Book Recommendation: See the Strange by Brett Davis

I always enjoy exploring the Christian faith from angles that don't always line up with current or popular theological trends. See the Strange definitely fits that bill. I recently dove into this excellent book about the most misunderstood and misinterpreted book in the Bible - "The Revelation of Jesus Christ", more commonly referred to as just "Revelation" (and it's singular, not "Revelations"). The following are quotes from the book that will give you a nice taste of how Brett Davis tackles a subject even my pastor won't preach about.

“The worst books about Revelation treat it as a coded history of the future, predictions that we can tick of as they get fulfilled – except that those ticks have so far always turned out to be mistaken. Some of the worst books about Revelation read it as a nightmare to be inflicted on the world by a God who gloats over human suffering.”

“No one in church history has agreed on how to exactly read the letter of Revelation. That is absolutely obvious; there is no consensus. But our obsessive decoding of the future is really recent…If seeing the future was God’s primary reason for inspiring John to put quill to parchment, then Revelation has been a big fat failure for the church historic.”

“What if the strangeness of Revelation is not something we need to entirely decode or un-strange? What if Revelation’s oddness and intrigue mean to help us?”

“No part of Revelation means to drive us to bull headed predictions, or over-reaching analysis, or ever-changing flowcharts. All of Revelation means to drive us to our knees. We should remind ourselves early and often that Revelation is primarily meant to be absorbed not analyzed. When we slip into obsessive over-analysis of dissecting and decoding, we are slipping further and further away from the point of the book.”

“…whatever Revelation is, it’s something that these seven churches would have (mostly) understood. Jesus didn’t send a coded puzzle meant for comfortable Christians in the twenty-first century. Jesus sent a stylized letter originally meant for struggling Christians in the first century. If we cannot imagine the original hearers of Revelation understanding our interpretation of this letter, then our interpretation probably needs to be rethought.”

“Jesus inviting us into His life is harder than us inviting Jesus into ours. It takes a longer time. It’s more painful. It requires us to surrender our fantasies about the throne…The invitation of Jesus is difficult because Jesus invites us to die.”

“This, by the way, is the task of every local church. We must cultivate spaces like this altar. Spaces that are ruthlessly vulnerable, brutally honest, fearlessly realistic. There are no questions off-limits within the church. The saints are nothing if we are not honest about our confusion and truthful about the world.”

“What changes the world - what saves the world – is when the church faithfully witnesses to self-giving love of the Lamb. Even when it’s hard. Even when the world despises the truth. And even when forgiveness and mercy are overpowered by hatred and violence.”

“…perhaps we need to remind ourselves that God’s purposes are meant to be eaten not read, ingested not intellectualized, lived not analyzed. The often painful love of the cross is meant to be corporately embodied, not merely cognitively understood.”

“Sometimes people worry that a credit card or the latest technology might be the mark of the beast. Perhaps a better question asks about the consumerism of the credit card itself. When we buy into a system that tells us that more money will bring more security, or that lifelong debt is worth immediate pleasure, or that sweatshops are a reasonable price for affordable goods, or that our money is primarily for us – when that’s the pattern, we should be examining our credit cards. We’re entertaining the lies of the beast.”

“Chemotherapy feels like wrath for the cancer. And it doesn’t look pretty for anyone watching. But the goal of chemotherapy is healing. The goal of chemo is new life. And this is the final treatment – seven blistering bowls of vintage love distilled to destroy evil.”

“This final cycle of seven signals the end of evil’s story. No more delay, no more intermission…and no more repentance. Everyone who wants God – who wants real and everlasting Life – has turned to God. Everyone else would rather “curse the name of God” than live with him or sing his praise. They would rather “gnaw their tongues” than use them for the Song of Life.”

“We’re always being offered counterfeits, and we frequently settle for them. We crave intimacy, we settle for “casual” sex. We thirst for inner peace; we settle for numbing pain. We hunger for satisfaction; we settle for the next big purchase. We ache to be truly known; we settle for applause and popularity. We yearn for significance – to know our lives matter – but we settle for busyness. We’re parched for True Life; the Enemy offers to quench our thirst with death. We thirst for the cup of salvation; we settle for the cup of abominable things.”

“God is the One who can seal away the Enemy at anytime with no battle at all. He’s the omnipotent ground of all reality. And when the final battle arrives between God and Satan – Goodness and Evil, between Life and Death – it’s not a fair fight. It’s actually no fight at all.”

“Revelation ends with Jesus calling us awake with the promise of his coming. The promise of his coming; not the threat of his coming. The entirety of Revelation is framed as challenge and encouragement to the Church. This book does not aim threats at an unbelieving world. The coming of Jesus is the best good news the world will ever know. May we never talk about it otherwise.”

Check it out, but don't take my word for it, read the book, don't wait for the movie (and don't read those other books or watch those bad movies).

Have a little hope on me, 

Roger (now the Reasonable Faith Delmarva Chapter Director meeting in Georgetown, Delaware)