Revelation
A Love Story
Foreword by Scot McKnight
Imprint: Cascade Books
Could the cry "Come out of her My people" (Rev 18:4) not be needed more today than it was when John penned the Apocalypse?
The book of Revelation begins and ends with the affirmation that God is the world's true Lord, not Caesar. In telling this story, John lays out for us the fact that Christ's kingdom is not like the kingdoms of the world. The kingdoms of the world rule by force and at the expense of the masses and for the benefit of those in power. Jesus's kingdom, however, comes through love. In Christ's kingdom, power is demonstrated by laying down one's life for one's enemies. Jesus, of course, demonstrated this kind of love on the cross, and he calls us to do the same. We have nothing to fear. After all, Jesus was dead and now he is alive and he has the keys to Death and Hades.
Unfortunately, many interpreters have come to believe that the devastation and destruction depicted in the book of Revelation--in particular, in the accounts of the Seven Seals and the Seven Bowls--are God's end-times wrath. But have we ever stopped to consider that this portrait of God is fundamentally at odds with the gospel? And with Jesus's call for us to love one another even as he loved us? The book of Revelation tells a different story.
Rob Dalrymple has been teaching and pastoring for over thirty-four years in colleges, seminaries, and the local church. He is the executive director of Determinetruth ministries, which aims to equip leaders around the world and to provide resources for the church in order to “Challenge the Church to be the Church.” He is the author of numerous books and articles, including: Follow the Lamb: A Guide to Reading, Understanding, and Applying the Book of Revelation. Dalrymple also hosts the weekly determinetruth podcast and writes the weekly determinetruth blog at Patheos.
“Rob Dalrymple’s well-researched and well-documented (yet very readable) commentary challenges many of the misinterpretations of Revelation in vogue today. He rightly sees the last book of the Bible as a story of God’s nonviolent love in Christ, and therefore a summons to hope and to sacrificial, Christlike witness. This commentary should be widely read and its interpretation taken seriously.”
—Michael J. Gorman, chair in biblical and theological studies, St. Mary’s Seminary & University
“The Book of Revelation has long been considered to stand in irreconcilable tension with a core tenet of Christian theology, namely that God is love. Rob Dalrymple’s winsomely written and accessible commentary boldly challenges this judgment. He offers a much-needed summons to readers to respond to Revelation not with speculation and fear about the future, but rather with fearless witness and work on behalf of the kingdom of our God and of his Christ in the present.”
—David A. deSilva, distinguished professor of New Testament and Greek, Ashland Theological Seminary
“Rob Dalrymple’s Revelation commentary is mind-blowing, hope-filled, and energizing. The Bible’s final word is a letter from King Jesus to his church then and now! The letter reinforces our mission as citizens of the kingdom of God and followers of Jesus. We aren’t passive spectators waiting to be evacuated out of this mess. Jesus calls us into the mess as indispensable kingdom agents in God’s rescue operation of the world he loves. Revelation jars us awake to the urgency of the moment. Take up and read!”
—Carolyn Custis James, author of Half the Church: Recapturing God’s Global Vision for Women
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