Called to Be Everyday Revolutionaries

Two Old Testament books, Daniel and Esther, were written to instruct the Israelites on how to live in a world where they didn’t belong. The context for most Old Testament books was the land of Israel. The books of Daniel and Esther, by contrast, tell the story of God’s people living outside it, in places where God’s name was not known and certainly not honored.

The book of Daniel is particularly interesting. It’s one of the only books in the Old Testament not written entirely in the Hebrew language. The introduction and conclusion of Daniel are in Hebrew, indicating that it was written primarily for Jews, but the narrative parts are in Aramaic, the language of Babylon, because all the events take place in Babylon.

Daniel was part of a Jewish contingent carried into exile by the conquering Babylonians in the sixth century BC. The Babylonians, under the leadership of Nebuchadnezzar, “burned the house of God and broke down the wall of Jerusalem and burned all its palaces with fire” (2 Chron. 36:19). Daniel was part of a special group selected to serve in Nebuchadnezzar’s palace to learn Babylonian ways and get their MBAs (masters of Babylonian arts). King Nebuchadnezzar figured if he could get Israel’s cream of the crop, they would help convert the captured Israelites into faithful Babylonian subjects.

In this new context away from their homeland, Daniel and his friends were unable to follow some of the divine directives regarding how to live. They could not, for example, follow all the Mosaic laws about ritual cleansings, feasts and holidays, or community structure. Furthermore, Nebuchadnezzar’s administration, which they served, was characterized by conquest, violence, and immorality. Daniel had been swept up into a literal Game of Thrones, and he had to figure out how to live as a servant of the true God in that context.

The very structure of the book—with the introduction and conclusion in Hebrew and the stories in Aramaic—presents a question to Israelites: You know how to be faithful to God “in Hebrew,” but can you be faithful “in Aramaic”?

Is it possible? How can you be faithful to God in a place where the cultural “language” is entirely different from your own? Where scriptural definitions of right and wrong are turned upside down? Where what should be grieved is celebrated, and what is honorable is considered shameful?

Daniel’s experience was harrowing and painful, but amazing nonetheless. Daniel brought not one but two Babylonian kings to profess faith in the God of Israel. Daniel didn’t fit in—often awkwardly and dangerously so. Daniel wouldn’t eat what others ate. He stood when others knelt and knelt where others stood.

He was so countercultural that he got thrown into a lions’ den…and yet so beloved at the same time that the king whose decree put him there stayed awake all night distressed that he might have lost him.

How do you become like that in our society?

As Marvin Olasky points out in his book Standing for Christ in a Modern Babylon, “Daniel, faithful to biblical understanding but comprehending Babylon, is a role model for Christians who want to work in the dominant culture of America but not be of it. Daniel’s life was not easy…He had to be bilingual and bicultural, and so should we be.”

Like you, I’m concerned about the direction our society is going, but I believe that God has us here for a reason. After studying Daniel in some depth and considering how Peter incorporated Daniel’s themes in his New Testament epistle, I’m convinced that God intends to do some profound things in and through us in the coming days.

There will be fiery furnaces and lions’ dens, for sure. And those aren’t fun. But there’s also a God in heaven who shuts the mouths of lions, quenches the violence of fire, and transforms the hearts of pagan kings. And you and I have been invited to play lead characters in the great drama. We’re called to be everyday revolutionaries who participate with God in making his kingdom known on earth.

Honestly, I wouldn’t trade living in this moment for any other. I hope you feel that excitement too.

J.D. Greear is the pastor of The Summit Church in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina. Adapted from Everyday Revolutionary by J.D. Greear. Copyright © 2025 by J.D. Greear. Used by permission of HarperCollins Christian Publishing. Tune in to LIFE Today this Thursday, October 1, to hear J.D. Greear talk about transforming the world.