Happenings 19 July 2020

It has been called many things by many people. The "curious record of the visions of a drug addict" (George Bernard Shaw); "the most rabid outburst of vindictiveness in all recorded history" (Friedrich Nietzsche); a "misogynist male fantasy at the end of time" (feminist New Testament scholar, Tina Pippin). It is the one book of the Bible that John Calvin never wrote a commentary on. The German Reformer, Martin Luther, was deeply suspicious about it, saying that Jesus Christ could not be found within its pages. It inspired David Koresh to hole himself up in a secluded compound near Waco, Texas, along with many followers, leading to a shootout with U.S. officials in 1993 and the loss of many lives. It inspired one of the most financially successful and deeply flawed Christian book-series of all time, the Left Behind series. It has also inspired some of the most breathtaking works of artistry - Handel's Messiah and the paintings of Joachim of Fiore and William Blake, to name a few.  A Christian academic called Luke Timothy Johnson says, "Few writings in all of literature have been so obsessively read with such generally disastrous results as the Book of Revelation. Its history of interpretation is largely a story of tragic misinterpretation." It causes polarisation, confusion, fear, obsession and hope in almost equal measure, which is all the more reason to preach from it! After all, the correct response to poor interpretation is not NO interpretation, but GOOD interpretation. So ... buckle up. Bring your crash helmet. Fire extinguishers might also be helpful. This Sunday, we begin our journey through the book of Revelation.

In Him,
Murray