Monday, June 15, 2020

Revelation: The Spirit Speaks to the Churches

I am grateful that our pastor let Jim borrow this commentary on the book of Revelation, as I love to study eschatology and learn more about hermeneutics. This was even more fun to read as Dr. James M. Hamilton Jr. was one of Jim's professors at seminary and it's always exciting to learn from great teachers.

On the whole I greatly enjoyed reading this book. I love the book of Revelation and discussing its implications on history and the world today. I love thinking about what God is going to do and the new age that is to come when Jesus returns and makes everything truly new and we can worship God perfectly forever. How I long for that day! And this book made me long for it all the more.

I absolutely appreciate Dr. Hamilton's candor in how he speaks of the book of Revelation and does not shy away from difficult implications and ideology that are found throughout the book of Revelation. He is clear about where he stands from his study of the Scripture and gives clear reasoning against some other positions in different places. The chapters are broken down into bite sized pieces making it easier to focus on one section at a time. While a strength, at times I struggled with this personally as even with an outline at the beginning of each chapter, I would get lost in the timeline.

Each chapter is laid out with an intro, showing the need God is revealing in that section, the main point, overview of the section and context of the passage before diving into the text. The consistency is extremely helpful as you know what to expect and know what to look for in each chapter. My one desire would have been to have the text printed in full before diving into the commentary. Dr. Hamilton does print out each verse as he discusses it, which is good, but it would have been nice to have the passage as a whole. Yes, I know you can go to your Bible, but if you have someone studying this who may not have a Bible it would be a nice addition. I also appreciate how Dr. Hamilton included references from Daniel and showed parallels from the end times prophecies found there next to that in Revelation.

While well written and quite thorough, I did struggle with some of the analogies used to explain things. Most of the time he explained the passage and points quite well, but I did find some areas that I would have considered holes that needed to be filled. I also struggled with when Dr. Hamilton used literal vs figurative translation. I am not saying that he is wrong in his interpretation, but I did find it strange in a few places that, to me, appeared to be in congruent with a previous point. I also found some of his explanations to lack proper full Scripture hermeneutical interpretation, but it would not keep me from recommending this book.

Personally, I was hoping it would help me pinpoint my own theological view of the end times, but sadly it made me more confused. But I'm OK with that because wrestling with Scripture is part of the walk with God. I also found some of his points against one of the other eschatological views confusing. Again, this would not keep me from recommending this book. In fact I'd love for others to read it so we can talk about it and help each other out!

I would give this commentary 4.5 stars for the reasons mentioned above, but still highly recommend it to anyone who wants to seek to better understand the book of Revelation, even if you do not agree with Dr. Hamilton's conclusions.

Reading Challenges:
This book is being used as a Commentary on a book of the Bible in the Avid section of Tim Challies's 2020 Reading Challenge.
I am also using this as a book in the category of Theology for the 2020 Christian Reading Challenge for Women with Jami Balmet.

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