► Listen on Amazon
► Listen on Apple
► Listen on Spotify
► Listen on YouTube
You can find previous episodes of “The Stone Chapel Podcast” at Lanier Theological Library.
“The Stone Chapel Podcast” is part of the ChurchLeaders Podcast Network.
This transcript has been edited for clarity and space.
Shane Wood
This is Shane Wood, Professor of New Testament at Ozark Christian College.
David Capes
Dr. Shane Wood, Shane, good to see you. Welcome to The Stone Chapel Podcast.
Shane Wood
Thank you for having me, David. It’s good to see you as well.
David Capes
Part of this book you wrote, and some of the research you did, you did at the Lanier Theological Library.
Shane Wood
That’s correct. You guys graciously allowed me to come and hang out there for a couple of days, and I was very grateful.
David Capes
Well, we hope you come back for a couple of months one of these days and hang out with us longer. Hey, for those who don’t know, who is Shane Wood?
Shane Wood
I’m a dad of four wonderful kiddos. I’ve been married to my wife for over 23 years. I’m in my 16th year at Ozark Christian College, teaching New Testament. And I’m an avid Boston Celtics fan, David, just avid.
David Capes
Really! We just finished March Madness. Did you watch any of that?
Shane Wood
I watch March Madness, but I watch all 82 games of my Boston Celtics. If there’s a conflict, I’ll pick the Celtics.
David Capes
Why the Celtics? Did you grow up in Boston?
Shane Wood
No, I’m an Indiana boy, but growing up in the 80s, Larry Bird was our hero from French Lick, Indiana.
David Capes
Larry Bird, I haven’t heard that name in a while. We had a parakeet named Larry Bird. I remember that he was a good player.
We’re going to talk today about your book, “Thinning the Veil: Encountering Jesus Christ in the Book of Revelation.” It’s a new book published by InterVarsity Press. It’s a great book. It’s interesting because you’re engaging a lot of very crucial questions. It’s not really a commentary, though, is it?
Shane Wood
No. It does go through all 22 chapters, but in much more of a contemplative way, I’m handling the text and exegeting things. The way I’ve described it before is it’s almost like Eugene Peterson sits down with Richard Bauckham sits down with me.
David Capes
Okay, that’s great. I know both those guys. I knew Peterson briefly, and then Richard Bauckham has been a friend for years. You get the heavy-duty stuff, but it’s also pastoral, speaking to your heart. And it brings about a tear or two. Thinning the Veil is the title. I thought that was an interesting title. What is the veil exactly?
Shane Wood
It’s more of this barrier that we seem to experience between us and God. Or us, and that which we cannot see. People experience it existentially. It is a little bit of an allusion to the veil separating the Holy of Holies and the outer courts. But the idea is as we live our lives and as we pray, we sense that there’s something that’s separating us from God. I try to argue that in the book of Revelation reveals that the veil between heaven and earth is just not as thick as we thought it was. It’s actually quite thin.
David Capes
I’ve heard it described before that Earth is the first floor of heaven. If you think of it spatially as heaven being a floor above. But it’s not that it’s inaccessible. It’s not that there’s a chasm that cannot be crossed. Like you said, it’s a thinning of the veil, which is great. Sometimes people talk about the veil between those who are alive and those who are passed away. I just talked with a fellow today who had a parent pass away recently. You can’t help but think about that separation that is there. Yet there’s this hope that we have, that there’s no veil at all.
The book is a lot about Jesus. And I say that in a good way. Years ago, we were writing a book called Rediscovering Jesus. There’s some pretty scary stuff in Revelation. We started talking about the “scary Jesus”. Jesus can be kind of scary at times in Revelation. When you read it, you see the defeat of evil. It’s not overly violent, and yet there is a sense in which there’s this battle that still goes on. So, we started calling him the “scary Jesus”. The images of Jesus in Revelation are sort of unsettling and you get that even from the beginning of the book.
Shane Wood
Yes! I try to bring out the first five words of Revelation which are “The revelation of Jesus Christ”. And as scary as some of the images are in the book, some of the ways in which we wrestle with Revelation and bring it into conversations about predictions of the end of the world, can be equally as scary. But Jesus, in Revelation, has this tender pursuit where, even though John is alone on Patmos, Christ meets him there. He’s in a constant state of working to set the wrongs right, which is what his incarnation was pushing us toward to begin. Revelation continues that wonderful part of the story, where, eventually, as you mentioned, in 21 and 22 there is no veil. God is with his people, and we’re with him.
David Capes
And in a sense, that seems to be the goal of everything. That future of God being present. Even in the prophets, the glory of God covers the earth, like the waters cover the sea. That kind of image becomes very important. One of the things I love about the book is that you get a lot into a field of study called numismatics, which is the study of ancient coins. And I love that, because I used to collect coins. What did you find so compelling about ancient coins that you mentioned them here in the book?
Shane Wood
That actually was a part of my PhD work at the University of Edinburgh. As you know, Revelation is a book of imagery. There is Old Testament imagery interwoven into these 404 verses, but we realize this is written to real people, at a real time, who were living in a world that was saturated with imagery itself. And the Roman Empire would communicate their messages through the architecture, through the idols, and even through the images on the coins. You see at times in Revelation, this interaction, this speaking back and forth between its imagery and the imagery that we find on certain Roman imperial coinage.
David Capes
Jews didn’t use those kinds of images in their world. But in the Roman world, the imagery was a way of speaking power and control. You couldn’t buy or sell without Roman coins in your pocket. Every time you had a transaction in the market, you didn’t slip them your MasterCard. You had to reach in your pocket and pull out a certain number of coins. Every coin had an image of an emperor to remind you of the power and presence of Rome.
Shane Wood
Absolutely. And that’s why I thought Augustus was so brilliant. He did a lot of different things at the outset of his reign. But one of the things he did was he took the printing of Roman coins away from the Senate, and he oversaw it. Because then, as you said, this omnipresent message of dominance and controlling people’s allegiance through what they’re buying and selling. It was a way of saturating daily life in the Empire with the Roman sovereign narrative and message.
