Narrative Lectionary and a Series on Revelation

At Our Redeemer’s and Shepherd of the Hills, we are preparing to begin using the Narrative Lectionary this fall. In short, the NL takes us through the entire arc of the Bible’s narrative, or plot, in order over the course of our liturgical year. As we prepare for this change, I decided to do a series on the book of Revelation from last summer’s NL readings.

I recently took a class on the book of Revelation through the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg. Revelation is an often ignored and misunderstood book in our Lutheran tradition, but a very important and, I believe, very beautiful part to our Bible. In this series, we’ll explore some of the meanings, background and imagery of Revelation and how it applies to our faith today.

Sermons on this series in Revelation are:

• A First Look at Revelation, 7/21
• The Itty Bitty Lamb, 7/28
• Seven Seals, Four Horsemen, and One Pissed-Off God, 8/11
• Whose Side Are You On?, 8/18
• God’s Holy City, 8/25

Further sermons will be added as they are posted.

Some of these sermons borrow from the previous series I did on Revelation during Easter at Shepherd of the Hills. Those sermons can be found in the archive during March and April.

If you have enjoyed this series and would like to learn more about the book of Revelation, two books I found very helpful are The Rapture Exposed by Barbara Rossing and Revelation and the End of All Things by Craig Koester. Rossing is a professor of New Testament at the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago; her book is very easy to read and written for the average person to understand Revelation’s theology. Koester is a professor of New Testament at Luther Seminary, and while his book is more academic, it is also very comprehensive and gives insight into the structure of John’s book.