Daily Devotional For October 21, 2025
The woman which you saw is the great city which has rulership over the kings of the earth. Rev 17:18.
The image of the “great city” clearly has universal application. It is called Sodom, Egypt, Jerusalem and Babylon (Rev 11:8; 14:8). It is still a factor in the world at the end of history (Revelation 17). So it is likely that early readers of Revelation would have identified this image with Rome. The great city “has rulership” (present tense) over the kings of the earth. The beast the woman rides is also seven mountains, which would probably remind first century readers of the seven hills of Rome. First-century Jews and Christians often referred to Rome as Babylon, etc. There may be a lesson for us in this identification.
Around the time Revelation was written, the legal standing of Christians in the Empire was coming under threat. Jews were taking action to isolate Christians from the synagogue. Judaism was the only religion that exempted people from Roman religious law. To be seen as separate from Jews, therefore, put Christians in real peril.
A second problem that Christians began to face were accusations from their Gentile neighbors. As Gentiles came to see a distinction between Christian faith and Judaism, they often examined Christianity with hostile contempt. Christians were accused of being “haters of the human race.” Public events in Asia Minor were saturated with pagan rituals and rhetoric. Christians, therefore, usually avoided them so as not to compromise their faith.
The general population, on the other hand, took a smorgasbord approach to religion. They felt free to pick and choose among a variety of ideas. Much like today, they did not appreciate people who thought they were right and everybody else was wrong. They accused Christians of “atheism” because they would not worship any god but their own. The peoples of the Empire each had their own religious preferences but added worship of the state gods as a token of their allegiance to the state. But Christians would not accept the state gods as objects of worship. So they were considered “atheists.”
Christians, oddly enough, were also accused of “cannibalism.” It had to do with Gentile perceptions of the Lord’s Supper, where Christians were “eating the body and drinking the blood” of their Lord. Christians understood these statements in a spiritual way, but apparently their pagan neighbors did not. So stories went around that Christians were sacrificing children and others in order to eat at their Lord’s table. The combined effect of all these accusations was an insecure world for Christians to live in.
Lord, I am grateful to live in relatively sheltered times. Keep my faith strong when life is good.