Robert Lowery

Years ago when I began my teaching ministry I made a promise to myself and a public one to my students that I would do my best to keep myself fresh over the years by continuing to read new books and articles and revise syllabi and class notes. (Surely you recall the professor who was using the same set of lecture notes thirty years later as well as the same textbooks!)

The two, new readings and new editions of syllabi, go hand-in-hand. The former feed the latter. In recent months two important resources have come to my attention, and they will impact the syllabus I will be posting for my Fall class on Revelation.

For years I have required my students to buy G.K. Beale’s The Book of Revelation (Eerdmans, 1998) and Eugene Peterson’s Reversed Thunder: The Revelation of John and the Praying Imagination (HarperCollins, 1988). While these two books have proved to be incredibly helpful to my students, this year I am requiring two relatively new works. I truly hated to part with these works (They remain valuable contributions and really must be purchased and devoured by all serious students of Revelation, but there is a limit to what my students can spend and read during a semester!).

The first is Stephen S. Smalley’s The Revelation to John: A Commentary on the Greek Text of the Apocalypse (InterVarsity Press, 2005). In 1994 Smalley published a work entitled Thunder and Love: John’s Revelation and John’s Community (Nelson Word) in which he introduced readers to his views on authorship, historical setting, and other introductory issues. His newest work is a full-blown commentary with only a 22 page introduction. It is a remarkable book. He divides Revelation into two acts with seven scenes framed between a prologue and an epilogue. Entitled "Creation, and Salvation through Judgment," the first act comprises 1:9-11:19. "Salvation through Judgment, and New Creation" comprises 12:1-22:17, the second and final act. Smalley offers his own translation, textual analysis, literary setting, commentary and theology. Powerfully and clearly written, this volume will take its place alongside Beale’s massive study. One particularly attractive feature is Smalley rightly views theology as more important than chronology. It is a measured and balanced approach to the most misunderstood book in the canon.

The second volume, Darrell W. Johnson’s Discipleship on the Edge: An Expository Journey Through the Book of Revelation (Vancouver, British Columbia: Regent College Publishing, 2004) contains helpful sermons focusing on how Revelation guides us in to being and remaining faithful disciples of Jesus in a hostile and seductive world. It speaks to the heart and the mind. Everyday discipleship with an eternal perspective is a crucial way to read the last book of the New Testament.