Hank Hanegraaff, of the “Bible Answer Man” radio show, and author Sigmund Brouwer have teamed up to write The Last Disciple, a novel about first-century Christians, and the people they come in to contact with, undergoing the Great Tribulation under the reign of Nero.
Hanegraaff and Brouwer operate from a different view of biblical translation and interpretation than Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins do in the Left Behind series. As they state in the Afterword, they seek not to divide the Church over this issue, but rather encourage debate and study of the book of Revelation. Simply put, Hanegraaff and Brouwer believe that many of the prophecies the apostle John was witness to, and transcribed in to what we know as Revelation, have already been fulfilled, as they were written to the early Christian church. You can read more on their take at the book’s Web site.
The Last Disciple features several characters, including the wicked Nero, but follows mostly the path of Gallus Sergius Vitas, one of Nero’s inner circle. Vitas, a former military commander and from a Roman founding family, has grown tired of Nero’s persecution of Christians. He doesn’t care for the Christians because they are followers of Christ who refuse to bow to Nero, but rather he is tired of bloodshed in general, having seen too much of it when he was fighting in Britannia, and lost his wife and son, natives of the isle. In the course of his trying to subtly subvert Nero, Vitas discovers an old friend has accepted Christ, and Vitas falls in love with a former slave, also a Christian.
In the mean time, Vitas’s brother Damien, in an attempt to recapture the honor he has cost the family name, becomes a fearsome slave hunter. Damien is hired by another of Nero’s inner circle, this time to find the writer of Revelation, the letter Nero fears and hates. Damien is hired to hunt down John, the last disciple of Christ.
Hanegraaff and Brouwer craft a good read, taking you through the workings and machinations of Nero’s inner circle, the duplicitous politics, the last moments of a Christian on the arena floor, and the feelings of a man who walked and talked with the Creator and Savior of the universe.
I know a few Indians, most of whom are Hindu. They are not the kind of people I would imagine capable of the kind of violence Compass Direct is reporting from the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Chattisgarh. (Compass’s site appears to be down at the moment.)
In the former state, two Christian pastors have been found murdered, the deeds claimed by the “Anti-Christian Forum.” In the latter, two hundred Hindu extremists attacked a church in the village of Moti Chowk. Police then arrested nine church members, charging them under the Indian Penal Code with “disturbing the peace.” All nine were released on bail two days later. The Christian community is also being boycotted in the village, restricting their access to the community well and from buying food at the local markets.
Items like this show us how blessed we are to live in a nation like the United States. Please pray for those in India and around the world who are persecuted in the name of our Lord.
[Info provided via Voice of the Martyrs.]