CLM 203 Understanding the Book of Revelation

Tue, 11 Jun 1996

Clergy/Leaders' Mail-list No. 203 


     Here's another daily meditation from my recent book of devotions
     'Sunrise Sunset' (HarperCollins/Harper San Francisco). Feel free
     to use/adapt it. These appear regularly on our mail-list.



                 UNDERSTANDING THE BOOK OF REVELATION (1)


The Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come. Revelation 4:11.


We are about to take a little journey into some magnificent territory -
via the last book in the Bible, the Book of Revelation.

It is not surprising that the Book of Revelation is hard to understand,
with its visionary language, curious figures, and its cosmic
catastrophes. It describes 'eschatology' - the end-time - about which
the church has never made up its collective mind.

Consequently, as Barclay says, 'the Revelation has sometimes been
abandoned as quite unintelligible, and it has sometimes become the
playground of religious eccentrics, who use it to map out celestial
time-tables of what is to come...'

The artistry and aura of Revelation are sublime.  J. B.  Phillips says
that he found the task of translating this book 'in the true sense of
that threadbare word, thrilling... The translator is carried into
another dimension - he has but the slightest foot-hold in the
time-and-space world with which he is familiar.  He is carried, not into
some never-never land of fancy, but into the Ever-ever land of God's
eternal values and judgments.' Revelation comprises a 'theology of
power'.


Lord, you are worthy to receive glory and honour and power. Amen.

     Shalom!

     Rowland Croucher

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