Reading Journal 2024: Revelation for the Rest of Us: A Prophetic Call to Follow Jesus as a Dissident Disciple

Reading Journal 2024: Revelation for the Rest of Us: A Prophetic Call to Follow Jesus as a Dissident Disciple
Authors: Scot McKnight and Cody Marchett

I am not the target audience for this book, given that I am already well entrenched in the research and approach that this book champions. This book, which is a joint effort by McKnight and Matchett, essentially functions as a stepping stone into the wider conversation regarding the shift from predictive readings to contextualixed ones. On that front it is quite good, although mileage might vary on the practical portions that get quite specific on how the authors see this reading of Revelation applying to the present state of American politics. I confess, even as a Caandian I felt these portions, which are mostly found in the final third, kind of sidelined me as a reader a bit. Which is just another way perhaps in which I wasn’t entirely the target audience for this book.

Even if the material isn’t necessarily new, there were still insights woven into the book that helped me think and rethink certain ideas in fresh ways. I really liked how the authors help us as readers imagine what it looks like to live as peope allegiant to King Jesus in the midst of Empire, using the patterns present in Revelation to note the distinctions and characteristics of both. I thought it did a nice job of demonstrating how the language of Revelation is all hyperlinked back to the OT. I also really enjoyed how the authors looked at the narrative of Revelation, which is retelling the narrative of the OT through the lens of a died, raised and ascended Jesus. In this sense, the predictive notes in Revelation are really all leading up to the death and Resurrection of Jesus, while the singular future hope is centered on one thing- Jesus’ return, or the consummation of what Jesus’ resurrection and ascension inaugurated (the promised new creation realty). One of the biggest points that emerges within this is the notion of Babylon as a cyclical reality- every generation and every age has their Babylon. Thus it has nothing to do with a chronological timeline of events leading up to an end times. For the author and readers of Revelation, their context is Rome and the Temple. Rome was their Babylon. We have our own. And what we can glean from the words of Revelation is not just the patterns of Empire, but how they were called to live in the reality of Empire as a dissident disciple of Jesus and His Kingdom.

Much of this book is interested in deconstructing predictive readings. Even the reconstructing moments can’t help but dwell on the negative, which I suppose could be seen as a critique of the book. It’s understandable though once you consider the books target audience- those for whom predictive readings no longer make sense. Old habits die hard, thus there is a need to keep repeating and calling out those old habits when they stand in danger of creeping back in.

When I first picked up this book I didn’t quite know what to expect, I’ve read quite a bit from McKnight, so I know his voice and his sensibilities, but thus isn’t a traditional commentary, so it was difficult to know what approach it was going to take. Given this, I also decided to take a risk, and reached out to an online friend in a shared group who seemed to be its more direct target audience to see if I could buddy read it from our differing points of perspective. One thing worth noting from that approach is, I do think this works best as a group read or small group study, although it would be important I think to have a group that is interested in the sorts of questions this book is asking and positing potential answers to. The authors aren’t shy about where they stand, and thus make their voices prime targets for unsuspecting readers to be turned off and tuned out before they’ve finished the first couple chapters. This book is an entry point into what is a much larger and broader world of scholarship and discussion, but it also is paradigm shifting if you have never entertained an approach that isn’t predictive.