Hello everyone, and welcome back to Conversations with Tyler. Here I am today, live with Reza Oslin. Reza has a new book out which I enjoyed very much. It is called An American Martyr in Persia, The Epic Life and Tragic Death of Howard Baskerville. Reza has many other books I very much like No God but God on Islam, Zellet on the Life of Jesus, and there is more he is a writer, scholar, producer, and generalist and expert on the history of religion. Reza welcome. Thank you, thanks for having me. What are some characteristics of a good martyr? Well I mean I guess number one would be being willing to sacrifice yourself for other people, but not just other people, being willing to sacrifice yourself for your beliefs. This of course is at the heart of the concept of Christianity which is all about sacrifice, but it also is at the heart of Shia Islam which is the majority religion in Iran. And so Baskerville, this Christian missionary who arrives in this Shia country in a way, you know maybe they had different religions and different beliefs, but they had a very similar way of expressing those beliefs. What makes the Ali story in Shiaism an effective story of martyrdom? Yeah so Shiaism as a religion just to be clear, so Shiaism is one of the major sects of Islam. Islam has many many sects like most religions do, but the major two sects are the Sunni Islam and Shia Islam. And Shiaism arose out of Sunni Islam in the seventh century, primarily as a response to what was fundamentally just a disagreement, a political disagreement over who should lead the Muslim community after the death of the Prophet Muhammad. The Prophet's family lost that argument and over the next generation or so Islam became a kind of aerobocentric empire, but one of the Prophet's grandsons Hussein decided to launch an ill-fated revolution against what he saw as a corrupt and unjust empire. And in 680 in a city called Karbala in modern day Iraq, his small band of followers some 70 or so came into confrontation with the Caliphs massive army and recognizing that there was no way to win this conflict. Hussein nevertheless went into battle in the name of justice against oppression. He and all of his followers were slaughtered and that moment became sort of the birth of what we now understand as Shia Islam, which is why earlier I said it has at its heart this concept of the righteous individual willing to die in the name of justice against oppression. There's a lot of people who are willing to die for different causes. If I want to study martyrdom and I ask, what does the Shia tradition and understanding of martyrdom add to say Catholic notions of martyrdom? What's the extra something that makes it different or special or interesting? That's a very good question. So of course in Christianity, martyrdom is modeled on Jesus's martyrdom and the idea is that Jesus died to cleanse humanity of their sins. And so there's a very clear spiritualization of that act. It doesn't have a lot of sort of material aspects to it. Not so in Shiaism. Hussein died not to cleanse anyone of their sins, but to save their mortal lives, to actually release people from oppression and injustice. It was a very sort of conscious effort to help people where they are now by sacrificing himself for it. So that's what I would say is really the fundamental difference between it is that martyrdom in Shia Islam isn't spiritualized in the same way that martyrdom in Christianity tends to be. So Howard Baskerville, the subject of your latest book, he's an American missionary in Iran in the early 20th century. He's shot. He dies. Is that an effective martyrdom story or have we just forgotten about him because the external trappings were too weak to sustain our interests? Well, we have definitely forgotten all about him. Actually, I'd say it's more proper to say that Iranians have forgotten all about him. Americans never knew him to begin with. I mean, his story never really took hold in the United States, although there were, you know, front page stories about his death and his and his decision to join the revolution. But in Iran, the facts of his martyrdom, which is that he was living in a city that was besieged by the Shah's soldiers, a city that was slowly starving to death, a city that had run out of food. And he and his students at the time made this fateful decision to try to break through that siege and bring help and food to the city. And he died in that process, which going back to what we were just saying is sort of like the quintessential notion of Shia martyrdom, right? That this is a suicide mission. There is no way that this will succeed. But I'm going to do it anyway, because it is it is to free people from suffering and injustice. So in a funny way, it's not a Christian enough story for the Western audiences or that's a nice way of putting it. Yeah. What do you think of the common criticism that Shia Islam ends up too obsessed with personalities? You have all these imams, they're made of light rather than dust. They command so much attention. It's maybe attention with the monotheistic emphasis of Islam. What's your take on that? Yeah, no, I think that's an absolutely correct interpretation of Shia Islam. Sunni Islam, which is the majority version of Islam, about 80% of the world's, you know, nearly two billion Muslims would call themselves some form of Sunni Islam. And Sunni Islam tends to be focused on text and interpretation, the Quran and the so-called Sunnah, which is like, you know, this vast body. I think Jews will know what I'm talking about, right? Like there's the scripture and then there are tens of thousands of pages of interpretation on that scripture. And for most Sunnis, that is the the sum and total of where authority lies. But not so with Shia Islam. You're absolutely right. Shia Islam has had first a series of so-called imams. And depending on what kind of Shia you are, you recognize a different number of imams, some recognize six, some recognize seven, some recognize 12. Iran is what's called 12 or Shiaism. So they recognize 12 imams. And you said it right. These are different. They're not like the rest of us. They're infallible. They get divine authority. They have access to knowledge, you know, from a divine source that the rest of us don't have access to. Now, of course, there are no more imams left. They're all gone now at this point. But what that does is I think twofold. Number one, yes, you're right. It does kind of become a religion about charisma and a religion about personality. And you can very easily see how that can lead to someone like Ayatollah Khomeini taking over an entire country because he taps into that notion of a charismatic personality with access to some kind of divine knowledge that that you need to follow. The flip side, however, is that Shiaism can be much more innovative than Sunni Islam. It's open to experimentation and reinterpretation because it's not all about trying to figure out new ways of interpreting static text like Sunni Islam is. That's all you got is text. That's it. And people can interpret it in their different ways. Here you have different sources of emulation, different people who have, you know, authority to kind of interpret and reinterpret sometimes in fairly radical and innovative ways. Khomeini, that's what he did. And we can talk about that later. That allows for all kinds of new ways of thinking about this religion. So it's much more malleable, let's say. So there's, I'd say, positives and negatives to that kind of religion. If there's more innovation overall than Shiaism, why do Sufi traditions seem so strongly tied to Sunni Islam? Because that's an innovation, right? There are early Sufis in Persia, like Al Ghazali, but much later it's about the whirling dervishes and the other side of the world, the Islamic world, that is. Sufism is, of course, the mystical branch of Islam. All religions have a mystical branch to them, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism. It's sort of the, in scholarly terms, we talk about religions having an exoteric and an esoteric version. And the exoteric is scripture, tradition, rituals, you know, all of that stuff, the external stuff. And the esoteric is the, you know, hidden mysterious spiritual meaning at the heart of the religion. And Islam, like all religions, has that esoteric movement, and it's called Sufism. And while it is true that Sufism arose out of Sunni Islam, and many ways it has a lot more in common with Shiism, actually. Sufism kind of, you know, it kind of balances the divide, if you will. One thing that Sufis are adamant about is that religion, not just Islam, but all religion, is nothing more than an external shell. It's important, it's not like we should, you know, just ignore it. But to truly know God requires breaking through that external shell and getting to the very heart of the matter. So in other words, Sufis have this line that I've always loved that they say, religion is the signpost to God. That religion does nothing more than just point the way to God. But to know God, you have to rid yourself of the ego and become one with God. So in your understanding, can Sufism stand alongside the prophetic structure of Islam as something separate? Or is it synthesized with it into one consistent picture? That's a hardcore, brilliant theological question because it's one that gets, it's been debated for generations. And what I will say is this, that Sufism is, like all mystical traditions, incredibly eclectic. It comes in thousands of different forms. There are some Sufis that are very traditionalist, very hard to even sometimes tell the difference between them and your basic Sunni. And there are some Sufis that take part in the spectacular displays, sometimes displays that involve putting swords through their bodies, taking part in painful acts, ways of trying to sort of deny the self and the body in a way that most Muslims would look at and say, that looks nothing like Islam. And so Sufism is what a Sufi says it is basically. So if I go to Albania and I chat with the Biktashis, how is their version of Sufism different? Then say the Naqshbandis, absolutely. So what's great about Sufism, and again this, just, you know, this is sort of a standard description of all mystical movements, is that they absorb themselves into local cultures and local practices. And so when you have these kinds of deeply spiritual, mystical movements, they most often arise from the culture. They're not so often brought in from the outside, right? Religion in its most orthodoxic sense is usually introduced to a culture or to a people, right? Somebody shows up and says, this is Islam, this is Christianity, this is Buddhism. Sufism, like much of mystical movements, is something that sort of comes out of the ground itself and then starts to marry itself to that kind of dominant religion. And so we see sort of Christian mysticism all around the world that in some places looks like paganism and in some places looks like sort of traditional nature worship, but it uses some of the symbols and metaphors of Christianity and so it kind of becomes an indigenous version of Christianity. And that's exactly the same thing with Sufism in Islam. It depends on where you go. Let's say I go to India, how is Sufism in India? So India, of course, is the most religiously diverse nation on earth. Every religion that you can possibly imagine exists in India, including all the forms of Islam. And so you're going to see the traditional, say like Naqshbandi version of Sufism, which means, you know, people sit around in circles and they take part in breathing exercises and maybe yogic movements as a way of, or they recite certain verses from the Quran over and over again as a way of kind of achieving oneness with God. But then you go into the villages and you see Sufis who are walking on hot coals, for instance, as a way of denying the body. It really runs the gamut. It really does. And how is Shiaism different in India? I was just an Ahmedabad. I saw a Shiaite religious procession of some kind. Yes, Ashura. There are a lot of Shias in India and in Pakistan, all of South Asia, actually, a large number of Shia. Could say, how's that different from the Persian tradition? What theologically or in terms of practice would stand out? So the kind of Shiaism that one finds in South Asia is primarily what we refer to as Ismaili Shiaism or Sevener Shiaism. Remember earlier I said, it depends on how many Imams you accept. And the Ismailis accept seven Imams and in Iran, they accept 12 Imams. And 12 or Shiaism is by far the majority Shiaism. But the Ismailis are a very robust and expanding religious community. A lot of Ismailis here in the United States actually and in Canada, but they are primarily focused on in South Asia. And they tend to be much more into music and dancing and movement. Something you don't see that often in sort of the traditional Shiaism of Iran. There's not a lot of music and dancing in the religious ceremony. There's music and dancing, but it's not part of the religious ceremony. Whereas Ismailis will have Ghazals, these sort of songs that are very spiritual. Exactly, exactly.  Very much looks like Sufism, you know. So it just goes to show you that a lot of these religious traditions are bounded much more by culture than they are by sort of theology or doctrine. You know, a Sufi in India will look a lot more like a Christian mystic than he will look like a Sufi in, say, Macedonia. And the Ismailis in India, Pakistan, if you were to boil down their objection to the extra five Imams to its most conceptual level, how would you explain that? What's wrong with those Imams? This is one of those like, you know, historical arguments that I'm sure made, you know, it was so important at one point. And nowadays we look at it and we think, seriously, that's what you guys broke up for. But if you look at Christian debates over the Trinity, they correspond to some real difference. You know, can man be God, monophysites and so on? Right. But I mean, you know, the Christian debates over the nature of Jesus, you know, resulted in massacres because one person said, no, he's God, but in man form. And one person would say, nobody's man, but he has God inside of him.  The way that this worked was the sixth Imam. Now remember, the Imams are infallible. That's the that's the note, you know, very important. If there are Imams though, right? So we right, right. The Imams with the capital eyes in sheism are supposed to be infallible. And the sixth Imam before he died designated one of his sons, Ishmael, to become the seventh Imam. And then before the sixth Imam died, the seventh Imam died. The Ishmael died. And so the sixth Imam said, OK, never mind. Then it'll be, you know, this other Imam. And the vast majority of the Shia just kind of said, OK, and they continued with that seventh Imam. But a minority of the Shia scratched their head and said, wait a minute, that doesn't make any sense. You're infallible. You chose this person. And if you chose that person, then that's the Imam. So maybe he's not really dead. Maybe he is just in occultation. Maybe he's just in hiding. Maybe in fact, he's a sort of messianic figure who will return at the end of time. And so they broke off at that seventh Imam and they called themselves Ishmaelis. How would you describe your own relationship to Shiaism and Sufism?  And so I grew up in a Shia family. But you know, my religion was more a matter of my identity than really anything else.  And it's kind of how you understand yourself. I wasn't, by any means, I don't think I came from a very pious family. That's for sure. And certainly when we left Iran, my dad who- And you were how old then? I was seven. Okay. And he was in 1979. I was seven years old. And my father was never a religious man. So when he came to America, he thought, great, now we don't even need to, you know, go on holidays anymore. So we're done now with all religion. And maybe that's partly why I became so interested in religion, you know, because when you live in a household where there's no religion anymore, you just suddenly start to wonder why. And so I had a very kind of round about spiritual journey. But for me, as an adult, when I was studying the world's religions and still longing for some kind of spiritual edification of my own, I began to read about Sufi Islam, which is a tradition that I didn't know that much about. And it not only appealed to me the way that I was. The way that I put it is that I was reading things that I already believed. I just didn't know there was a word for it, you know? And so Sufi Islam kind of gave me the words for these ideas and these feelings and these beliefs that I felt like I already had. And so that's why I associate myself with Sufism. Is it the framework or is it that you personally have a very definite view about each Imam and which ones are appropriate? Oh no, no, I couldn't care less about the Imams at all. I am not Shia. I would not refer to myself as Shia at all. But what appealed to me about Sufism, beyond the fact that, as I had already said before, that it really does think of religion as sort of the starting point. And I often say, when you study the world's religions for a living, it becomes very difficult to take any one of those religions, all that seriously anymore. You know, it certainly takes, it makes it very hard to take their claims to absolute truth seriously anymore. That's for sure. And what I love about Sufism is that it doesn't take religion or those claims to absolute truth seriously anymore. But one thing that Sufism does do, which is very appealing to me, is that at the heart of Sufism is this notion that God, if God is anything, is all things. That God is all and all is God. That you and me and this desk and this microphone, if a thing exists, it exists only insofar as it shares in the existence of the only thing that exists. And so there's this concept of divine unity at the heart of Sufism that I've always found very appealing, spiritually speaking. And that's why I was drawn to it. If you had to describe what for you is more beautiful in Islam than in other religions, what would it be? That. That. That, yeah. Now, that is not to say that there aren't other religions that hold something similar to this notion. Buddhism also believes that all things are the same, except that in Buddhism, the thing that all things are is an illusion. All things are nothing. There is nothing. Nothing exists. You don't exist. Nothing exists. Sufism is sort of like the opposite end of that. Yes, all things are the same, but all those things are one thing and that one thing is God. You worried that that slides into Spinoza and Pantheism? What what keeps that move away? I am a unapologetic pantheist. I don't. I mean, I don't have a problem being called a pantheist at all. I do believe that all things are united, that all things are one. And I do believe that, you know, if there is a thing called God, whatever that thing is, it's pure existence. And I share in that existence. But if there's this one all-encompassing thing, to what do we compare it to to distinguish secular pantheism from religious or spiritual pantheism? Well, I guess what I would say is the difference between monism and pantheism. And Spinoza's idea is that all things are made of the same thing, which, by the way, he was right, as far as we know so far, that everything that exists today has always existed and will always exist as long as the universe exists. That's a scientific statement, not a religious one, but it sounds a lot like Sufism to me that everything that exists always existed and will always exist as long as the universe exists as long as you define the universe as God. That's what I would say is the difference between your sort of delineation of secular pantheism and religious pantheism. Now, as you know, Wahhabism is often cited as a kind of whipping boy for what people don't like about Islam. Is there something virtuous or beautiful in Wahhabism, or is that a view you're opposed to, or are Westerners understanding it correctly? That's a really, really good view. Can you stalemand Wahhabism for me? Yeah, that's good. That's good. Okay, no, I pride myself in being a scholar of religions, and so I should be able to talk about the beauty of all religious traditions. Wahhabism has in common with a lot of these religious revivalist movements of the 19th century. Remember, Wahhabism arose at the same time as the second great awakening was happening in the United States. And what they all have in common is this desire to return to the pure form of the religion. This is a time of modernization and societies look different and mores are different. You know, it's funny because we are talking about the middle of the 19th century, but we're talking about a time of great technological advances. We're talking about, you know, coming out of a period of the enlightenment in which some of our most basic assumptions about the workings of the universe are being openly questioned. And all around the world, there are religious groups that are reacting to this movement by reverting, right? Let's revert to the fundamentals of our faith. This is where the term fundamentalism came from. Let's purify our religion of all of these, you know, innovations that have crept inside of it. And so the same sense that, you know, gives you sort of the puritanical version of Christianity gave birth to the puritanical version of Islam. This puritanical version of Islam, however, had one very big advantage, which is that it became the state religion of what very quickly became the richest nation on earth, the Saudi clan and of course Saudi Arabia. The Saudi clan was able to control, take control over the Arabian peninsula and defeat all of the other clans by marrying itself to this puritanical form of Islam called Wahhabism. And then that clan learned the lesson that everyone eventually learns, which is there's no such thing as controlling fundamentalism. You may think that you're in charge of it, but you're not. And so just look at the last 60, 70 years of history and that will tell you what Wahhabism with Saudi funding and control and power has done not just to Islam, but to the world. So I said one nice thing about it. Is it a motivational problem for Islam that it has a kind of final once and for all revelation? So it's not as clear what you're waiting for. How do you process that? If you're a Jew, if you're a Christian, the stories are different, but it's clear what you're waiting for, right? Well, so again, we have to differentiate between Sunni Islam and Shi'i Islam. Sunni Islam, let's say. Yeah, Islam does have obviously a conception of an end of time, obviously a notion that there will be a moment in which all of creation will come to an end and a perfected society will arise. Islam does have a messianic figure that they called the Mahdi, although that figure to be perfectly frank plays a much larger role in Shia Islam than it does in Sunni Islam. I mean, Sunnis will say, well, yeah, sure, I believe in the Mahdi. Shi'ism begins with belief in the Mahdi, that the end times and the Messiah to come. In fact, many Sunnis would say, well, the Messiah is Jesus. Jesus will come back as the Messiah and then the Mahdi will maybe come before or after him. It's very confused, the traditions. But I think you have this really interesting point because the way that Muslims understand their scripture is quite different than the way that Christians understand their scripture. It has actually much more in common with the ways that Jews understand their scripture. For Muslims and Jews, the scripture itself is holy and divine. I don't mean to say the meaning of it, the interpretation of it. I mean, literally the words on the page. And the Quran itself can be a divine body of sorts, right? Correct. The actual physical pages, the physical words themselves are endowed with divine authority. Jews, obviously more conservative Jews, believe the exact same thing, which is why you have to maintain the Torah in a box and you have to be careful who can touch it and who can't touch it and you can't touch it with your hands. You get a lot of that with Islam as well.  You can't touch the ground, all of those things. I think Christians kind of look at that and think, wait a minute, it sounds like you're sort of focusing on the physical scripture instead of what the scripture itself says. And that's not incorrect actually. And it has a lot to do with the way that both Jews and Muslims understand the speech of God. So the theory is this, that if the Torah, if the Quran is the word of God, then the word of God can't be separated from the self of God. That means the word of God is God in some form. And so that's why no matter what language you speak, you have to learn to read the Torah in Hebrew. Same with Islam. It doesn't matter what language you speak. You have to learn to recite the scripture in Arabic, even if you don't understand it. It's the words themselves, the sound of the words, the recitation of the words that gives you divine power. Obviously Christians don't believe that. Christians for Christians, it's just words on a page and who cares what language it is and it's the meaning behind it that matters. The words themselves don't have any power. It's what the words mean that have power. But you can really see this divide between Judaism and Islam on one side and Christianity on the other. What do you think of the Kenneth Craig argument that at least in many branches of Sunni Islam, the distance between man and God is simply too great and that there's something cold or alienating about it? I love, I love Ken Craig a lot, by the way. You know, I gotta be honest, it kind of appeals to me. The distance appeals to you. The distance appeals to me. I'm getting a little bit personal here, but when I was in high school, I became an evangelical Christian for a brief while. It was a very real and emotionally resonant conversion for me. I heard the gospel story and I thought it was great and I believed it. But I will say that when I look back on that time, the one thing that I always had a hard time with was this idea that Jesus was my best friend, that God is my buddy. It's a joke that my friends and I do all the time, but they gave us this little card with Jesus' picture on it and it said Jesus in my pocket and he was supposed to keep it in your pocket all the time. And I remember thinking to myself, do I want Jesus in my pocket? There's something that doesn't feel right about that. When I went to college, I happened to go to a Catholic university and I thought, oh, I don't know anything about Catholicism. I'll go and check out this mass. And there, Jesus wasn't in your pocket. Jesus was way up there on the cross and you went to him with fear and trembling and distance. And I got to say, I liked it. It appealed to me. And maybe it's because of the fact that I was raised Muslim, even though at the time I wouldn't have really understood what that meant. But there's something about that notion of the distance between man and God that I like, that I want to approach God with that level of reverence that makes God other in a sense. I don't know if that makes sense, but that's not just my personal opinion on it. If I look at the historical data, what seems to me to be the regularities is that Islam can be quite good for commerce and being a merchant, but not nearly so good for having a stable democracy. Is that a view you would try to talk me out of? I wouldn't try to talk you out of it. I would say that I disagree with that. Tell me why you disagree. First of all, Indonesia is a democracy, but not for long. It's somewhat weak. You could say Malaysia, but there aren't many examples, right? Turkey's falling apart democratically speaking. Tell me a Christian country that's doing well with democracy. Western Europe, Canada. Oh, Canada. Canada is a pretty good one, but I don't know if that would say that. Here's what I would say to the first point of that, which is that all religion is good for commerce. I mean, capitalism is the opposite of literally everything Jesus ever said about the topic of money or profit or anything. And yet capitalism is almost a religion in Christian countries, whereas Islam and Judaism both forbid the charging of interest and usury, and yet both of them have been used very easily in order to promote business. And in some cases, certainly when you're talking about the UAE, have created the wealthiest societies in the world. That's one thing. The second thing is, I think there's a mistake in trying to see a moral code or a moral foundation to a political philosophy like democracy, right? The political philosophy of democracy is that the majority vote gets to basically make the decisions. And if the majority of the people are Muslims, then obviously the democracy itself and the laws that they pass and the principles that they espouse are going to be tinged with the sort of majority morality, if you will, of the population itself. And so there are countless examples. I mean, you talk about Turkey. Yeah, okay. So Turkey is having difficulty with authoritarianism. I will take Turkey today to America under Trump any day of the week. I mean, at the one... I mean, at least the... Recep Tayyip Erdogan has autocratic tendencies, just like Trump did, but wasn't a megalomaniac, possibly narcissistic sociopath. Yes, Indonesia is having difficulty. Indonesia has a billion people. It's one of the most diverse nations on Earth. No, it's not a billion people. It's what, 250 million, right? Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm not exaggerating, all right? But what I'm trying to say is, or okay, we could talk about India. Okay, so then I guess Hinduism isn't conducive to democracy because India has a billion people, 900 million of them Hindus, and their democratic situation, even right now, is completely unstable under the leadership of the BJP. Again, I think we can look at political stability or instability around the world, including here in the United States, where almost half of us now, according to most polls, seem to be no longer all that much in favor of democracy. And to then tie that instantly to whatever the majority religion happens to be, I think is a false connection. Let's go to early 20th century Iran, which is covered in your book, an American martyr in Persia. There's a constitutional revolution in Iran, 1906 to 1911. What was that motivated by? This was an era, the early 20th century, in which all around the world, there were these protests and uprisings by people demanding what everyone was kind of referring to as constitutionalism, right? And they had different ideas of what that actually meant. For some people, it meant lower prices. For some people, it meant popular sovereignty. For some people, it meant the freedom to do or say whatever you wanted to. But constitutionalism as a movement was a flame in Russia, in Turkey, in Mexico, in China. But in 1906, where it really began was in Iran, in the sort of what's now referred to as the constitutional revolution of 1906. And this involved a band of young zealous revolutionaries who together with the business and merchant class and the clerical class, the clergy, especially sort of the low-level, mid-level clergy, began to clamor for the creation of a constitution that would outline the rights and privileges of all the citizens and, just as importantly, the creation of a parliament with an elected body, a legislature that would have the ability to curtail the absolute authority. Was the influence British or else from elsewhere? What fed into this? It was French and British, but what's really fascinating is the way in which it so seamlessly integrated traditional Persian political thought and Islamic ideas into the kind of Western conception of constitutionalism. But it was heavily influenced by the British model because what they were actually asking for was a constitutional monarchy. They weren't saying we want to get rid of the Shah. We want to get rid of the throne altogether. There were some more sort of radical elements, social Democrats who were actually asking that. But in general, what the call was was to have something akin to what the UK is, a monarchy that is limited by a constitution and an elected body that can curtail this sort of absolute power of the throne. And the current Iranian protests, how aware are they of this heritage? Is there a direct link or it's something from the distant past like talking to Americans about an 18th century Shays rebellion or something? Iran has had three major revolutions of the 20th century, the constitutional revolution of 1906, the nationalist revolution in 1953, and of course the revolution of 1979. And those three moments are part of the history of the country. It's what you learn in school. Now, of course, depending on the time, what you learn about it sometimes changes, the heroes change. For instance, there was a time in which Howard Baskerville who fought in the constitutional revolution was taught in schools. There were schools named after Howard Baskerville, streets named after Howard Baskerville. He was part of the traditional teaching of 20th century history for most Iranian school children myself included when I was there, but not anymore. Really, since 1979, that part of 20th century history has kind of diminished to the point where it's really hard to find anyone under the age of 50 in Iran who could tell you who Howard Baskerville was anymore. Even the constitutional revolution itself hasn't been taught with the same rigor since the 79 revolution as it used to be. Primarily, I mean, for a while it was because these are people fighting against the Shah, right? And so I think post-79 there was this idea that, hey, look, in the same way that our ancestors fought against the Shah, we're fighting against the Shah too. But over the years, the teaching of it has actually become a little bit less robust, primarily because it's hard to argue that you're following in the footsteps of a revolution, the purpose of which was to bring equal rights to each citizen when you live in the current Islamic Republic. And why did the constitutional revolution fail? Well, it didn't fail. It actually ended up succeeding. And in 1909, the revolutionaries were able to remove the Shah into exile. The Shah who was fighting against the Constitution put his son on the throne instead. The Constitution became part of law. An elected parliament began making laws. And for a very brief while, Iran was a constitutional monarchy. But that failed, right? Why did that end? It was a couple of factors. First of all was the First World War. The First World War broke out very soon afterwards. And Iran became the principal staging ground for Russian and British troops. So Russia occupied the entirety of the North and Britain occupied the entirety of the South. The war was a devastation for humanity across the board. But in Iran, it led to famine and devastation. The Spanish flu killed nearly 20% of the population. The economy collapsed. So by the time you get to 1921, you have a constitutional monarchy but an absolutely unstable one. And in 1921, a military commander by the name of Reza Khan was, with the backing of the British Empire, declared a military coup. He tore up the Constitution, got rid of parliament, and then, really surprising, everyone declared himself the next Shah. Created what we now know as the Pahlavi dynasty. He became Reza Shah. And Iran went right back to absolute monarchy after a decade of a somewhat successful but definitely unstable constitutional monarchy. And then, of course, the Pahlavi regime that Reza Shah created ultimately, he gets thrown out at the run-up to the Second World War because he made some friendly overtures to Nazi Germany. And so the Allies removed him and put his son on the throne. And that son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, is the man who was overthrown in the 1979 revolution. And many outsiders have the impression that Iran is very long, human capital, very long cultural excellence, but never has done so well in terms of political outcomes, or not for a long time. And that's a puzzle to them. How do you resolve that puzzle in your mind? You know, it's a tragedy. Sure, but why? Well, I'd say there's two factors, and we've kind of touched upon them. The first factor is external interference. The Russian Empire brutally fought against the constitutional revolution. And despite the fact that the constitutional revolution did end up succeeding, the Russians nevertheless made sure that until the run-up to the Bolshevik revolution in 1917, that the government, the constitutional government would fail. And I outlined this in the book. There's all the occupation of northern parts of Iran, the demand for concessions, and etc., etc. Then in 1953, the Iranians rose up again and created a democratic country very briefly in the Nationalist Revolution with the Prime Minister Mohamed Mosadek and kicked the British, I'm sorry, kicked the Shah out of the country. And I'm sure you remember what happened then. The CIA showed up and put the Shah back on the throne. But the CIA has limited power, right? We can't rule Afghanistan. That was a disaster. It's not that five people from Langley can parachute into Tehran and take control of the whole country. Your listeners, if they are interested in this, please Google Operation Ajax because it literally was five people from Langley, literally, led by Kermit Roosevelt. And everyone just went along with this. They showed up with this. Ukraine didn't go along with Russia coming in right now. This was, first of all, 1953. And the Kermit Roosevelt and four others showed up in Tehran with a suitcase full of cash and in a very, very brief amount of time with the help of the sort of allies that they had in Iran who wanted the Shah back created a fake counter-revolution that brought Mohammed Mosaddegh back down and brought the Shah back in power. It was the most extraordinary success. It actually gave birth to the CIA as we know it, Operation Ajax, if anybody is interested in that. It's a crazy story. And then, of course, in 79, you had a post-revolutionary chaos that was essentially hijacked by the clerics and Khomeini itself. It's a combination of things. It's a combination of the internal structure and the conflicts in Iranian society, the inability to sort of come together and unify under a common cause, and, frankly, the interference of external forces. Those two things, I think, for the last 100 years have spelled a situation in which here we are, women and children and men on the streets in Iran right now clamoring for the exact same rights that they were clamoring for in 1906. It's like, wow, here we are, 116 years later, and Iranians are asking for the same thing and they still don't have it. It's as an Iranian, it's absolutely heartbreaking. What's your favorite Iranian movie? Oh, there's so much. Okay, it's... I would say A Separation, but I'm curious to hear your pick. Okay, of course, The Separation is good. I was going back a little bit more. I was thinking, like, Taste of Cherry or the Color of Paradise. Those are very good, yeah. The White Balloon. I love that one. Yeah, this is some of my favorite classic ones. But, oh, yeah, Separation is phenomenal. That's... Where's the best Iranian food in Westwood, Los Angeles? Ha-ha, okay, I love this question, because my answer is it depends on what you want. Like... Pheasant John. That's what I want.  If you want, like, really great lamb, I would say maybe Javan. If you want great Tadig, maybe Daria. See, this is the thing, is when you're talking about Tarangelus, there are dozens of restaurants to choose from, you get to decide which one, depending on kind of what you're in the mood for. How much do you think one can still feel the influence of Zoroastrianism in contemporary Iran? Or is that just done and gone? No, I love that question. And while it is true that Zoroastrianism as a religion is dying and there's every reason to think that maybe a century from now there probably won't be any Zoroastrians left, I think currently right now, if you're talking about the entire globe, there's probably about 250,000, 200,000 Zoroastrians left. In the world, which is horrifying, because this is one of the primal religions, right? There would be no Christianity if it wasn't for Zoroastrianism. But Zoroastrianism is so deeply embedded in Persian culture that the vast majority of Iranians probably don't even know that the things they're doing are Zoroastrian. It's kind of like Americans, and when you celebrate Christmas and you don't realize that it's, that you're doing these sort of pagan Germanic rituals, it's the same thing. But our New Year's ceremonies, the various holidays that we have in Iran, and then just sort of the way, the Iranian consciousness is still deeply affected, almost at the gene level by Zoroastrianism. How did Iranian Judaism turn out special and different? Well, people might be surprised to learn that even today, right now, the second largest Jewish community in the Middle East is in Iran. It's not gigantic. It's probably about 25,000 Jews. But they have been there for centuries. I think there are some historians that say that it can go all the way back to the Babylonian exile. And this now we have to go back into ancient history, but for people who remember at a certain point, the Babylonians destroyed Israel and scattered the Jews across the Near East. And then in the 6th century, Cyrus the Great, the first sort of king of the Persian Empire, destroyed Babylon and sent the Jews back to their homeland with treasure in order to rebuild their temple. And so Judaism has always seen Cyrus. In fact, Cyrus is the only non-Jew in the Bible who is called Messiah, has always seen Cyrus in this sort of elevated light and many, many Jews stayed in the Persian Empire. So the Jews in Iran will tell you, whether this is factually correct or not, that their presence in the land predates Islam, they were there before there was any such thing as Islam. And so they're deeply rooted in the culture and tradition there. Though as I say, it is a small community now and definitely a diminishing community. Are you optimistic about modern day Iran? I'm optimistic about the current, well, I would only call it a revolution that's happening right now. You can't really call it an uprising anymore or demonstrations anymore. What we're seeing right now is a revolution. And I'm optimistic for a couple of reasons. One, because of who is leading it, because it's women led and it's youth led and it's Gen Z. And this is a generation that unlike the millennial generation in Iran, just has no tolerance for the usual answers. Go back home, you can wear jeans, everything will be fine, which is what the regime would say every time the youth rose up. And this generation has had it. But what I think is remarkable is the way in which these protests have managed to bring in all these other sectors of Iranian society. So you're seeing old people and young people, conservatives and progressives. You're seeing women dressed head to toe in Chador's, the sort of traditional conservative Islamic dress, chanting slogans against the government, standing next to young women in jeans and T-shirts and who are unveiled. And now we're seeing strikes being called. The oil industry is going under strike. The Bizarre merchants are going under strike. This morning, we saw protests break out in the city of Qom, which is the Vatican of Iran, right? The religious city of Iran. And there were thousands of people on the streets calling for an end to the regime. So I don't think we've seen anything quite like this since the revolution that I fled. And where it'll go, it's hard to say. But it's hard to imagine that this isn't going to lead to some kind of profound and perhaps fundamental change in Iran. But most popular revolutions on their own fail, right? You need a sub-segment of the elite to truly flip and take over and perform the final step. Do you see that as in the cards for Iran? The elite that you're talking about. The governing elite. Yeah, is different. That, the elite there is the, what I would refer to as kind of the mid-level clerics, the seminary students, etc. Iran is a country in which it's under clerical rule. So the clerics are the political leaders. But that is a very new and frankly heretical idea in Shia Islam. There's no history in 1400 years of Islamic and Shia thought about direct clerical rule. That just doesn't exist. This was something that Khomeini thought up out of whole cloth. It's just a completely new innovation. And what people I think don't understand is that it's not a very popular theology in Shiaism. And so for the most part, the sort of upper echelon, of the clerical regime, those in power, those enjoying the sort of the benefits of power, they're entrenched in that ideology. But the younger clerics, the seminary students, the mid-level clerics, the soapbox preachers, the sort of the imams at your mosque, there is an enormous amount of frustration. And I would even say rejection of the theology behind clerical rule. And the generals? And the generals are like generals everywhere in the world. Utterly pragmatic. They, you know, they will pretend to be pious if that's what is needed. They will give up on piety if that's what is needed. I'm really glad that you said that because I think most Iran watchers will tell you that the real power in Iran isn't the Ayatollahs. It seems that way from the outside, but that's not where the real power is. The real power is the IRGC, the Revolutionary Guards, who prop up that regime. And for better or worse, they can be the biggest influence in what happens next. It's not impossible to think that the Revolutionary Guard, which craves stability above all else, would say at a certain point, we agree with the protesters. It's time for the clerics to go back to their mosques. And in the name of stability, we're going to declare martial law and we'll be in charge for a little while. And suddenly Iran looks like Pakistan in the 80s. It looks a little bit like Egypt for a while.  That that could happen. I'm not saying that's a good thing. I'm just saying it is not an unlikely scenario in Iran. To wrap up the very last question, your new book is just out, An American Martyr in Persia. What will you do next? I am moving on towards fiction now. What kind of novel or other form of fiction? Well, okay. Well, I'll tell you. So there is a a thousand year old Persian epic called the Shahnameh or the Book of Kings. And it's essentially the Central Asian Iliad Odyssey. You know, it's a 100,000 rhyming couplets written by a poet named Ferdowsi more than a thousand years ago. And I would like to tackle that in some way, perhaps. You mean write a prose version, write an updated version in English? Yes, yes. I'm not, I'm not, I'm still dealing with it. But yes, possibly like a novelization of it is what I what I'm kind of dancing around right now. Raisa Aslan, thank you very much. It was my pleasure. Thanks for having me, Ty.


Welcome everyone to our New Testament survey class. I forgot to wish you all in the previous class, but I hope you all had a good Easter and were able to celebrate well. So before we begin, let's just open with prayer and then I'll address, I was supposed to post the video, I know. So I'll just talk about that, but if somebody can open us in prayer please. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we once again thank you for this time of study. As we get into your word Father, we pray that your leaders Lord in your word and let your word bring truth and revelation in our lives Father. We pray that whatever we study will be able to retain and apply the same in our lives Father. We pray for a blessing upon our entire faculty and all the students here in the Bible College. In Jesus' precious name we pray. Amen. Thank you. So I was supposed to post a video last week, but I wasn't able to do that. We had a sudden death in our family, so I'll post it this week. So today we'll just cover first and second Thessalonians and then I'll, if I'm able to post before Thursday or otherwise I'll post on Thursday or Friday. Most likely I'll post the video that I was supposed to post last week. Okay. And I'll let you all know once I post it. So today let's just look at first and second Thessalonians. Okay. So I believe this is the first slide. Yeah. Okay. So we'll first begin by just looking a little bit at the city of Thessalonica. So it's still a present day city in Greece known as Thessalonica. Very, very beautiful because it's on the coast. And in the time of the New Testament, it was also because it was near the port. Because it was near the coast, sorry, it had a harbor and a port. So there was a lot of trade happening and a lot of people who lived there were either wealthy and prosperous or it was just a very commercial place because they were dealing with trade all the time. So you see a wide range of people from people who are merchants, traders, two people who are very rich all in the city of Thessalonica. So Paul fits in well there as someone who's also working on the side of doing ministry. And he's able to take his work and also be and also able to minister at the same time there. It was also a place of military importance. Okay. So because of where it was located and it was such an important place that it was called the lap of the Roman Empire by someone named Cicero who was a Roman. He's a very famous Roman philosopher and lawyer and statesman. And so he had talked about the inhabitants of Thessalonica as being so blessed or so spoiled, whatever the word you want to use is, but that they were like they were right in the lap of the Roman Empire. And the population was about 100,000. I think the textbook says 200,000, but you can just make that correction. But it was a large city basically within the city and just outside the city walls. The total population would have come up to about 100,000 people. So it was the province of Macedonia. Now we looked last week at the book of Philippians and Philippi is also another city in Macedonia. So when Paul has the vision of the Macedonian calling him to come to Macedonia, the first city they land in is Philippi. And then from Philippi they go to Thessalonica. So this is the second city in Europe that they visit during their missionary journey. So it was also a very important city because it was connected to Rome through a highway. And although it was under the Roman Empire, it still retained a lot of Greek culture because it was before that under the Greek Empire. So we'll just look first at Act 17-1-10 to read about what happened when Paul, Silas, Timothy and Luke land in Thessalonica. So Act 17-1-10, someone can read that for us. Act 17-1-10. Now, when they had passed through Amphiolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica where there was a synagogue of the Jews. Then Paul, as his custom was, went into them and for three sabbaths reasoned with them from the scriptures, explaining and demonstrating that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead and saying, This Jesus whom I preach to you is the Christ and some of them were persuaded and a great multitude of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women joined Paul and Silas. But the Jews who were not persuaded became becoming envious, took some of the evil men from the marketplace and gathering a mob, set all the city in an uproar and attacked the house of Jason and sought to bring them out to the people. But when they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some brethren to the rulers of the city crying out, these who have turned the world upside down have come here too. Jason has harboured them and these are all acting contrary to the decrees of Caesar saying there is another king, Jesus, and they troubled the crowd and the rulers of the city when they heard these things. So when they had taken security from Jason and the rest, they let them go. Then the brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. When they arrived, they went into the synagogues of the Jews. Okay, so this is the first entry of the Gospel into Thessalonica. So it gives us a background to what was the start of the church. Some of the things we read was there were some Jews who responded to the Gospel. There were many Greeks, a large number of Greeks and prominent women who came to faith through the preaching. But the Jews who were jealous or who didn't come to faith started to oppose the work that they were doing. And this is when Paul and Silas leave Thessalonica and go to Berea. So once they go to Berea, they begin to preach there. But while they're preaching there, these Jews follow them to Berea and start to cause trouble for them there as well. So we see here that in Thessalonica the Jews were very, very passionate about whatever they believed and very quick to come against the work that Paul was doing. So when we read the book of first Thessalonians, we'll understand how that aspect of the Jews being against the Gospel applies to the church as it continues to grow. Okay, so we'll go into the book. So we know Paul is the author. We see that in 1-1 and 2-18. 1-1 says, Paul, Silas and Timothy to the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you. So right there we have both the author and the recipients who are the Thessalonians, the church of Thessalonica. And we see here Paul adding, if you remember last week when we looked at Philippians and Colossians, we saw Paul adding Timothy in his letters. He said Paul and Timothy to the church. Now we see that he's also included Silas probably because Silas was with him when he went to Thessalonica to preach the Gospel. So the letter is written by Paul, but he includes Silas and Timothy in the greeting in the beginning. We also see in chapter 2 verse 18 a reference to himself. And as we look through the book, we'll read a few of these verses. So the occasion for writing, okay, Paul had sent Timothy to the church to see how they were doing. So we saw that they were persecuted by the Jews. They left Thessalonica and they went away to Berea. He later on sends Timothy back to check up on the church to see how they're doing and Timothy returns with the report. And so Paul is writing this letter as a kind of an encouragement to the church based on Timothy's report to the church. And what is interesting is that this whole letter actually is a very positive letter. There isn't much rebuking. So we saw that also with the book of Philippians, the letter to the Philippians that it was a very positive letter. Even here we'll see that in 1 Thessalonians. In 2 Thessalonians, there's a little bit of correction, but it's still not about like how we see in 1 and 2 Corinthians. There's a lot of sin. There's a lot of culture that has come into the church, the outside culture that has influenced the church. We don't see that in these books. Okay, so some of the main things that he'll cover is the sorrow of the Thessalonians over departed saints. And some of the false accusations that had come against him. The letter was written from Corinth. So while Paul was in Corinth, he writes this letter around AD 51. So it's one of the earliest epistles that were written. And some of the unique features, it talks a lot about the second coming of Christ. So a lot of information about the rapture is included in 1 Thessalonians. It also has no quotations from the Old Testament. And it's also a very simple letter. It doesn't have a lot of theology like some of Paul's other epistles. The theme of 1 Thessalonians, Christian life in relation to the second coming. So that is the main focus. We'll see both in 1 and 2 Thessalonians a focus on the second coming of Christ. Why do you think that Paul is focusing on that? Considering what we read in Acts 17, why do you think Paul would be focusing on the second coming of Christ in these letters? You get a clue from the keyword that's written there as well. We were earlier discussing about how people were very being discomforted with regard to the loss of their loved ones. So when you're saying about comfort, it's about the assurance of the second coming of the Lord and the people who have tried will rise again. So specifically to do with persecution. So we read in Acts 17 that there was persecution that arose when the gospel was preached and Paul and Silas had to leave because of that. So that persecution continued to be present in the church. Now we don't know if a lot of these deaths that happened were a result of the persecution. But Paul is using the second coming of Christ to comfort the people to say that whatever you're experiencing here, the suffering you're experiencing here is temporary. Christ is going to return. And so you can continue steadfast in your faith now knowing that Christ is coming back and He is going to rescue us from all that we have suffered. So we'll just read this if someone can read 1 Thessalonians 1, 9 and 10. That contains some of the main things that 1 Thessalonians talks about. 1 Thessalonians 1 verse 9. For they themselves declare concerning us what manner of entry we had to you and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God. And to wait for His Son from whom He raised from the dead. Even Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come. Okay, so some key things. They turned away from their idols. They waited for Christ's return and believing that Jesus will rescue them from the tribulation that is to come or the wrath that is to come against those who do not believe. Okay, so we'll see a little bit of that contrast in the book between those who believe and those who don't believe. 1 Thessalonians, some of the books we can compare it to 1 Corinthians 15 talks about how living believers will be transformed at Christ's return. In the twinkle of an eye our bodies will be transformed when Christ comes back. 1 Thessalonians on the other hand talks about how the dead will be raised when Christ returns. So 1 Thessalonians focuses on those who died in Christ. Philippians and Philemon along with 1 Thessalonians are very positive letters. So there's no nothing that is rebuking, nothing that is controversial. It's all very appreciative of the churches to which they're written. 2 Thessalonians explains why those who died in Christ won't miss out on the rapture. And 2 Thessalonians talks about why believers won't be in the tribulation. So the tribulation and rapture are two things that are covered in 1 Thessalonians. So we'll just look at an outline. So all of these letters are quite small. So there's just a little bit that we have to cover. It begins in chapter 1 with the usual greeting to the church. Then it starts to talk about the church itself. The church at Thessalonica talks about he praises the church. He talks about the church as an example. If we can read chapter 1 verses 4 to 5. 1 Thessalonians 1, 4 to 5. 1 Thessalonians chapter 1 verses 4. Knowing beloved brethren, your election by God was 5. For our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and in much assurance as you know what kind of man we were among you for your sake. So here it's talking about how when they preached the gospel there was a deep conviction. The people who responded like we read in Acts 17, a large number of the God fearing Greeks came to faith. So there was deep conviction. There was a move of the Holy Spirit that came when they preached the gospel there. And the church became imitators of Paul. They saw Paul's life and they started to live the way Paul and Silas were living. Then 8 to 10 is where he talks about the church's example of how they were living out their faith and how their faith itself had been so powerful that other cities and other churches in Macedonia had heard about their faith and had heard about this church. In chapter 2 he talks about his relationship to the church. So first he begins with his own ministry. He talks about how his ministry was one that was done in honesty, righteousness with a true concern for them, like a father cares for his children. So he uses both the language of father and mother. Being concerned as a parent for the church. The second he talks about is how the church responded to him. The church accepted him even in the midst of their suffering. Even in the midst of their persecution they accepted and received him in Silas. The third part he talks about his concern for the church. So this is why Timothy is sent to check on how the church is doing. He wants to make sure that they have continued to remain in the faith because he knows of the persecution that they've been facing. And he encourages them to continue to remain steadfast and so that he ends with a prayer for the church here. The next part is titled the problem of the church but if we read through these chapters we'll see that Paul is not really correcting them. He's only saying, I know you already know this but I want you to grow in it more. So there isn't clear evidence that the church was in sin or practicing anything that was sinful. Rather he's just encouraging them to continue to walk in purity, continue to walk in the way that they are walking.  So that is one thing we'll see repeated even in 2nd Thessalonians making sure they are working for a living, that they are not just remaining idle. And through their work to be witnesses to people outside the church. Then he talks about this is where we see the teaching on the rapture. So maybe we can read that state of the Christian dead chapter 4 verses 13 to 18 if someone can read that for us.  For this we say to you by the word of the Lord that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout with the voice of an archangel and with the trumpet of God and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words. Thank you. So this is the teaching on the rapture itself specifically to do with those who have already died. So they were very sorrowful over the people within the church who had died. This is possibly or probably actually related to persecution and so he is comforting them with these words. And then from here he says okay the dead will be raised in Christ and we too will be caught up with them and then he goes into chapter 5 to say how should we live in light of Christ's return? So Christ is coming but we have to continue to walk in holiness until the time that Christ comes. Then in chapter 5 he also addresses church officers and then he closes with a final exhortation and conclusion. We will just read verses 23 and 24 of chapter 5. So one can read that for us. May God himself. Now may the Lord God of peace himself sanctify you completely and may your whole spirit soul and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful who also will do it. Thank you. So we see on these verses sort of like a summary of what he talks about. So one aspect of Christ's coming is the hope that we have in the midst of our suffering. The second aspect is that we continue to walk in holiness. That we allow the Holy Spirit to continue to sanctify us and we walk in that holiness until Christ's return. So with that we come to the end of first Thessalonians. Second Thessalonians builds on what first Thessalonians talks about. So this letter is sent out to the church and then there are certain issues that rise up in the church basically that they have misunderstood a few things that Paul has talked about. So he further explains them in the second book. And mostly about the day of the Lord and the tribulation. Again we see that Paul, Silas and Timothy are named as the writers of the letter and at the end of the letter Paul writes his greeting with his own hand. This letter is again written in AD 51. So just a few months after that first letter is written he writes this letter to explain what he had written in the first letter. The same written to the church at Thessalonica and the theme here is fully focused on the day of the Lord. So first Thessalonians also focuses on holy living but this letter is specifically focused on the rapture and tribulation. So if someone can read this for us, second Thessalonians 1, 6 to 10 that's kind of the main part of what the book talks about. God is just. He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to you who are troubled and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shout out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might. On the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. This includes you because you believed our testimony to you. Thank you. So here continue teaching on the persecutors and the persecuted, right? So with Christ's coming, those who are persecuting the church will be paid back for their unbelief and the church will be rewarded for their faith. So this is the encouragement that he is giving the church in 2nd Thessalonians. And we'll see that these believers actually, there was some teaching that had come into the church saying Christ has already come back. So in their mind it was that the rapture has already happened. But Paul is writing here to tell them that don't believe anyone who says anything like that. When Christ comes, we will all know. And here he describes some of the things that will happen before Christ's return. And he talks about the Antichrist coming. So an outline of the letter, it begins with encouragement. So that's what we read. Praise for the church, God's judgment over the wicked and reward for the church. And then he prays for the church at the end of this chapter. In chapter 2, we see detail about the Antichrist coming. So maybe we can read that. Chapter 2 verses 1 to 12. Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you brothers and sisters not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by the teaching allegedly from us. Whether by a prophecy or by word of mouth or by letter asserting that the day of the Lord has already come. Do not let anyone deceive you in any way for that they will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or his worship so that he sets himself up in God's temple proclaiming himself to be God. Don't you remember that when I was with you, I used to tell you these things? And now you know what is holding him back so that he may be revealed at the proper time. For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way.  The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with how Satan works. He will use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie and all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refuse to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sent them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness. Thank you. So here Paul is correcting some wrong teaching that had come into the church and clarifying what he said in his first letter. So he was talking about the rapture happening and they thought that the rapture had already happened so he is telling them don't be deceived. This is what needs to happen before Christ returns and then he talks about the Antichrist coming. After that he goes into a little bit of teaching. This is again to encourage the believers to continue in their faith. Although they are being persecuted he talks about the judgment that is to come against those who are persecuting them and he encourages them to walk in the truth to continue to walk in faith. He closes with a warning against ideal believers. We see this repeated again from 1 Thessalonians again in 2 Thessalonians here. He focuses a little bit more on it and then closes with a greeting. So both of these epistles focus on Christ's return. That is the major theme in these two books. So to help them keep their eyes on Jesus who is coming back and to help them recognize that their present day lives should be lived with that view in perspective that Christ is coming back. So whether it's in suffering or whether it's walking in holiness both those things should be lived in the light of Christ's return. So that's the end of 2 Thessalonians. We can stop here if anyone has any questions, thoughts. You're welcome to share. Sure, brother Warren, you can go ahead. Unfortunately, not to do with what we've just learned. It's out of context. I just wanted to ask a question about Easter. I've heard, as believers, a lot of people call it Resurrection Day because of the pagan connotation to Easter. But I mean, I've seen a lot of believers also use Easter. So I'm just wondering what is correct and what is not if it took you to ask this now. Okay. Let me just repeat your question. So you've heard people referring to Easter as Resurrection Sunday, right? And basically saying that using Easter is like a wrong or inappropriate way to talk about. Yeah, that's right. Because they were saying that Easter is linked to the pagan extra, you know, that sort of thing. I mean, it's been circulating social media for years. Yes. So yes, it is linked to a pagan goddess. And so when people came from that worship of that God to faith in Christ, they replaced that festival with a celebration of the resurrection, but they kept the same name of Easter. So a lot of people say it's better to call it Resurrection Sunday. So I think we're in this in between phase of there's still a large group of people who still refer to it as Easter. And so if you say Resurrection Sunday or Resurrection Day, they may not even know exactly what you're talking about. They may not recognize that you're talking about Easter. I wouldn't say that it's like it's wrong in terms of morally wrong or it's not a it's not something that is sinful. Resurrection Day definitely gives a better description of what we're celebrating. If you're saying Easter, since it refers to that God, since it refers to a pagan God, and since it doesn't really describe what we're celebrating, Resurrection Day may be a better way to refer to it. But in terms of right and wrong, there's nothing wrong in terms of like morality. If you refer to it as Easter is what I would say. Yes, that's and also Easter is a little more familiar to people outside the church as well. So again, if we're referencing Resurrection Sunday, that may not be something that other people understand is Easter. That's really good. Thank you very much. I had a similar understanding that when we can refer to it as Resurrection Sunday when we're talking to believers, but the wider audience who are not familiar with it will find it a bit odd. So it's okay to refer to it as Easter when we're talking to the other wider audience. Yes, and a lot. No problem. I think, yeah, the main thing is to, I mean, to even whoever we're talking to be able to share what is the true message behind it or what is the true hope that we are celebrating, that's the main thing that we want to be highlighted. So the words that we use may be different, but the message that we're communicating in it is important. Yeah, any other questions? Thank you, brother. Sister, is the falling away refers to the rapture of the church? The, what, sorry? Falling away. Falling away, is it? Yeah. Is it refer to rapture of the church? Is that from one of the verses we read? Yeah. Can you give me the reference, sorry? About the Antichrist, you know, we read that in that the falling away, is it refers to the rapture of church? I'm not sure. I don't think so. Okay, let me just, so in second, this is in second Thessalonians. Second Thessalonians. Okay. So it says here, okay, so talks about the Antichrist coming. Talks about verse six, now you know what is holding him back so that he may be revealed at the proper time. For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work, but the one who holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the ways. Is that what you are referring to? No, sister, there was a falling away. Okay. I don't think it's referring to the rapture, it's after this that he talks about it. So he says, so it's talking about judgment on those who are wicked after the lawless one is revealed. And before that it's saying, yeah, it was basically saying that Christ has not returned. Before Christ returns, the Antichrist must come. And this is how the Antichrist will come. And he talks about that. And then talks about the judgment that will follow once he returns, once the Antichrist comes, Christ will return. And there will be judgment on the wicked. So this specifically is not talking about the rapture. But verse six and seven, one of the interpretations of that is that the church is the one that is holding back the coming of the Antichrist. And when the church is raptured is when this judgment will happen. And so that is where it mentions the rapture. It is in the second Thessalonians, second chapter. It says here, I let no one deceive you by any means for that day will not come unless the falling away comes first. And the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition. This is the one I was talking about. The rebellion occurs and the man will okay, okay. This is talking about the Antichrist himself rebelling. And then he talks about how he will rebel, he will oppose, he will exalt himself over everything that is called God. And that is how he will be revealed as the Antichrist. So the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed. Okay, sister. Thank you. No problem. Okay. Any other questions, anything you would like to share? In that case, we can close and I'll see you all on Thursday and I'll also let you know once the video, once I post the video. Thank you. Thank you, sister.


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