Shifting Culture
Shifting Culture
Ep. 307 Shane J. Wood - Encountering Jesus in the Book of Revelation
For a lot of people, Revelation is the Bible’s great mystery—full of wild images and swirling predictions, often left to collect dust or to stir up arguments about the end times. But beneath all the confusion, Revelation also speaks to something deeply human: our ache for intimacy, our struggle with loneliness, and our longing to know that God is closer than we think. Today I’m joined by Dr. Shane J. Wood - professor, theologian, and author of Thinning the Veil. Shane has spent decades steeped in Revelation, not as a codebook for the future, but as a guide for living with honesty and presence right now. His approach is all about transformation: what does it mean to let the way of Jesus reshape our identity, our relationships, and the way we move through a world that often feels disconnected? In this conversation, we dive into how loneliness touches us all, how the presence of God can feel just out of reach, and how the message of Revelation invites us to draw near—to God and to one another. We talk about the cycles of power and fear that keep us apart, and how worship and vulnerability can open the door to real, embodied intimacy. If you’ve ever wondered where God is in the middle of your isolation, or if faith can make a difference in our deepest places of longing, I invite you to listen as we peel back the layers and look for the thin places—where heaven and earth meet, and where we discover what it means to be fully known and fully loved. So join us.
Shane J. Wood (PhD, University of Edinburgh) is professor of New Testament and Its Origins at Ozark Christian College. In addition to speaking at churches and conferences worldwide, Shane produces a variety of audio, video, and written resources available at shanejwood.com. He is the author of multiple books, with his most recent book entitled "Thinning the Veil: Encountering Jesus Christ in the Book of Revelation" (IVP). Shane and his wife, Sara, have four children and live in southwest Missouri.
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In Revelation, who you worship you become because your action flows from identity. And what worship is doing is it's actually crafting your identity. This is why idolatry is so dangerous. Is because when you worship something other than God, you take on their characteristics and qualities. And that happens, that transfer. It happens through worship.
Joshua Johnson:Hello and welcome to the shifting culture podcast in which we have conversations about the culture we create and the impact we can make. We long to see the body of Christ look like Jesus. I'm your host. Joshua Johnson, for a lot of people, Revelation is the Bible's great mystery, full of wild images and swirling predictions, often left to collect dust or to stir up arguments about the end times. But beneath all the confusion, Revelation can also speak to something deeply human, our ache for intimacy, our struggle with loneliness, and our longing to know that God is closer than we think. Today, I'm joined by Shane J wood, Professor, theologian and author of thinning the veil. Shane has spent decades steeped in Revelation, not as a code book for the future, but as a guide for living with honesty and presence right now, his approach is all about transformation. What does it mean to let the way of Jesus reshape our identity, our relationships and the way we move through a world that often feels disconnected? In this conversation, we dive into how loneliness touches us all, how the presence of God can feel just out of reach, and how the message of revelation invites us to draw near to a God and to one another. We talk about the cycles of power and fear that keep us apart, and how worship and vulnerability can open the door to real, embodied intimacy. If you've ever wondered where God is in the middle of your isolation, or if faith can make a difference in our deepest places of longing, I invite you to listen as we peel back the layers and look for the thin places where heaven and earth meet and where we discover what it means to be fully known and fully loved. So join us as we take an unexpected Look at Revelation through the lens of loneliness and intimacy, so that the veil will be thinned and we can realize that God is closer than we think. Here is my conversation with Shane J wood, Shane, welcome to shifting culture. Excited to have you
Shane Wood:on thanks for joining me. My goodness. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. I'm really excited to
Joshua Johnson:get into thinning the veil. Your new book about Revelation, this mysterious book that is so life giving and life transforming, if we let it be, if we just forget about trying to predict the end of the world and actually let it read us and inform how we live. It could be really life giving. You've done a lot of revelation work in your life. You You're steeped in it, and you talk about it, you teach it. Why revelation? Why is this book something that you're fascinated with, yeah,
Shane Wood:you know, some some wonder if I'm just a glutton for punishment, and maybe, in some ways, I am, but, but truthfully, it's, it's a book that grabbed a hold of my heart almost 25 years ago as an undergrad here where I now teach at Ozark Christian College, and it just never let me Go. It's this fascinating combination of of art and yet the mind, where you're wrestling with images as well as the messages themselves. It's a book that really transformed me, I would even almost say, more, than any other book I've encountered in the in the Bible. And it just seems to keep on giving.
Joshua Johnson:Take me into that place of you as an undergrad who was Shane wood at that point, and what were you wrestling with, and why did it capture your heart? What was transforming to you at that point in your
Shane Wood:life? I was a curious young punk, is probably the way I would describe that. And I had grown up in the church my whole life, but whenever there were rocks, I had never really been exposed to or allowed to turn over. I was intrigued by them, and so I guess you could call it a part of my rebellious phase as an undergrad. Was my sophomore year deciding I'm going to take revelation. I've never heard a sermon on it. We didn't really talk about it in Sunday school, and I want to know what they've been keeping hidden from me, and what I found was both shocking with the strangeness of the imagery, but I found it to be so clearly, almost sternly challenging to me as a young follower of Jesus that was looking to lead other followers of Jesus,
Joshua Johnson:I think really. Your in your early 20s, you're going going through that phase when you get challenged with something. Oftentimes you're you're overzealous to put that into practice, to do something with it. So what did you do with it, with the challenge? Like, what did it like create the impetus for you to start to do in your
Shane Wood:life. Yeah, it was more of the of the transformative elements that I found, you know, whenever I saw myself reflected in the church of Ephesus, who is really good at truth, but not really good at handling that truth with love. And I saw a lot of myself in that as a young, 20 year old and and how Jesus even looks at that church and says, and yet, I'm this close to removing your lampstand like Shane, you can get all the right answers, but if you don't handle it with the tenderness of God, then it's still actually a weird form of rebellion. I mean, so it was those consistent challenges as a young, 20 year old that really just kept me coming from more because I grew up in a little bit of a legalistic setting, and so the idea of self immolation or self lashing, I was attuned to, but not one when it came with this tenderness. So Revelation three to the church of Laodicea, Jesus says, well, but I rebuke those that I love. So it's, it's not a hitting, it's, it's a guiding and that that voice in Revelation kept pulling me deeper in
Joshua Johnson:before we get into the machinations of Revelation. What is actually saying? I want to know, what are some of the threads? What are the the places that you have seen the church veer off when it comes to Revelation, that we're maybe asking the wrong questions. Where are we off the track
Shane Wood:on some level, what has pulled us into different directions than maybe what Revelation was hoping to guide us in is our longing for significance. We each have this as individuals. We want our lives to mean something, and some of the times that we do this can be uplifting to ourselves and others, and some of our some of our pursuits of meaning or significance can be misguided, and I think in this case, what we're doing is we've taken revelation and we've turned it into a book of prediction, a book that's going to tell us the future. Why? Because, on some sense, our pursuit of trying to figure out when Jesus is coming back again is asking the question, Does my time, does my life at this moment, matter to God, and what more ultimate significance could it have if we were living in the time that Jesus was coming back and we could predict it? And as a result, we've taken this book that I think is calling us to something deeper than mere prediction, but we've taken it and we've settled for prediction of the future, with Revelation forcing it into conversations that revelation simply just doesn't, isn't really interested in discussing. So
Joshua Johnson:what is it interested in discussing? What is revelation about? Then, if it's not just about predicting the end of the world, what is revelation about,
Shane Wood:yeah, it's about what every other prophetic book in the entire Bible is about, and that's the transformation of the reader, and that's one of the things we often overlook. You know, we have Daniel and Isaiah and Ezekiel and and all of these books that do, at times, engage with the future, but if future is ever predicted or engaged, it's in service of a greater goal, and that is the repentance of the reader, the drawing closer of the reader to the God that is sovereign over history regardless of what happens. And that's revelations goal. Revelations goal is the transformation of those that are receiving it. Take
Joshua Johnson:me into the writer of Revelation. I mean, a John. Where was he? What was happening in his life?
Shane Wood:You know, we're at the end of the first century, and so at this time, Domitian is the emperor of of the Roman Empire. And it's a time of tension. Domitian is the younger brother of Titus, who only reigned for two years, 79 to 81 and his dad, Vespasian, was, was the primary general that even you know, was instrumental in the destruction of Jerusalem and of the temple. And when Domitian is reigning, he's kind of struggling with this bad resume, just kind of like the small man complex, where he just really didn't have a lot to demonstrate his legitimacy to be the Emperor. And what that led to was was chaotic expressions of violence towards the Senate and towards anything he saw as a threat to his legitimacy, including Christians or those that were falling into Jewish ways. Is one of the ways that the Roman writers wrote, especially when it came to prophets claiming to be empowered by God, and John would have fallen into this category. John's the last living apostle. He has been ministering in Asia Minor for this point, for decades, which would have been, you know what? The cities of Revelation are actually written to Ephesus all the way through a lot of see Laodicea and revelation. One begins with him exiled in. On the island of Patmos because of his testimony to the word of Jesus Christ. I where I begin in the book within the veil, is trying to really put on the flesh of John. John was separate from what was familiar. He was missing funerals of the people that he ministered to. He was missing births. He was missing birthdays. He was alone and lonely and separated from those that he loves. And therefore, I think revelation begins on a very different note than what we think. It begins on a note of loneliness.
Joshua Johnson:Well, if it begins on a note of loneliness, that actually helps us enter into this mysterious book that we think is mysterious. We're in a culture of loneliness at the moment, there's a lot of lonely people, and there's a lot of speculation of why we're all lonely. But loneliness is there? Have you dealt with loneliness, and what then, if you have then, how has revelation then impacted you in the midst of loneliness? Actually,
Shane Wood:in chapter one, I think one of the very first things, I quote, is my journal at like, three in the morning where I am I'm just crying out to God in a time of loneliness and and one of the things, as I was reflecting on Revelation in my own life, is loneliness finds everybody. It doesn't take into consideration your your gender or your ethnicity or your bank account. It, it finds everyone and absolutely, there have been significant seasons, even recent where, where loneliness has been all consuming. But as I wrestled with John's pursuit of loneliness, as well as saints throughout history, from Mother Teresa, who I bring up in chapter one as well, who her book come be, my light demonstrates that she experienced, a darkness, a separation from Jesus for 27 years, where she didn't sense Him. And that, to me, wasn't just like comfort in the sense of like, you know, Misery loves company, but it makes me stop and go, Okay, this isn't a disease that demonstrates I'm far from God. It might actually be a conduit through which I can find intimacy with God if I follow it in the way of the apostles and saints
Joshua Johnson:and mother, Teresa kept going and did her work in the midst of like, God is far from me. I don't sense His presence at all. And I'm gonna do this difficult thing. Calcutta is no joke like and everything that she was she was doing, I can't imagine being in her position and not feeling the presence of God and doing it anyways. How do we then stay faithful in the midst, when the presence of God is far from us, we don't sense the presence. What does that look like? What did you learn from Mother Teresa that can help us continue on and be faithful?
Shane Wood:Yeah, you know, in and this is actually what we're talking about here. Is even where the title of the book was, was born. You know the idea the books that's in titles thinning the veil. And the idea is that in Revelation, and it's something that Mother Teresa saw that I'm trying to see. But in Revelation, the veil that we assume separates Heaven and Earth is actually not as thick as we've assumed. That in Revelation one, you know, Jesus is walking amongst the lampstands. And it says at the end of chapter one that the lamp stands are the churches, like he is present among us in a variety of ways throughout the text. So in chapters two and three, there is an angel that has been that has been charged with the vitality of the different congregations in each of the cities. Why? Because what we think is beyond the veil is actually amongst us, and vice versa. So in Revelation eight, when we pray, all of Heaven goes silent for half an hour to receive our prayers. Why? Because the veil is not as thick as we've assumed, and and the way that veil became so thin was through Jesus. And so what I see in Mother Teresa, and what I see in Revelation is this, this belief that regardless of what our eyes or our mind may play tricks on us about what we currently perceive as God's closeness or farness from us, that he is actually far more closer than what it is that we've assumed. Now some of us may experience that closeness like the warmth of a mother's hug. Some of us may experience it, though more of like getting close to the sun, and when you are close to the sun, that the light actually blinds you, and you experience intimacy as a darkness, but it's actually his closeness. So
Joshua Johnson:what is he saying to the churches in here, the seven churches, and so if it's a revelation of Jesus, talk about intimacy to lonely people. You're bringing about intimacy. It feels like he's speaking to believers in this place. What's he trying to say? How is he trying to move us in a direction that looks more like Jesus?
Shane Wood:I think it has a lot to do with what happens when we are lonely. When we are lonely, we become. We can become, I guess I should say it's not an assured thing, but we can become erratic in our emotions or in our. Frustrations, or in our desire to bring stability to what feels very unstable. And so typically, what we do is we find different ways to medicate, whether it be through numbing or whether it be through bouts of anger, or like John, you know, in Revelation, twice, he worships an angel. So idolatry, which is, which is what loneliness does is it tempts us to become someone that at our core, even as Christians, we're not. And what Revelation challenges us with is this idea to see clearly. It thins the veil to be able to see, allow us to see closeness of God, but also to see who the enemy truly is and how the enemy functions, and what weapons we can use to fight that enemy, like faith and truth and love. But what weapons also don't work with this enemy, like violence or like, you know, bouts of anger or self protection, Revelation calls us to a different way of living, not because we want to be different, but because Jesus has forged this path through his own bouts with loneliness, like in Gethsemane. So
Joshua Johnson:when we're in this space with John, there is, there is an empire at the moment, that was trying to destroy Christians and Jews, and there's a place where you're saying, hey, if we defeat this empire, life will be okay. But Jesus may be saying something else here. What's it having to say to us in the midst of living in Empire, or us being the Empire, what is it
Shane Wood:exactly? What's
Joshua Johnson:it saying in the midst of it is Jesus saying, you follow these things, you can defeat this earthly Empire right here and you're going to be okay? Or is he saying something more substantial and more cosmos in nature. What Revelation
Shane Wood:describes is, if your target is to destroy the empire that is trying to destroy you, you've you're settling. The target's too small and that now that's difficult whenever you are experiencing the direct struggle and pain and persecution of this empire, but, but Roman revelation is actually referred to multiple times as Babylon, which means, number one, we've seen this before. Like this isn't a new issue. This goes back generations. We've seen it with with Daniel and his three companions going into Nebuchadnezzar reign, we've seen this iteration of empires reigning. And what the empires are is a temptation to believe that the world functions in a way that's different than what God has described it as functioning. But power is different than a sacrificial lamb, that victory is different than sacrificing yourself like Christ did on the cross. And so whenever you're surrounded by Empire, you're surrounded by illusion, you're surrounded by this temptation that that if you grasp for power like Adam and Eve did in the Garden of Eden, then you can become God. But it didn't work for Adam and Eve and it doesn't work for empires. And so what Revelation does is it clarifies the enemy. It basically says that the goal is to target the dragon and the two beasts, which is this unholy trinity that parodies God the Father, God the Son and God the Spirit. And even though this trinity, at the time of the end of the first century is using Rome to destroy Rome just means you'll be courting another Babylon. You really haven't advanced anything, but whenever you convert that enemy into a friend, now, all of a sudden the kingdom of Satan starts to falter where love of enemy and Revelation is a very like the Sermon on the Mount resonates through the book of Revelation in ways that we often don't see. But the Empire intentionally pushes us into this delusion so that we can continue to perpetuate the kingdom by not knowing who the true enemy is. So
Joshua Johnson:if we don't know the true enemy, if we think it's this earthly empire, one of the things that it does for me is think, Hey, I'm going to take up arms, or I'm going to try to gain power so that I could overthrow this empire. So I take on earthly power so I could defeat earthly power. But we're not actually then seeing the true enemy behind us, right? So then what is, what is our posture? How should, then, should we live? What does that look like in the midst of a power struggle and power dynamics that are unjust and are not supposed to be there?
Shane Wood:It's to believe the ridiculousness of Revelation when it says that the true act of war against the enemy is your worship. And I just don't think we believe that. And you can see this just really by scrolling through Christian feeds on social media, we believe that grasps of power through anger and vitriol is the way to get what it is that we have decided is what God wants, when in reality. What God is calling us to is something that's far beyond social media feeds or, frankly, any political position that any Christian could ever even run for. It's calling us to a worship that is so profound that we do not just merely know about Jesus or talk about him, but we become the hands and feet of Jesus, and as Revelation 14 says, we go wherever the lamb goes, even if it's to a cross.
Joshua Johnson:We have these cycles over and over and over again of some power coming into this world, destroying somebody. And then maybe there's revolution. There's something where the subjugated people then take power, and then they go, Hey, we have power. We can subjugate other people. And it's just it's a cycle of revenge over and over again. Have you seen anything? How do we stop that cycle? What stops the cycle of revenge believing
Shane Wood:what Christ revealed at the cross? And so let me, let me get a little personal, to show you how I've even seen this in my own life. So my story, which I've written about in in a in another book called between two trees, is I was, I was molested by a babysitter when I was six years old, and what I believed in my heart for 25 years was two things would actually free me from this secrecy, telling no one. And number two, anger, hatred towards the babysitter, what I, what I finally started to wrestle with through counseling and therapy, and frankly, in my prayer closet was the only way to truly, to truly be free of this, this victimizing moment. To be a victim that is that is no longer being victimized, is to convert that enemy into a friend, not through necessarily direct reconciliation, because that isn't always safe, but through forgiveness, where I genuinely look at him and go your pain, which was probably passed on from somebody else to him, that has now been passed on to me, dies with me, that that pain will no longer be on tour. It will be buried in me, and it will be resurrected into scars that celebrate a wound that is not only something that was deep, but something that is healed. And that's what Christ did he he took the violence and the anger of the world into himself so that it does not pass on beyond him. And what if that was the posture with which we engage the greatest enemy in all of our stories? How does that then start to change, not only church discourses, but online forums, and, frankly, even the way in which we function as a society, as a culture? What if we were a culture not of anger and vengeance, but a culture of grace and mercy, not one where people aren't held accountable, but one where ultimately the accountability only truly is found, not when somebody is in prison for what they've done, but for whenever the victim and the victimizer can truly both find grace in Jesus, Christ. Man,
Joshua Johnson:what a wonderful world that would be like that man the church would be the church. So if I'm focusing on enemy, one of the enemies that we're trying to focus on, if we're looking at the book of Revelation, which is not even there, but is talking about the AntiChrist, and it's not even antichrist, is the Antichrist in the book of Revelation, it's not mentioned one time. Okay, so then, why do we talk about it, and why are we always looking at the next US president to be the Antichrist?
Shane Wood:Yeah, we're we're well. And you know, some of that has to do with the way in which we deal with our pain. We love to project our pain onto other people instead of staring it square in the face. We love to do this. And so we grab different figures, you know. So second, Thessalonians, two, this man of lawlessness, and First John, and second John, where it mentions an antichrist. We stitch together these figures once again to trying to find a way in which this moment in history is significant. But typically, that's done through casting stones at the people that we don't like. So the Antichrist figure, which I actually don't believe the Bible teaches, is a future figure, First John, and second, John very clearly say that the Antichrist is among us, and it's anybody that denies that Jesus is has come in the flesh like it gives us a definition. We just don't accept it as an antichrist. They're plural. Yeah, at times it even says antichrists, and they are presently among you. And but you know, we've seen Martin Luther was called the Antichrist by Catholics, and the Pope was called an antichrist by the reformers. And we've done this throughout history as a way of outsourcing our pain, as a way of medicating it, by casting it upon someone else. And again, that goes back to what we just talked about a minute ago. Instead, instead of looking for some future figure that we can cast our problems on, why don't we take Jesus up on his offer?
Joshua Johnson:How do we do that? How do we take him up on his offer and walk into it like, what does that look like? A
Shane Wood:step at a time to. The pain. And this is, this is kind of the mystery of pain. Whenever you in Revelation does this, when you look at and, frankly, reflection on the crucifixion itself, does this. Is one of the things about the anatomy of pain. Is when you confront it and walk toward it, it actually begins to shrink. But the more that you hide from it, and more that you walk away from it, the more that it actually grows and controls you, not just in conscious moments, but in subconscious movements. Walking towards the pain, which can create great senses of loneliness, but walking toward it is the only way that we can stop entrusting the darkness with something that only the light can handle. And at times, this is done in in a variety of settings, whether it be through prayer, professional therapists or counseling, pastors, maybe even the perpetrators themselves, if that's a possibility and it's safe to do that, but hiding from pain continues these spirals and cycles of violence because we're looking for a place to put it
Joshua Johnson:like like rubber bands. If you run away from the rubber bands on either side, right, you're just going to break. But if you run towards it, the tension releases, and you're able to then, yeah, forgive. And so you're running towards that, that pain, but it's actually then it relieves tension, which we think that the other way is going to relieve the tension, but all it does is break us. We're holding on to things that we are never meant to hold on to. And
Shane Wood:what you just described there is exactly what we see is the progression from Gethsemane to Jesus in front of Pontius Pilate in Gethsemane, he has this pain in front of him that he's trying to find a way around. And he eventually presses into it, surrenders it, and when he does it, brings a steadiness. He's not erratic. He doesn't even feel the need to to speak when he's being falsely accused. He has a steadiness and a resolve that, yes, moves to the cross greater pain, but eventually moves to the ability when he's hanging on the cross, for him to be able to say, Father, forgive these enemies. They don't know what they're doing.
Joshua Johnson:When I have anxious thoughts, if I'm in some anxiety or worry that there's some pain, and I just I wanted to go away. I try to hold on tight. And when I hold on tight, it feels like it gets worse and worse. But when I open things up and surrender to it, like Jesus dead and he surrendered to it. It feels freeing. I don't know how that works, but it does. That's right, like, like, what does surrender look like for us there in the midst of all this? Then,
Shane Wood:yeah, and it's to me, that's the daily that's the daily push into the promises of God that, frankly, is beyond what we're able to see. Hence the idea of thinning the veil. And it's something I'm learning daily, and I feel like it's where I'm at the last four months or so. It's what God's really called me deeper into, is surrender in everything. Because worry is, is my number one sin, which some people are like, Oh, that's your number one sin. And it's like, well, it was one of the you know, things that choked out the fruit, you know, in Jesus's parable of the soil. But whatever you know, but it is you know, what worry at its core says is, I care about how things come out in the end. And caring is not the problem. It's carrying the problem that is, frankly, just too large for me to carry. And again, that what we're describing with worry and the same thing as prediction is this difficult relationship between us and the future, the destabilization of future we try to apprehend by predicting it or by worrying about it, which typically our worry is trying to outflank, find a solution for that which we can't find a solution for and ultimately, the only antidote is to actually control what you can control. But, but press into the serenity of God, knowing that most of what it is that exists only he can control, and he's pretty good at it.
Joshua Johnson:He's much better than I am. He's much better than I indeed that's good. How much is the book of Revelation talking to us about our our discipleship to Jesus, how we then should emulate Jesus, embody Jesus, be like Jesus, and then, how does that inform discipleship and disciple making in our lives?
Shane Wood:Yeah, the answer to that would be, whether we believe it or not, every chapter of all in all 404 verses of revelation has that goal, and that's even something that that's hard for us to get past, because we're so caught up in these predictive elements and things that nature, but, but, but, John is a pastor writing to his congregation like we're overhearing A congregate. We're overhearing a conversation in Revelation, And his goal is the same thing that all of us that are pastors and disciple makers is, is to help guide them into a deeper relationship with Jesus by becoming his hands and feet. And so how does this impact disciple making, the goal of the disciple, and I've already quoted this once, but in Revelation. 14, three, there's this image of the 144,000 who have the lamb's name and the name of God that's emblazoned on their foreheads, but it says this fascinating phrase that says, they follow the Lamb wherever He goes. And it's one of those things where I my son and I, we spent this this weekend together at a father son retreat, and we were memorizing, uh, Mark 1228, through 30. You know, what is the greatest commandment, love, Lord of God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. And then on, on Sunday night, um, after the retreat, um, he was, he was having just some struggles. He was having some issues, um, and he was using his words to hurt other people as a way of dealing with his own pain. And we were sitting in the in the the garage, and I was talking through all of it with him, and finally I just said, Hey, buddy, listen, we spent all weekend long memorizing this verse. And I said, Do you remember the verse? And He quoted it word for word. And I said, it's wonderful that you can memorize scripture, but if you don't embody it, you're not actually doing what the scripture is asking you to do, like, like, like. The Bible is not just teaching us about the Word of God. It is calling to craft us into the Word of God itself, like we are to do what Christ did for us, put on put on flesh. You know, didn't grasp equality with God, but, but instead took on the flesh of us. He's asking us to do the same and invert and reverse, to not grab onto the flesh of our sin, but to clothe ourselves with Christ, as Colossians, three says, to actually become the hands and feet of Jesus, so that we can live up to the name that Paul gives us in First Corinthians 12, and that's the body of Christ. That's not a metaphor. That's a calling. You
Joshua Johnson:said this something was written on their foreheads, and they followed the lamb. It looked like a this is my identity. This is who I am. You could see it right here, my forehead, and I'm going to follow this lamb. So the Antichrist may not be mentioned in Revelation. Mark of the Beast is right? So this number is 666, if I have that on my head, it seems like I'm following, following something else. I'm following the ways of the world, or the ways of empire, whatever it is. I'm following something different. How does our life flow from our identity? So
Shane Wood:in Revelation, who you worship, you become. That's the that's one of the key lines that I bring out in the book around, I think around chapter five, because, because action flows from identity. So I begin, I believe it's chapter four or five on with a quote from Stuart Briscoe, who once said, The more you tell someone who they are, the less you have to tell them what to do. And the reason why is is because your action flows from identity, and what worship is doing is it's actually crafting your identity. This is why idolatry is so dangerous. Is because when you worship something other than God, you take on their characteristics and qualities. And that happens, that transference happens through worship. But the more that we take on or the more that we press ourselves into Christ Himself, worshiping God, the Father, the Son and the Spirit, the more that we should be taking on their qualities, or, as it says elsewhere in the Bible, the fruit of the Spirit. But worship is the conduit through which transformation happens, which is ultimately why worship is the place where the war is fought.
Joshua Johnson:So the fruits of what is happening in our lives, the action of our lives, then reflects back to us who we're worshiping or what we're worshiping. So what is recognizing the fruit in our lives, and not just like throwing stones at somebody else, but actually doing that self reflection of saying, Oh, what is the real fruit of my life, not just the knowledge of my life, or not just the things I know about, but what is actually coming out of my Yeah, yeah.
Shane Wood:In Revelation, what you do is not, not divorced from who you are at all. As a matter of fact, that that's even the conversation in chapters two and three with the churches he goes, here's your actions. But the problem is, as you said, you were following me, and you are right. The first place to start is not down the pew. This isn't one of those things where you know, you you read the text and you're like, Oh man, I wish you know my friend was listening to this sermon. It's or my wife, or, you know, never been in that situation, never, no. But it is the call of Revelation is to stare into the mirror of your own soul and encounter Jesus in that space. And what you always will find is that God it will not settle for you to stay the same, but you will also find that he is far more tender with you than you are with yourself. And but you're right, the action is the entry point. I mean, if we want to ask the question, I mean, this is a question we need to ask as individuals and collectively as a church, do our actions match Christ? Because if I'm going to take the first six letters of the name Christian seriously, then it's not just something that. I wear as a name tag, but it's something that actually defines who I am and what, therefore what I do. So
Joshua Johnson:then what it doesn't mean to be human? What here
Shane Wood:let me, let me tell you what it doesn't mean to be human. What it means to be human does not mean to sin. And this is a huge myth in the church, because people are like, Oh no, to be human is to sin, and I'm like, No, that's not true. If that's the case, then Adam and Eve weren't fully human until Genesis three, like, like, evil didn't create Adam and Eve. And if it to be human, if it means to sin, then Jesus was never human. If that's the case, then we're not actually saved. Like, we have to remember that sin is the imposter, not holiness?
Joshua Johnson:Have we been flipped on his head? So is it the pursuit of holiness? Is that what it means to be human, or what is it? Yeah,
Shane Wood:I think that well, and I'm not, please don't hear me playing semantic games, but I do. I believe it is the pursuit of God. Holiness will be a byproduct of our pursuit of him. But what it means to be human is to actually to look like Jesus. Jesus was the most fully human, true human, that we've ever seen. As a matter of fact, he's the Irenaeus, who was a disciple of Polycarp, who was a direct disciple of John, the apostle. Irenaeus says that when it comes to the we were created in the image of God, he said, we've heard this in Word, but we've never actually seen it until Christ. So, so the image of God we were created in in Genesis. 126, and 27 has been covered with with garments of skin, as the Eastern theologians would say, garments of skin from Genesis 320, and 21 have covered over the true image of God we were created in. But Christ came by putting on that skin, he came to actually demonstrate to us what the image that we had been divorced from or had marred what it truly is so to be truly human is to follow the Lamb wherever He goes.
Joshua Johnson:But it is a beautiful thing for me to sit there and think, Okay, what it means to be human is Jesus, and then try and then embody Jesus. Because if we're made in the image of God, this is it. He's the image like he's the perfect image that then we get to follow. And so I then can know what it means to be human, what it means to truly live, what it means to be in this world. And it's about being like Jesus. And so if there are things in my life that are not like Jesus. I gotta figure that out. I think we all do. Take us back then into this thinning the veil conversation, heaven is closer than we think. The kingdom is have closer than we think. God is closer than we think that the veil is not thick. It's thin like the world is a thin place. It's not a thick place, right? The the Spirit of God is, is there with us, but we don't recognize it. So then, how do we live if one revelation is not just predictive, so it's not just about where I go when I die, and looking at heaven and making sure that the red heifers are in Israel. And then we could go to heaven if the if it's not just that. And then, if heaven is here with us, how do we reconcile the fact that we have heavenly things? Our enemy is not flesh and blood, but it's actually powers and principalities. So it's all about on the other side of the veil, like, that's the real stuff. Like, what we're living in is not really, it's it's here, but it's real. So there's a dichotomy of, like, am I living there, or am I living here? Or, how do we merge those together while we're living life? Like, what does that look like? No.
Shane Wood:And that dichotomy that you're talking about is created by by sin itself. Sin. Sin doesn't just infest us. It doesn't just separate us from God. It pushes us deeper into the illusion that what we what we see and perceive through the filter of sin, is what we think is real. And so the more that you confront the sin, which a lot of the times, is wrapped up into in your pain, the more that the illusion itself starts to dissipate, the more that you start to to live life in a way that God describes as as truly is the way that life should be lived. So things like forgiving your enemy, things like praying for those that persecute you, things like you know, it's the meek you know, in the the humble and the weak that inherit the kingdom of God. I mean, it's, it's, it's believing that that actually is the way that it is. The problem is, is that we have become so enmeshed in the illusion that we actually continue a to perpetuate sin in our own lives, and B, to continue to function in the world, in the. Way that is not truly how the world functions, but the only way that it functions, or we know how it functions, is by, is by pressing deeper into Christ himself. So as we continue to shed these fig leaves that are hiding us from what is true, by pressing deeper into light. Or, as you know, Ephesians, five says that as children of light, we actually begin to become brilliant, like the light of Christ that is shining on us. But the first thing we need to do is wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and then the light of Christ can shine on and through us. So really it's it's the dichotomy only really is experienced through the illusion of sin, but the more that we peel away our own sin, the more that we realize that no god is a lot closer and the enemy is a lot more pervasive. And frankly, a lot of the stuff that we see on the surface is, you know, to use the proverbial oceanic metaphor, it's just the tip of the iceberg. This isn't, it isn't really where the show is happening.
Joshua Johnson:I think a lot of people, their first identity is human right is, I'm a sinner. How does that then perpetuate the illusion, oh,
Shane Wood:it's a this. This is Oh, and this is, this may be one of the more controversial things I say on here. This is one of the things that's perpetuating a lot of problems in our churches today, is that most of our worship services are centered on that repetition of an identity statement that pushes us deeper into the illusion, more than it actually pushes us deeper to God. So we will. There's variations of it. We'll say things like, man, God, I just don't deserve to be in your presence. But we think in doing that, it actually exalts our His love for us. But as a parent, I've had my youngest, who we adopted. I had him once in a moment of contrition and a moment of I'm sorry. He's weeping, and he says, I don't deserve to be your son. And I immediately fired off and went, don't you ever say that to me? I said, it doesn't matter what you do. You are my son, period. And don't ever say you don't deserve that. And then I walked out of the room and thought, and yet I say that to my Father in heaven all the time, thinking, This draws me closer to him. It doesn't. It actually doesn't. Now at the very beginning of the starting line of your faith with Jesus, there is a point where you have to actually admit, like an addict, that you have a problem. But if all that you continue to repeat as you are moving along the discipleship journey, if all you keep repeating is the mantras at the beginning, you actually won't get to run the race. Running the race doesn't mean repeating that you are a sinner. It actually starts. Whenever you're running the race, you start repeating what God says about you. You start believing that what he says is true, things like you are co heirs with Christ, that you are my child, or Jesus even says, and now I call you friend, but we don't repeat those. And I think it's out of some weird, twisted definition of humility, which is comparable more to a divine depression than it is embracing who Christ not only is, but who he says you are in him.
Joshua Johnson:I keep telling my wife, I'm amazing, I'm awesome, and you're like, yeah, and you're so humble. She, you know, she replies, I was like, Yes, I am humble. I know exactly who I am, exactly who God is. If I'm a co heir with Christ, I am amazing, like I am there, I'm I'm with her. I'm a son of God. I am a co heir with Christ, I I'm sorry, I'm amazing. And
Shane Wood:it's but it's but it's important. When you think of the the parable The prodigal son, you see the collision of the son going to the Father saying, I am worthless, and the father saying, let's throw a party and throw a robe around you, because that's who you truly are. Yeah,
Joshua Johnson:it's good. The one thing that you did say those at the beginning of our journey with Christ, right? You say, like an addict, we have to say, we we have a problem. Yeah, I see a lot of addicts go through healing and do a lot of great things, but they continue to say, I'm an addict, like they continue to say, This is my identity, even though they're pursuing healing. What is so? So, how do we reconcile that? Yeah,
Shane Wood:and I definitely would not critique methodologies like aa that have clearly tapped into something that is working. What I will say is is that at a certain point, what the addict is trying to say is that the temptation is always real for them to slip back into their their habitual habits that led them down the path to destruction to begin with, to to get to a point where you don't believe you have the capacity to once again become addicted to sin or the medication of your own pain or something like that, that would be just as terrifying as you never embracing though the new identities that Christ gives you whenever you're resurrected. So. There is a part where the addict metaphor, I think, breaks down spiritually. Because I think the more that you repeat spiritually the the beginning of the addicts journey, the harder it will be for you to fully embrace the transformation that comes with a complete death and resurrection in Christ.
Joshua Johnson:So take us in the end of of the story. Where is this all going like, what is Revelation headed to?
Shane Wood:You know, Revelation 21 and 22 depicts this unbelievable moment where all that God had been excited about comes out in full expression. The way I describe it, I think, in the book, is, is God is giddy. He is so excited. And what makes him excited in Revelation 21 is him being with us, and us being with him. Where, where the veil is no longer thin. The veil is evaporated. There is no there is no veil. We have this full expression of God. Or John 17 three says, you know that eternal life is to know God. And so at the end of the book, infinity of the veil, I wrestle with this idea of first with me and then the church at large. But I'm like, am I worshiping a place or a person? Am I more excited about heaven or about the intimacy with God? And ultimately, whenever you see Revelation, 21 and 22 describe this closeness with God, the place starts to fall into the background, to the point where I'm not if that's the location where this intimacy can happen, sure, that's great, but the intimacy is the goal, and the way I say it in the book is is, but I don't want to wait until that moment to experience knowing God. Matter of fact, I want to try to get to know him so well down here that when I get to heaven, I'm not even really surprised by much, because I've tasted so much of who he is. The
Joshua Johnson:ultimate goal then is, is intimacy with God, and we're living our life where we could be intimate with God, then we can embody Jesus, who is the ultimate one, who was intimate with God. He didn't do anything unless the Father in Heaven did it like he was so intimate with the Father. That's, you know, that's how he lived his life. And so then we get to emulate that. And then so we get to be be intimate here and now in our life, and as we embody Jesus, then that means that we could be intimate in our relationships with our families and loved ones, that we could actually experience communion with each other and move from a sense of loneliness to a place of pure intimacy, which what
Shane Wood:a beautiful picture. Absolutely, absolutely.
Joshua Johnson:Shane, what is your hope for this book, for thinning the veil? What do you hope that readers will get from this?
Shane Wood:I think my hope is, is that they will encounter revelation differently. Would be, would be a one of the goals, you know, to see it not as it's kind of funny. It's almost like, whenever I say, No, no, Revelation is about Jesus. It's almost like sometimes people are like, disappointed. It's like, don't, don't be disappointed because you get more of Jesus, like allow it to be something that satiates a thirst that you may not even know, that you need quenched. But I think also secondarily, I would say, I hope it challenges readers of the Bible to read it differently. I think biblical study at its best is when you are unearthing the text, but then you're allowing the text to unearth you at the same time. It's a it's a mutual reading, where you aren't just reading the Word, you're allowing the word to read you. And I would hope that through this book, that that a that readers will have seen me do it first, like I'm going to allow the text, hopefully, what the book is is me allowing myself to be on Earth for everyone to see, and that that takes a little bit of levels and layers of vulnerability that I don't always know, that I actually have the capacity to engage but but then b it would be to to hopefully invite them to do the Same with their communities and with their time of study, with the word, if
Joshua Johnson:you go back to your 21 year old self, what advice would you give?
Shane Wood:Be patient. I really would. I was in such a rush in my early 20s that I ended up courting a relationship with worry and angst that ultimately I thought at the time in it did well, I should say it this way, it produced addictions into in me that were socially acceptable, like workaholism and like degrees. But I would just tell myself, be patient. It'll all unfold. Anything
Joshua Johnson:you've been reading or watching lately you recommend, oh,
Shane Wood:man, great question. I read very broadly, very I usually try to find this is going to be really weird. Usually, I always try to find something that's way off base that like that out of my normal study that that I read and so. Right now I'm reading the biography, Autobiography of Nikola Tesla, who I found to be just this fascinating figure that, at this point, gets lost in a lot of car dealerships, but he's just a fascinating figure that's been stirring stuff in me. And then I'm also reading the underground. What is it? The underground letters? I think that's what it's called by Fyodor Dostoevsky, which I always try to be reading something by some of the fictional literary giants over the last couple 100 years. So those two are grabbing my heart right now.
Joshua Johnson:That's good. How can people go get thinning the veil and anywhere else you'd like to point people to?
Shane Wood:Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's available. Well, it's available right now for pre order, but it'll be available may 20, anywhere, Amazon, IVP, christianbooks.com, Barnes and Noble wherever you can go and then. But then I also do. I have a website that offers hundreds of hours of free audio and video lecture from from my studies here at Ozark that they let me put up online for free. So, and that's Shane J wood.com so
Joshua Johnson:thank you to Ozark for for that absolutely let you put that up, and thank you for doing that. So that's so anybody can go Shane J wood.com and go see and just seep yourself in hundreds of hours of lectures, and just go into a little hole cave for a while, and then he'll come out different. Hopefully, hopefully it'll come out different. That'd be good. Well, Shane, thank you for this conversation. I really, really enjoyed. You actually taken away some of this veil of Revelation, that we actually have been veiled, that we can't see it clearly, that we think it's that it's a text, that it actually isn't. And it is not just a predictive future text, but it is about Jesus, and it tells us how we could follow and embody Jesus in incredible ways, that we could actually be disciples of him in the midst of power and Empire, that it's not just about the Empire that's here today and now, but it is about this cosmic unfolding where Satan is trying to take over, but God is more powerful that this light is here. It's going to shine, it's going to shine bright, and we can actually embody that, and we could become intimate with God. It's fantastic conversation. Loved it. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
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