I have been meeting with a guy from church on a weekly basis who has taken it upon himself to try and assist me with my spiritual life. We meet for 'discipleship'. Basically, what it looks like for me is I tell him about the questions and problems I have with certain texts in the Bible, and he helps with translation and putting things in perspective. His Masters of Divinity from Golden Gate Seminary, and pertinent life experiences, provides a good foundation for helping me with some of these issues.
The last time we met, we talked about how to go about bringing the kingdom of God to those around us, what some might call 'sharing the gospel', 'sharing our faith', 'evangelizing', etc. Somehow we got on the topic of Revelation 3:20. The verse goes something like this, depending on which version you read [I'm using the Jewish New Testament]:
Here, I'm standing at the door, knocking. If someone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he will eat with me.
The 'traditional' interpretation is that the 'knocker' is God, or Jesus, or the Holy Spirit; that the door is the door to a person's heart; that if one opens the door that person has let God in; and that eating with God is a good sign that a person is 'in' with God and vice versa, that the person will go to heaven/be in God's kingdom/is saved from sin/etc.
It seems a simple enough verse to stomach. But adding even just a little bit of context confuses things. This passage is in Revelation. Without going into an uber-detailed examination of it, let's agree for the sake of this blog post that Revelation is the subject of much contention among just about anybody that reads the Bible, scholar or layperson.
The text itself says it is the "apokalupsis" (Greek for 'unveiling') which God gave to Jesus by sending an angel to his servant John. Now that is some wicked hearsay! It is apparently about the 'end times' (predicting the future), is based on an alleged 'vision', and the mysterious supposed author maybe wrote some other letters included in the New Testament, but nobody really knows. And therein lies a small portion of the contention. Was John high on some drug? Was it really a revelation from God? Was John really the author? And what the HELL is he talking about?
It makes me think twice about the appropriateness of using this particular passage as a teaching tool for our toddlers in Sunday School.
I think many of us have been exposed to this verse, if only through some version of the ubiquitous painting (above) seen all over the US, and I would venture to guess the world. It is usually a white Jesus...but that's a whole other 47 gigabites of text we can't go into here.
Apparently, this is a belief held by highly educated folk: that this applies only to the Laodiceans. Hm. So God only knocks at the doors of their hearts, not anybody else's? But what about the part that says 'if SOMEONE hears...'? And why, pray tell, if He's knocking, would a person inside hear his 'voice'? Wouldn't that person hear a knocking sound? I'm not being silly here.
The problem I have with this interpretation is that this means, if applied to the Bible as a whole, all the other letters written to specific people in the Bible are applicable to only the recipients of those letters. And the New Testament is pretty much just a collection of letters. This does not make sense to me, although I've wondered about this style of Biblical interpretation.
I guess only each person can know if there is a particular knocking, a voice, and whether or not to answer.
(I included the second and third pictures because, honestly, I thought they were funny.)
