Revelation and generosity
I take just finished writing some notes for the Bible Reading Fellowship. (Yous can subscribe to Guidelines hither.) This is how I ended the series:
Goodness—we have reached the end of our whistle-stop tour of the well-nigh heady, influential, complex and engaging book of the New Testament, and possibly of all human literature. If you are feeling a fiddling giddy, and then that's no surprise!
But you might also be feeling disturbed by the apparent violence of some of the imagery, specially in the last few chapters. At that place is much fence about this, and what information technology means for our appreciation of the volume, and at that place are no uncomplicated answers to help us overcome our cultural distance from the text. Just we do need to behave in heed some cardinal bug equally we continue to reflect.
Start, the God of the Book of Revelation is 1 and the same God who loved us and gave himself for us, who was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. The text of Revelation makes this claim repeatedly, and as we accept explored the bulletin of Revelation, I hope you have felt that this claim is justified.
Secondly, ane of the fundamental aims of the book is to both confirm and challenge you in your organized religion. The drama of its images, the rapid move from one scene to the side by side, and the sharp contrast in destinies of the main characters in the narrative all communicate the supreme importance of 'seeking first the kingdom of God and what he requires of you lot' (Matt 6.33). If we invest our time and energy, our trust and loyalty in things that are ultimately contrary to God's purposes, then these things will be lost and our investment will be without return.
And this calls for both decision and activity. None of this is 'pie in the sky when y'all die'; dissimilar the words of Daniel (Dan 12.4), the words of this book are non to exist 'sealed up' (22.10). Nosotros are not to stand still, waiting for something to happen, simply to grasp this hope and live it out in our everyday lives.
The last note that Revelation ends on is the generosity of God's invitation to all. Down the centuries, some readers of this text have used it to confirm them in their prejudices, to limit God'due south welcome, and close the door on people who are 'not like them.' But Revelation will non allow us to do this. The gates of the urban center will never be shut. 'Let everyone who is thirsty come up. Allow anyone who wishes take the water of life every bit a gift' (22.17). If Revelation does not brand us more committed in our discipleship and more generous in our invitation to others, it has not done its work.
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