Thank you for sharing Blount's understanding of Revelation as a polemical work with the goal of inviting repentance, rather than a dispensational prediction of some "end-time" retribution.
The book speaks to the present moment of anyone who reads it. The present moment of John's own time was the suffering of the Mediterranean world under Rome's military domination and its globalized economic exploitation of all its colonies. Our present moment mirrors this with the colonialist domination and exploitation of the world by the so-called "great powers."
In 2016, Quaker pastor and scholar Douglas Gwyn published a powerful work reclaiming Revelation for the 21st century in his book "The Anti-War" https://quakerbooks.org/products/the-anti-war. As the Friends General Conference Quaker Books page writes:
The first part, Peace Finds the Purpose of a Peculiar People, "begins with a close reading of 1 Peter 2:4-17. It then describes how the peace testimony developed among early Friends in the 17th century. The essay concludes by applying the framework of peculiar peoplehood, derived from 1 Peter and early Friends, to the current state of the Religious Society of Friends."
The second part, Militant Peacemaking in the Manner of Friends, "examines the issues inversely. It begins with the Book of Revelation, seen as an apocalyptic unmasking of the Roman Empire’s demonic structure and a call for Christian resistance.
"Then it examines the early Quaker Lamb’s War as a nonviolent social revolution inspired in part by a socially engaged reading of Revelation. The essay concludes with fresh perspective on the Quaker social testimonies as an 'anti-war' that inverts and subverts today’s imperial militarism."
A whore of Babylon mounted on her dragon and drinking the blood of the saints. That's NOT metaphor. It's literal truth that was happening then when The Revelation of Jesus Christ was first written, has happened throughout the millennia since then, is still happening, and will happen right up to Christ Jesus' soon Return. And "WOE" to the souls who will not repent, because their fate is eternally worse, and their own blood is on their own heads. Revelation is not angry or mean . . . just true.
How do we live with such true Truth? We can only look to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb and to the Groom who shed His own Blood for His Bride to bring It and Her into being and trust in His Love.
It's rhetoric...the writing is meant to paint a vivid picture in the mind and to really help you to "see" the horror of the moment in an age where there were no cameras or social media. In the West nowadays, we don't need to use rhetoric as much because with our technology, we can see things as they happen or have recordings of it. Even with our sophisticated technology, some events, for example September 11th, 2001, its really hard to truly capture the emotional intensity of the moment if you were not in Lower Manhattan that day and experienced it live. Then there is no words.
1 Peter 5:8 Your adversary the devil walks around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour, is rhetoric, no one actually sees Satan in the flesh in real life as an actual hungry roaring lion, but for someone who is familiar with that imagery (and maybe have had a close shave a time or two with an actual lion) that is a frightening picture. The whore of Babylon riding on a dragon with an unsatiable lust for Christian blood who is actively searching for you, takes the rhetoric up to an eleven. It is not literally true, but does Satan looks for opportunities to attack believers and tear them down? Yes. Yet, Jesus tells us to not be afraid, He has overcome the world and our enemy. Caution is still advisable, yet we are not to be intimidated for his power over us has been broken....forever.
Thank you for sharing Blount's understanding of Revelation as a polemical work with the goal of inviting repentance, rather than a dispensational prediction of some "end-time" retribution.
The book speaks to the present moment of anyone who reads it. The present moment of John's own time was the suffering of the Mediterranean world under Rome's military domination and its globalized economic exploitation of all its colonies. Our present moment mirrors this with the colonialist domination and exploitation of the world by the so-called "great powers."
In 2016, Quaker pastor and scholar Douglas Gwyn published a powerful work reclaiming Revelation for the 21st century in his book "The Anti-War" https://quakerbooks.org/products/the-anti-war. As the Friends General Conference Quaker Books page writes:
The first part, Peace Finds the Purpose of a Peculiar People, "begins with a close reading of 1 Peter 2:4-17. It then describes how the peace testimony developed among early Friends in the 17th century. The essay concludes by applying the framework of peculiar peoplehood, derived from 1 Peter and early Friends, to the current state of the Religious Society of Friends."
The second part, Militant Peacemaking in the Manner of Friends, "examines the issues inversely. It begins with the Book of Revelation, seen as an apocalyptic unmasking of the Roman Empire’s demonic structure and a call for Christian resistance.
"Then it examines the early Quaker Lamb’s War as a nonviolent social revolution inspired in part by a socially engaged reading of Revelation. The essay concludes with fresh perspective on the Quaker social testimonies as an 'anti-war' that inverts and subverts today’s imperial militarism."
Blessings, Mike
A whore of Babylon mounted on her dragon and drinking the blood of the saints. That's NOT metaphor. It's literal truth that was happening then when The Revelation of Jesus Christ was first written, has happened throughout the millennia since then, is still happening, and will happen right up to Christ Jesus' soon Return. And "WOE" to the souls who will not repent, because their fate is eternally worse, and their own blood is on their own heads. Revelation is not angry or mean . . . just true.
How do we live with such true Truth? We can only look to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb and to the Groom who shed His own Blood for His Bride to bring It and Her into being and trust in His Love.
It's rhetoric...the writing is meant to paint a vivid picture in the mind and to really help you to "see" the horror of the moment in an age where there were no cameras or social media. In the West nowadays, we don't need to use rhetoric as much because with our technology, we can see things as they happen or have recordings of it. Even with our sophisticated technology, some events, for example September 11th, 2001, its really hard to truly capture the emotional intensity of the moment if you were not in Lower Manhattan that day and experienced it live. Then there is no words.
1 Peter 5:8 Your adversary the devil walks around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour, is rhetoric, no one actually sees Satan in the flesh in real life as an actual hungry roaring lion, but for someone who is familiar with that imagery (and maybe have had a close shave a time or two with an actual lion) that is a frightening picture. The whore of Babylon riding on a dragon with an unsatiable lust for Christian blood who is actively searching for you, takes the rhetoric up to an eleven. It is not literally true, but does Satan looks for opportunities to attack believers and tear them down? Yes. Yet, Jesus tells us to not be afraid, He has overcome the world and our enemy. Caution is still advisable, yet we are not to be intimidated for his power over us has been broken....forever.
Thank you, Friend.