I am looking for some Revelation commentaries that are devotional, warm, practical, application-oriented. What do you recommend?
Josh HuntBible Study LessonsSunday School Lessons That Have Groups Talking
Hi Josh,
You may wish to consider the NIV Application Commentary, by Craig Keener. It is, in my opinion, sensible, pastorally focused and one of the stronger entries in the series.
Blessings
And the good news is, I already have it!
Josh Hunt: And the good news is, I already have it!
That's the best kind of recommendation
I agree that is the best for what you described as well. It is one of my favorites!
Disclaimer: I hate using messaging, texting, and email for real communication. If anything that I type to you seems like anything other than humble and respectful, then I have not done a good job typing my thoughts.
Josh
As well as the NIV Application Commentary, might I suggest from Logos the following:
Barnes, Albert. Notes on the New Testament: Revelation. Edited by Robert Frew. London: Blackie & Son, 1884–1885.
Wilcock, Michael. The Message of Revelation: I Saw Heaven Opened. The Bible Speaks Today. Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1986.
More than Conquerors by William Hendriksen
They are not technical commentaries but they are cordially written.
Every blessing
Alan
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Besides the Keener volume, two that I would add for your consideration given your criteria:
1. Reversed Thunder - Eugene Peterson
2. Revelation (Brazos) - Joseph Mangina
The Brazos volume should be in Logos, I'm not sure about Peterson's.
Josh Hunt: I am looking for some Revelation commentaries that are devotional, warm, practical, application-oriented. What do you recommend?
Wow, I'm not sure if any commentary on Revelation can perfectly match all those qualities. Keener is probably the closest for sure. I would also recommend Alan Johnson's EBC (Expositor's Bible Commentary) commentary on Revelation. It is semi-technical, but easy to digest.
Josh, you'll likely want to add Gordon Fee's commentary on Revelation to your list if you don't already have it. It has a nice balance of warmth, practicality and scholarship.
Josh: Josh Hunt: I am looking for some Revelation commentaries that are devotional, warm, practical, application-oriented. What do you recommend? Wow, I'm not sure if any commentary on Revelation can perfectly match all those qualities. Keener is probably the closest for sure. I would also recommend Alan Johnson's EBC (Expositor's Bible Commentary) commentary on Revelation. It is semi-technical, but easy to digest.
Hard but I would like to offer this one (Revelation for Everyone by N. T. Wright), feeling it fits those needs:
REVELATION 3:7–13 The Letter to Philadelphia
7‘Write this to the angel of the church in Philadelphia. “These are the words of the Holy One, the True One, the one who has the key of David, who opens and nobody shuts, who shuts and nobody opens. 8I know your works. Look! I have given you an open door, right in front of you, and nobody can shut it, since you have a little power; you have kept my word, and you haven’t denied my name. 9Look: this is what I will do to the satan-synagogue, who call themselves Jews but who are frauds, nothing of the kind. Take note: this is what I will grant you—that I will make them come and worship before your feet, and they will know that I have loved you. 10You have kept my word about patience, and so I will keep you from the time of trial that is going to come upon the whole world, to test out all the inhabitants of the earth. 11I am coming quickly! Hold on to what you have, so that nobody takes away your crown. 12Anyone who conquers, I will make them a pillar in the temple of my God. They will never go out of it again. I will write on that person the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from my God, and my own new name. 13Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the spirit is saying to the churches.” ’
I have been sitting here trying to imagine what it’s like to find yourself in an earthquake. I was once in a hotel in Los Angeles, a few dozen floors up, and was alarmed to find detailed instructions in the room on what I should do if the building began to shake. It didn’t. The closest I have been to even a small earthquake was a hundred miles away, and it only just rattled the china in the cupboard. So I still haven’t experienced it.And I don’t want to, either. Tales from those who have felt a real tremor indicate that it is the stuff of ultimate nightmares: everything that you thought was fixed and secure is now moving. Houses, walls, streets, bridges, gardens, fields—everything suddenly going up and down. Nothing can be taken for granted.Central Turkey, in the first century as much as any other time, was notorious for its earthquakes. Philadelphia had suffered one of the worst ones, fifty or more years before this book was written. Much of the city had been destroyed and had had to be rebuilt with a grant from the emperor. In a great city of that day, the fine public buildings would be particularly dangerous in such a crisis. Small, poor family homes might escape the worst of the damage; but imagine those splendid works of ancient architecture, civic structures and, not least, temples (of which ancient cities had plenty). Imagine the tall pillars shaking, cracking and then buckling as a huge marble pediment came crashing down. Not a good place to be.Now imagine the effect, in a city like Philadelphia that knew plenty about earthquakes and collapsed temples, of promising the church there that those who conquered would be made pillars in the temple of God (verse 12). No stone, no marble will be involved: this, as in the writings of Paul and Peter, is a ‘temple’ made of living human beings, with Jesus himself as the foundation. This imagery was used from the earliest days of Christian faith. The first Christians, partly because of Jesus and partly because of the gift of the spirit, regarded themselves as the true Temple, the place where the living God had made his home. Sometimes the Jerusalem leaders had themselves been called ‘pillars’ (Galatians 2:9). That metaphor depends for its force on this idea of the church as the new Temple.But now it is the ordinary Christians in Philadelphia, far away from Jerusalem, who are to be ‘pillars’—in a city notorious for danger from earthquakes! A promise to cherish.It goes closely with the comment, and the promise, at the start of the letter. Jesus is the one who, like the steward appointed over God’s house in Isaiah 22:22, has ‘the key of David’: the royal key that will open, or lock, any and every door. Equipped with this regal power, Jesus has opened a door right in front of the Philadelphia Christians, and he is urging them to go through it. As with Paul’s use of the same picture (1 Corinthians 16:9; 2 Corinthians 2:12; Colossians 4:3), the meaning is almost certainly that they have an opportunity not just to stand firm but to make advances, to take the good news of Jesus into places and hearts where it has not yet reached. The qualifications are all in place. They have some power; not very much, but with the backing of Jesus they have all they need. And they have been faithful, keeping his word and not denying his name (this implies that there had already been persecution of some sort). They must take courage and go through the door. They must grasp the opportunity they have while it’s still there.But there is something in the way. As in most cities of the region, there was almost certainly a significant Jewish community in Philadelphia; Sardis, not far away, was a major Jewish centre at the time. As in the letter to Smyrna, we have here an indication that the synagogue community was using its civic status to block the advance of the message about Israel’s Messiah, Jesus, a message so very Jewish and yet so challenging to Jewish people. We should not imagine a ‘church’ on one street corner and a ‘synagogue’ on another, as in many cities today. We should imagine a Jewish community of several thousand, with its own buildings and community life, and a church of probably two or three dozen at most, holding on to the highly improbable, and extremely risky, claim that the God of Israel had raised Jesus from the dead. That imbalance goes some way to help us explain what is now being said.Verse 9 is considerably harsher than the equivalent in the Smyrna letter (2:9). We remind ourselves again that it is not ‘anti-Jewish’; what we have here is what we might call an inner-Jewish question. Which of these groups can properly claim to be the true Jews, bearing the torch of God’s ancient people? This, as we saw, was a common enough question in other parts of first-century Judaism. Here Jesus is quite clear. Those who follow him, the Davidic Messiah, are the true Jews. Those who deny him are forfeiting their right to that noble name.What is more (this is where the Philadelphia letter goes beyond the Smyrna one), there will be a dramatic reversal of roles. In Malachi (1:2) God declares to rebellious Israel, ‘I have loved you’, contrasting Israel, the descendants of Jacob, with Edom, the descendants of Jacob’s brother Esau. Now we have a similar contrast: the unbelieving synagogue will realize that Jesus, their own Messiah, has loved this little group that believes in him. And, whereas ancient prophecy had spoken of times when foreign nations would come and bow before the people of Israel, acknowledging that the one true God was with them, now it’s going to be the other way round. Like Joseph’s brothers in Genesis 42, the Jewish people will bow down before the Jesus they had previously despised. Eventually it will be clear that the followers of Jesus are the ones who can go through the open door, the ones who are to be pillars in the new temple.They are the ones, too, who carry the new name—now, the triple name of God, of the heavenly Jerusalem, and of Jesus himself, bearing his ‘new name’ of King and Lord. They are to be marked out publicly as God’s people, as Jesus’ people, as citizens of the city where heaven and earth will be joined for ever. No earthquakes there. Security, vindication, and the ultimate reward for patience. The time of trial is coming on the whole earth (verse 10), and like a powerful searchlight it will reveal who is holding on to Jesus and his promise of a ‘crown’ (verse 11) and who isn’t. The Philadelphia Christians are holding on at the moment; they must go on doing so, and ‘conquer’ when the time comes. So must we.
Tom Wright, Revelation for Everyone, For Everyone Bible Study Guides (London; Louisville, KY: SPCK; Westminster John Knox, 2011), 32–36.
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Love N.T. Wright. I have that one too.
"Songs of Heaven" by Robert Coleman
More devotional than commentary, but unfortunately not yet in Logos.
"In all cases, the Church is to be judged by the Scripture, not the Scripture by the Church," John Wesley
Michael Childs: "Songs of Heaven" by Robert Coleman More devotional than commentary, but unfortunately not yet in Logos.
I didn't see this one on logos
Paul Erickson: Besides the Keener volume, two that I would add for your consideration given your criteria: 1. Reversed Thunder - Eugene Peterson 2. Revelation (Brazos) - Joseph Mangina The Brazos volume should be in Logos, I'm not sure about Peterson's.
Just got Brazos
Brad: Josh Hunt: I am looking for some Revelation commentaries that are devotional, warm, practical, application-oriented. What do you recommend? Josh, you'll likely want to add Gordon Fee's commentary on Revelation to your list if you don't already have it. It has a nice balance of warmth, practicality and scholarship.
I had Fee. I will priotitize it so it shows up near the top
to future readers of this thread, i would add this recommendation: More than Conquerors: An Interpretation of the Book of Revelation
G Beale's NIGNT commentary on revelation is very edifying as well - more on the technical end than some of these... really well rooted in the OT context
I wasn't aware that Keener wrote the NIV Application Commentary for Revelation. Something to add to my wishlist as I consider his work to be really helpful.
One thing that I find helpful when looking at Revelation is to read John and his letters. There's such a wonderful synthesis that takes place that goes beyond authorship.
The mind of man is the mill of God, not to grind chaff, but wheat. Thomas Manton | Study hard, for the well is deep, and our brains are shallow. Richard Baxter
Josh: Josh Hunt: I am looking for some Revelation commentaries that are devotional, warm, practical, application-oriented. What do you recommend? Wow, I'm not sure if any commentary on Revelation can perfectly match all those qualities.
Wow, I'm not sure if any commentary on Revelation can perfectly match all those qualities.
See, Josh, we occasionally agree. It's a tough request. Regarding the "application-oriented" angle, I have tried searching my library for "How to brand, or be branded with, the mark of the Beast in 666 easy steps", but so far, no luck.
Btw, I'm addressing Josh Josh, not the other Josh, though you are welcome to take what you can from my input, Josh. It's "practical" that way.
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David Paul:Btw, I'm addressing Josh Josh, not the other Josh
Glad you cleared that up.