Shepherd's Heart 5/29/26
Dear ones,
Let me tell you what people do with the book of Revelation.
Some are afraid of it. They’ve heard enough sermons about beasts and bowls and blood-red moons to last a lifetime, and they’ve decided this part of the Bible isn’t for them. It’s too strange. Too violent. Too easily weaponized by people who seem certain about things no one should be certain about.
Some have mastered it. Or they think they have. They’ve got the charts. The timelines. The decoder rings. They can tell you which nation is which beast and which world event is which trumpet. Revelation, for them, has become a puzzle to be solved.
Some treat it as a calendar. A countdown. A roadmap to the end of the world that helpfully confirms whatever they already suspected about whoever they already feared.
And some of us, honestly, just skip it.
Hear me on this. None of those is what Revelation is for.
Revelation is a pastoral letter.
Let that land. The same genre as Paul writing to the Philippians. The same genre as the letter you’re reading right now. John the Seer is writing to seven real churches in real cities under real pressure, and he is writing to form them. To strengthen them. To help them see clearly when empire’s fog makes clear sight nearly impossible.
It is not a code.
It is not a timeline.
It is not a tool to terrify children or sell paperbacks.
It is a vision of Jesus, the slain and risen Lamb, who is somehow seated on the throne of the universe. It is a tearing back of the curtain so the church can see what is actually happening behind the headlines. Empires that look invincible are not. Babylon, whatever Babylon is wearing this season, falls. And the Lamb who was slain is the one history bends toward.
This is a book for the suffering church. For the confused church. For the church tempted to compromise with whatever power is offering protection that week.
In other words. It is a book for us.
Here is what I want you to hear this summer as we journey through the book of Revelation together.
Revelation will not master us if we try to master it. The book resists that kind of approach. It was written in symbol and song and liturgy and lament, and it asks to be read the way you’d read a poem written by someone in prison who still believes God is on the throne.
When we read it that way, something happens.
Our imaginations get reordered. We stop seeing the world the way cable news sees it and start seeing it the way the Lamb sees it. We notice the costumes empire wears. We learn to worship in the face of fear. We refuse to bow to beasts even when bowing would be easier.
This is dissident discipleship. That phrase belongs to Scot McKnight, and it captures something the church in America desperately needs to recover.
Revelation is not predictive. It is formative.
And formation is what we are after.
This Sunday, May 31, my dear friend and mentor Dr. Scot McKnight will be with us preaching at all four services. Scot is one of the world’s leading New Testament scholars and arguably the most trusted pastoral voice on Revelation writing today. He’ll open the series in Revelation 16 and 17, where Babylon gets unmasked.
You don’t want to miss this. Bring someone. Come early.
We are not preaching a sermon or two on Revelation and moving on. We are spending the whole summer here. Ten weeks. Four movements:
Babylon unmasked. Christ unveiled. The church formed and the beasts named. The eschatological resolution where God makes all things new.
I’m asking something of you.
Don’t let this series just wash over you. Don’t let it be background music to your summer travel and your pool days and your busy Junes. Let the text do its work. Read ahead. Read slow. Read it out loud sometimes, because that’s how the seven churches first received it.
And join us on Tuesday nights. Pastor Elisabeth will be leading a study walking through Revelation alongside the preaching, and that room is going to be one of the best places in our church this summer to ask hard questions, sit with strange images, and let scripture form you in community. There's still a few spots left!
Here is what I believe. I believe the book of Revelation can transform your heart and your mind this summer if you’ll let it. I believe it can loosen empire’s grip on your imagination. I believe it can give you courage you didn’t know you needed.
But only if we stop trying to master it.
And start letting it master us.
See you Sunday.
From my heart,
Pastor Tara Beth
.
Let me tell you what people do with the book of Revelation.
Some are afraid of it. They’ve heard enough sermons about beasts and bowls and blood-red moons to last a lifetime, and they’ve decided this part of the Bible isn’t for them. It’s too strange. Too violent. Too easily weaponized by people who seem certain about things no one should be certain about.
Some have mastered it. Or they think they have. They’ve got the charts. The timelines. The decoder rings. They can tell you which nation is which beast and which world event is which trumpet. Revelation, for them, has become a puzzle to be solved.
Some treat it as a calendar. A countdown. A roadmap to the end of the world that helpfully confirms whatever they already suspected about whoever they already feared.
And some of us, honestly, just skip it.
Hear me on this. None of those is what Revelation is for.
Revelation is a pastoral letter.
Let that land. The same genre as Paul writing to the Philippians. The same genre as the letter you’re reading right now. John the Seer is writing to seven real churches in real cities under real pressure, and he is writing to form them. To strengthen them. To help them see clearly when empire’s fog makes clear sight nearly impossible.
It is not a code.
It is not a timeline.
It is not a tool to terrify children or sell paperbacks.
It is a vision of Jesus, the slain and risen Lamb, who is somehow seated on the throne of the universe. It is a tearing back of the curtain so the church can see what is actually happening behind the headlines. Empires that look invincible are not. Babylon, whatever Babylon is wearing this season, falls. And the Lamb who was slain is the one history bends toward.
This is a book for the suffering church. For the confused church. For the church tempted to compromise with whatever power is offering protection that week.
In other words. It is a book for us.
Here is what I want you to hear this summer as we journey through the book of Revelation together.
Revelation will not master us if we try to master it. The book resists that kind of approach. It was written in symbol and song and liturgy and lament, and it asks to be read the way you’d read a poem written by someone in prison who still believes God is on the throne.
When we read it that way, something happens.
Our imaginations get reordered. We stop seeing the world the way cable news sees it and start seeing it the way the Lamb sees it. We notice the costumes empire wears. We learn to worship in the face of fear. We refuse to bow to beasts even when bowing would be easier.
This is dissident discipleship. That phrase belongs to Scot McKnight, and it captures something the church in America desperately needs to recover.
Revelation is not predictive. It is formative.
And formation is what we are after.
This Sunday, May 31, my dear friend and mentor Dr. Scot McKnight will be with us preaching at all four services. Scot is one of the world’s leading New Testament scholars and arguably the most trusted pastoral voice on Revelation writing today. He’ll open the series in Revelation 16 and 17, where Babylon gets unmasked.
You don’t want to miss this. Bring someone. Come early.
We are not preaching a sermon or two on Revelation and moving on. We are spending the whole summer here. Ten weeks. Four movements:
Babylon unmasked. Christ unveiled. The church formed and the beasts named. The eschatological resolution where God makes all things new.
I’m asking something of you.
Don’t let this series just wash over you. Don’t let it be background music to your summer travel and your pool days and your busy Junes. Let the text do its work. Read ahead. Read slow. Read it out loud sometimes, because that’s how the seven churches first received it.
And join us on Tuesday nights. Pastor Elisabeth will be leading a study walking through Revelation alongside the preaching, and that room is going to be one of the best places in our church this summer to ask hard questions, sit with strange images, and let scripture form you in community. There's still a few spots left!
Here is what I believe. I believe the book of Revelation can transform your heart and your mind this summer if you’ll let it. I believe it can loosen empire’s grip on your imagination. I believe it can give you courage you didn’t know you needed.
But only if we stop trying to master it.
And start letting it master us.
See you Sunday.
From my heart,
Pastor Tara Beth
.