This Hallelujah Banquet
How the End of What We Were Reveals Who We Can Be
How the End of What We Were Reveals Who We Can Be
In this powerful new interpretation of the book of Revelation, the late, revered author and translator of The Message Bible offers timely insights into how we can lean into growth, not in spite of challenging times, but because of them. “Insightful and inviting . . . This is Eugene at his pastoral best.”—Rev. Dr. Glenn Packiam, associate senior pastor at New Life Church and author of Blessed Broken Given The book of Revelation is filled with angels and dragons, fantastic beasts and golden cities, bottomless pits and mysterious numbers. It’s dramatic, sure—but what exactly does that have to do with the tests we face today? Actually, a lot. When the apostle John penned the book of Revelation, believers lived in a time of deception and injustice. But his message doesn’t just reflect their cries for things to be made right; it reveals heaven’s perspective of the bigger picture. In this never-before-published work, Eugene H. Peterson traces the dramatic symbolism found in John’s letters to the seven churches, uncovering Christ’s instructions to these ancient communities. Along the way, encounter seven key tests, of our love, suffering, truth, holiness, reality, witness, and commitment, tests from Christ that can deepen our faith and even shape our future. This Hallelujah Banquet is your personal invitation to grow deep and begin living now in a generous, abundant, and hopeful reality in Christ.
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Summary: A posthumously edited collection of sermons on Revelation, most from 1984.
I am a big fan of Eugene Peterson. By my count, this is the 14th of Peterson's books I have read. And many of those I have read more than once. I will probably continue to pick up his books. This Halleluah Banquet was published in 2021. And four books are being published this year in his name (two devotionals that are edited from his writing and sermons, a sermon collection, and a new edition along with the audiobook of his book on David, Leap Over a Wall.)
I am not opposed to books being posthumously edited and released. I really enjoyed reading the novel Thrones, Dominations by Dorothy Sayers. It was not finished and lost until about 60 years after she died. It was found in some files of her lawyer and finished by Jill Paton Walsh. Similarly, I have picked up several books that the students of Henri Nouwen compiled from a mix of his notes, class lectures, and other materials. But at the same time, these edited works often lack the vitality of books written directly by the author.
Parts of This Hallelujah Banquet are worth reading (or listening to as I did). I largely agree with the interpretation of Revelation that is being taught here. It is far more common to be hearing about Revelation as guidance for living in oppression today than it would have been in 1984. Earlier generations of teaching about Revelation would have been oriented toward dispensationalism and seeking to “break the code” of the future prophecy. I remember attending “Prophecy Conferences” at a friend's church when I was a teen. Those conferences were full-on dispensational teaching with charts and images trying to show listeners how our current events fulfilled a 2000-year-old prophecy.
But at roughly the same time I was in those prophecy conferences, Eugene Peterson was teaching his church about Revelation not as a secret code for hidden spiritual knowledge but as insight on what it means to be human and Christian within an empire that was not oriented toward you. It took me years later to start hearing NT Wright and others reorient my approach to Revelation. If I had heard these sermons in 1984-91 when I was a pre-teen or high school student, they might have been new insights. But as a 50-year-old, these are no longer really particularly new insights.
I have not read Scot McKnight's new book on Revelation, but based on interviews I have read, I think I would probably recommend that book instead of this one. There is nothing wrong here. Even mediocre Eugene Peterson has some value. But it just didn't really carry the voice of Peterson's best works.
