Faith Beyond Belief

A Reflection on Revelation 2:12-17

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A FAILURE OF FAITH

I entered pastoral ministry in my early twenties. I had been longing to be a minister since I had committed my life to Christ at age fourteen. I started preaching at age seventeen. But the reality of working in a church was very different from my expectations. To begin with, I still looked like a teenager, so when I tried to do pastoral visits—which I found terrifying even on my best days—people struggled to take me seriously. One large and intimidating man in our congregation even referred to me as “the little minister.” So, in my quest to find the confidence to serve faithfully and effectively, I turned to books written by charismatic pastors who spoke confidently about trusting God for everything, operating in the power of the Spirit, and living by faith. Ultimately, I concluded that I was in the wrong denomination and trying to fulfil the wrong ministry, and so I resigned with the intention that I would seek a role as a worship director at a charismatic church. The problem was that the accommodation in which my wife and I were living was provided by the church, and so I was not just giving up my job, but also my home.

I began to imagine what it would be like to own a property that could become a home for a community of people offering healing, prayer, and worship for hurting people. One night, as I was praying about this dream, I remembered (completely out of context) Jesus’ words, “According to your faith let it be done to you” (Matthew 9:29),^¹ and I decided to believe with all my heart that God would provide such a house before the time came for us to move out of the flat the church had provided. It didn’t occur to me that for such a dream to be fulfilled, I might need to be connected with the kinds of people who had houses to donate to ministries. I didn’t consider that I would need a reputation that would give potential donors confidence in my vision. What I had been taught was that all I needed to do was believe. And so I believed and I waited. The day of the move came, and no house had been given, so I asked the church to allow us to stay in their flat for one more day, and they graciously agreed. The next day, my wife and I rushed around to find a flat to rent in our price range that was immediately available. It took me a long time to get over the grief and embarrassment at the failure of my faith, but I learned some important lessons about God, believing, and reality through that experience.

JUST BELIEVE?

For centuries, Christians have debated whether God requires nothing more than wholehearted faith or if that faith needs to be combined, in some way, with ‘works’ or actions. On the one hand, we are told that “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8 CEB) and on the other that “For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead” (James 2:26 CEB). Even Jesus seemed to have a complex relationship with faith. He insisted that he had not come to abolish the law, which was the foundation of his Jewish faith (Matthew 5:17 CEB), but then he went on to teach using the refrain “You have heard that it was said…But I say to you… (Matthew 5:21-22, 27-28, 31-32, 33-34, 38-39, 43-44). And so many of the ways Jesus “fulfilled” the law looked an awful lot like ignoring the law to his religious opponents.²

I have often heard churches reflect on the nature and role of faith using three words: believing, belonging, and behaving. I remember hearing a colleague teach about the tendency in many churches to call people to believe, and then behave in accordance with that belief, so that they could belong. He argued that we should rather invite people to find belonging in community first, allow their relationships to shift their behaviour to line up with that of the community, and then call them to believe what we believe. At the time, I found this perspective compelling, but after interrogating it a little more, I realised that it still makes intellectual beliefs the priority. The belonging and behaving are simply a means to the end of getting people to believe what we do.

The problem with making faith primarily about what we believe—meaning what ideas or concepts or doctrines we give our intellectual assent to—is that it is possible to be devoted to Christ, to have a completely orthodox faith, but for it to have no impact on our lives, actions, attitudes, or relationships. When I believed that, if I just had enough faith, God would give me a house, I could claim that I was following Jesus, being a faithful Christian, and trusting God. But it required no action on my part and made no positive difference to my life or to that of the people around me. As Kevin Sweeney observes, when following Jesus and salvation are rooted in creeds, white people who agreed with the creeds could claim to be Christians and still be slaveholders. Today, people who affirm the creeds can be both Christian and indifferent to the suffering of black people and poor people. They can be antagonistic and violent toward LGBTQIA+ people. I would add that they can vote yes to a bill that seeks to provide tax cuts to billionaires while removing healthcare and other social protections from the most vulnerable in society. Because “the creeds don’t require anything from you”.³

It’s not that beliefs are unimportant. As Sweeney puts it, “I’m not trying to devalue beliefs, but I am trying to dethrone them.”⁴ It’s rather that beliefs on their own are not sufficient. Faith is not primarily about beliefs. It is “a much deeper movement of the heart, of the self at its deepest level.”⁵ As Jesus’ repeated conflicts with the religious leaders of his day show, faith is not primarily about getting our ideas correct. It is about living in a certain way, about beloving as Marcus Borg puts it.⁶ As Richard Rohr has so insightfully stated, “We don’t think ourselves into a new way of living; we live ourselves into a new way of thinking.”⁷ And when it comes to living in the way of Jesus, among the choices we must make is whether our lives will be shaped and directed by fear, which leads to self-protection, or love, which leads to self-giving.

TRUTH ABOUT TRUTH

The letter from Christ to the church in Pergamum (or Pergamos) reflects the struggle of these Christians with what it meant to believe, and the different implications of basing faith and lives on either fear or love. Christ described the city of Pergamum as the place “where Satan’s throne is” (Revelation 2:13)—possibly because it was the first city in Asia Minor to build a temple for emperor worship, it contained a shrine to Asclepius, a god of healing whose symbol was a serpent (which represents satan in other parts of the Revelation), and many other pagan temples.⁸ Pergamum’s religious and cultural life, as reflected in all of these religious centres, amounted to a system of values, norms, and political and social expectations that made faithfulness to Christ both difficult and dangerous—the only Christian martyr mentioned in the seven letters was Antipas, a member of the church at Pergamum.⁹ What was at stake for the Christians was not just whether or not they would be tolerant toward the other religions in their society. It was whether they would participate in the civil religion of the Roman Empire, which supported and sacralised violent, unjust, and oppressive imperial power.¹⁰ As Michael Gorman writes:

The target of Revelation’s prophetic critique is imperial idolatry (civil religion) and injustice (military, economic, political, and religious oppression), and specifically Rome’s imperial idolatry and injustice. But since Revelation is almost certainly not a response to a systematic, state-imposed persecution or widespread mistreatment of Christians by the masses, it is better read as a response to “ordinary empire,” to the everyday evils, injustices, and misguided allegiances that are daily with us.¹¹

In the church at Pergamum, as with Ephesus¹² and Thyatira, there were those who were not only comfortable to participate in the customs and practices of the society around them but who encouraged others to do so as well. These ”Nicolaitans” (Revelation 2:6, 15), followers of “Balaam’s teaching” (2:14), or “Jezebel” were all leading the believers astray by encouraging them to eat food sacrificed to idols and commit sexual immorality. Remembering that the Revelation was rooted in the prophetic tradition, and that the Hebrew prophets all referred to apostacy and idolatry as ‘adultery’ and sexual immorality, it is likely that Christ’s concern here is not literal sexual sin, but rather the sin of claiming to follow Christ while embracing the values and customs of the society in which the believer’s lived.¹³ To accommodate the Roman imperial cult was not just to participate in worshipping the emperor, but to condone or be complicit in the injustices perpetrated by the empire. To refuse to accommodate the imperial cult, to opt out of the social, economic, and political culture of the Roman Empire, was to become a threat and to risk Rome’s wrath (as had obviously happened with the martyr Antipas). The choice facing the church in Pergamum, then, was whether to allow their fear to shape their faith, avoiding possible persecution by integrating themselves into the society of Pergamum, or to cling to a faith shaped by love, a faith that resisted injustice and oppression, in spite of the risks.¹⁴ In the letter to this church, Christ confronted those who chose fear and called them to repentance.

In each of the seven letters, Christ is described through an image drawn from John’s initial vision (1:9-20). To the believers in Pergamum, Christ is presented as “the one who has the sharp, two-edged sword” (2:12). It is tempting to see this as a sign that Christ has had a change of heart. The assumption is that, having tried the way of suffering and crucifixion, Christ now chooses to embrace violence and domination as the way to get people to follow. But John’s vision does not have the sword in Christ’s hand; rather, it comes from his mouth (1:16). In Hebrews 4:12, the writer declares that “God’s word is living, active, and sharper than any two-edged sword. It penetrates to the point that it separates the soul from the spirit and the joints from the marrow.” In Ephesians 6:17, the writer instructs the believers to take “the sword of the Spirit, which is God’s word.” As William Barclay puts it, “The sword of Christ is the word of Christ.”¹⁵ The warning to the church in Pergamum is that Christ would make war on them with the sword that came from Christ’s mouth (2:16). This was not a threat of divine violence against sinners. It was a call for the Christians to align their lives with the truth, the embodied values and priorities, of Christ. It is not that they needed to change their thinking or doctrine—Christ had already praised them for holding on to Christ’s name—it was that they were trying to affirm their creeds, without it having any impact on their actions. They wanted to be Christians and also be participants in the unjust and unequal Roman society. The members of the church in Pergamum would probably have claimed that they believed the truth. But Christ’s warning revealed that the only truth that really mattered was the one embodied in actions, relationships, and lives of love, justice, and peace—lives that resisted the cruelty and oppression of Rome.

MANNA, STONES, AND NAMES

The way of Christ, which Jesus called God’s reign, and which the believers in Pergamum were called to embody, is proclaimed in all the Gospels. In Matthew, it is the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). In Mark, it is Jesus’ first sermon: “Now is the time! Here comes God’s kingdom! Change your hearts and lives, and trust this good news!” (Mark 1:15). In Luke, it is the words from Isaiah which Jesus claimed to have fulfilled: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me. He has sent me to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, to liberate the oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18-19). And in John, it is the call to be born again (John 3:3), the challenge to believe in the way of Christ, and to enter into fullness of life that welcomes all. This vision is not just a nice idea to be intellectually affirmed. It is a way of being that absorbs our words, thoughts, attitudes, beliefs, actions, and relationships. It was to this that Christ called the Pergamum believers—and to which Christ now calls us. It’s not about purity of thinking according to certain doctrinal precepts. It’s not about purity of behaviour in the sense of separation from and judgment of others. It is not about faith as a way to security and self-preservation. It is about faithfulness in self-giving, contributing to the common good, and embodying God’s loving and just reign in our lives.

To those who overcome, to those who would reject the way of fear and self-protection, to those who would risk embodying God’s way of love, justice, and peace, Christ promised three gifts: hidden manna to eat, a white stone, and a new name not known to anyone else. The manna, of course, refers back to God’s provision of food for the Israelites in the wilderness after their Exodus from Egypt. But it would also refer back to Jesus’ words in John 6:48-50, “I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate manna in the wilderness and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven so that whoever eats from it will never die.” The promise, then, was that those who stayed faithful to Christ’s way would experience Christ’s presence and life sustaining them in the midst of their struggles and suffering. The white stone may have been a reference to the custom of using white stones as an entry ticket to a banquet, which would refer to their welcome to Christ’s feast of manna¹⁶ (the wedding feast of God’s reign, as Jesus loved to picture it).¹⁷ Finally, the new name referred to both a new identity and a new relationship with God.

To know someone’s name, especially that of God, in the ancient world and the OT often meant to enter into an intimate relationship with that person and to share in that person’s character or power. To be given a new name was an indication of a new status. Therefore, the reception of this name by believers in 2:17 represents their final reward of being consummately identified and united with the intimate, end-time presence and power of Christ in His kingdom and under His sovereign authority.¹⁸

Clinging to truth as ideas, doctrines, or beliefs, and not allowing them to interfere with our participation in unjust societies, may keep us safe and help us to feel that we are true Christians who believe the correct things about God. But they will never lead us to the richness of experiential intimacy with the divine that is found when we embody, with our whole selves, the creativity, compassion, interconnectedness, and cosmic Life of Christ. As Marcus Borg notes, “Believing that a set of statements are true has little transforming power. But beloving God as known in Jesus has great transforming power.”¹⁹ When we live in a world that threatens those who challenge its civil religions and power systems, ideas will not keep us safe even if they allow us to accommodate the powers-that-be. Ultimately, abundant, meaningful, fulfilling life can only be found by seeking to bring life to others and working together to dismantle the structures that protect and enrich some while demeaning and dehumanising others.

OPTING IN AND OPTING OUT

There is no shortage in our world of calls for allegiance to broken and oppressive systems. There is no relief from the temptations to protect ourselves by accommodating unjust status quos and participating in destructive systems. The power of threats from powerful people cannot be underestimated—as witnessed by the way many of those who once opposed the current US President now march to his tune and have voted to support his destructive, cruel “Big, Beautiful Bill”.²⁰

The call of Christ is to opt out of the values and practices of unjust societies, and to opt in to the love, self-giving, and generosity of God’s reign. This isn’t easy, comfortable, or safe. But playing it safe is the least safe thing we can do. Giving ourselves to building the world we long for—a world that manifests the values and practices of God’s just and loving reign—may hurt, and it may cost us. But what value is there in gaining the world and losing our souls? Perhaps Richard Rohr said it best:

Christianity is a lifestyle—a way of being in the world that is simple, nonviolent, shared, and loving. However, we made it into an established religion (and all that goes with that) and avoided the lifestyle change itself. We could be warlike, greedy, racist, selfish, and vain throughout most of Christian history and still believe that Jesus is our personal Lord and Savior or continue, in good standing, to receive the sacraments. The world has no time for such silliness anymore. The suffering on earth is too great.

1. At the time, I had not yet internalised the importance of considering the context, background, and meaning of Scripture to the original hearers. So the fact that Jesus’ promise was uttered to two blind men in Matthew’s Gospel, and not to someone like me wishing for a free house, was completely lost on me.

2. One example that comes up repeatedly in the Gospels is Jesus’ seeming disregard for the Sabbath. See, for example, Matthew 12:1-8.

3. Kevin Sweeney in conversation with Christine Sine in her Liturgical Rebels podcast, Episode 31, May 7, 2025 (https://podcasts.apple.com/za/podcast/episode-31-cosmic-christ-concrete-jesus-with-kevin-sweeney/id1731233100?i=1000706634675). Accessed July 3, 2025

4. Ibid.

5. Marcus J. Borg, Speaking Christian: Why Christian Words Have Lost Their Meaning and Power—And How They Can Be Restored, HarperCollins, 2011 (ePub Edition), p.88

6. Ibid., p.85

7. Richard Rohr, Transformative Education, Daily Meditation for August 24, 2015, on The Center for Action and Contemplation (https://cac.org/daily-meditations/transformative-education-2015-08-24/). Accessed July 3, 2025

8. G.K. Beale with David H. Campbell, Revelation: A Shorter Commentary, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2015 (Kindle Edition), p.65

9. Michael J.Gorman, Reading Revelation Responsibly: Uncivil Worship and Witness: Following the Lamb into the New Creation, Cascade Books, 2011 (Kindle Edition), p.129

10. For a deeper exploration of the civil religion of Rome and contemporary parallels in our 21st-century society, see my article, Apocalypse Now!, June 12. 2025 (https://sacredise.substack.com/p/apocalypse-now)

11. Ibid., p.54

12. See my article, Nolite Te Bastardes Carborundorum, June 19, 2025, on (https://sacredise.substack.com/p/nolite-te-bastardes-carborundorum

13. See Loren T. Stuckenbruck, Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible: Revelation, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2019 (Kindle Edition), p.63

14. Tom Wright, Revelation for Everyone, SPCK, 2014 (Kindle Edition), p.21

15. William Barclay, Commentary on Revelation 2: William Barclay's Daily Study Bible, 1956-1959 on the StudyLight website (https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng/dsb/revelation-2.html). Accessed June 17, 2025

16. Wright, Revelation for Everyone, p.23

17. See Matthew 22:1-14

18. Beale and Campbell, Revelation: A Shorter Commentary, p.69

19. Borg, Speaking Christian, p.86

20. Peter Baker, Once Critics of Trump, These Republicans Are Now Playing by His Rules, May 23, 2024, in the New York Times (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/23/us/politics/trump-critics-endorsements.html). Accessed July 3, 2025