Christians are increasingly going to be seen as different, and not in a good way. We are increasingly going to have to choose between obedience and comfort. The next decades will not bring apathy to the gospel, but antagonism. And that’s OK. After all, that has been the reality for most of God’s people through most of history. In this sense, as we move ahead in time, we’re going back—back to the world of the first-century church, and back even further to the Babylon of the exiles. And so we have many lessons from early Christians, and from men like Daniel and his friends.
When I was a child, I was taught this chorus:
This world is not my home,
I’m just a-passing through.
My treasures are laid up
Somewhere beyond the blue.
Honestly, until recently I had no idea what I was singing. For us in the English-speaking West, this world has tended to feel very much like home, and our treasures have been right before our eyes.
Perhaps it is only in the last few years in the United States that we have finally faced that what the Bible says is true: in this world we really are sojourners and exiles (1 Pet. 2:11). That reality has been clouded and obscured by the size and legal protection of the church in most of the Western world. But this world is not actually our home. We’re not supposed to settle down here. We’re not supposed to expect the church to be large, influential, and respected.
Christians are increasingly going to be seen as different, and not in a good way. We are increasingly going to have to choose between obedience and comfort. The next decades will not bring apathy to the gospel, but antagonism. And that’s OK. After all, that has been the reality for most of God’s people through most of history.
Christians are increasingly going to be seen as different, and not in a good way. We are increasingly going to have to choose between obedience and comfort. The next decades will not bring apathy to the gospel, but antagonism
In this sense, as we move ahead in time, we’re going back—back to the world of the first-century church, and back even further to the Babylon of the exiles. And so we have many lessons from early Christians, and from men like Daniel and his friends.
Statue vs. Rock
When we think of drawing inspiration for a post-Christian world from the book of Daniel, our minds perhaps instinctively turn to the fiery furnace or the writing on the wall or the lions’ den. But even before any of those events, there’s rich truth for our times in the dream that God gives the pagan king Nebuchadnezzar, and enables his godly servant Daniel to interpret—for here is a lesson about what the church is, and what the great empires and nations of the world are.
Here is, as Daniel explains it to the king, the content of the dream:
You saw, O king, and behold, a great image. This image, mighty and of exceeding brightness, stood before you, and its appearance was frightening. The head of this image was of fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its middle and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. As you looked, a stone was cut out by no human hand, and it struck the image on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold, all together were broken in pieces, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away, so that not a trace of them could be found. But the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. (Dan. 2:31–35)
The statue represents the great empires of the ancient world, with Nebuchadnezzar’s as the head. And all—all—are superseded by, and brought to nothing by, a small rock. The meaning? “The God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people” (Dan. 2:44).
