Once this senatorial decree had been posted throughout Rome and Italy, these Bacchic worshippers had ten days to comply, on threat of death.
All students of Revelation need to remember that Rome had been suppressing “undesirable groups” for generations prior to the advent of the Christian faith and had whetted its skills in eliminating enemies of the Roman status quo.
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| Wild female worshipper of Bacchus known as Maenad |
