RRR_discipling_Recount
The impossibility of recounting your Christian experience makes an idea about recount very susceptible to criticism. After all, when King David took an unnecessary census in the Old Testament, look at what followed behind that. Recounting is not that kind of taking a census. Rather, recounting is looking realistically at what has taken place, in terms of the many and various things that you can actually recall and recount.
These things have developed you into the kind of disciple maker that you are today. If you are not a disciple maker, recounting will sometimes give you that deep breath that says, “These things has my Lord Christ done for me. How dare I not listen to His command to make disciples?” It can be a centering kind of objective.
The other thing about recounting that we want to get out of the way at the front end is that this is not just remembering. Remembering is sweet—it has the flavors of the event, the ideas in the event, the people in the event. Recounting has Christ in the event. You see Jesus moving and walking in your life; you actually see Jesus, if you will, among the lampstands that represent the potential ministry of your life.
That’s how John saw Him—amongst the church, in the church, being involved with the church. And that’s how I believe we would properly interpret what John says about his encounter with Jesus on the Isle of Patmos, and how it changed him. Christ had a mission for him that John wasn’t aware of: He wanted him to write letters to the churches.
It would be hard to do that on an island like Patmos—a mining island. I’m not sure there was a lot of papyri laying around to be used.
So in some sense, my belief is either Pastor Gallaty, Robby Gallaty of Long Hollow Church, is correct, and Revelation was written prior to the Patmos event—I don’t know, perhaps in 65 AD, perhaps after the destruction of the temple—I don’t know, I simply don’t know.
Or it could be split: it could have been written earlier, and then he was exiled to Patmos, and when he returned to Ephesus, he recalled those things rather. But I don’t know.
There’s a group of folks who favor the latter writing, around 96 AD, and John would have been a very old fellow by then. We don’t know. You can’t really, I don’t think, necessarily pin down with any accuracy from the Bible, front scripture relating to scripture, when Revelation was actually penned.
This much I know: if Pastor Gallaty is correct, it makes a lot of sense. Because then, interpreting Revelation forward, it makes perfect sense that at the end John would display the Kingdom of God as he does, and that he would insist that none of the meanings of the words in this text need to be changed. Because you do have to change some of the meanings of the words in dispensationalism in order to follow along with a later-day writing and that kind of thing.
We’re not going to get into that. That’s not recounting. But John may have been recounting. And my encouragement to you is to recount. Don’t get all melodramatic in recounting, but rather try to be accurate. Accuracy in recounting will show you that Christ has indeed walked in your Christian life.
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