After spending 75 weeks walking my Adult Sunday School class through the book I’m frequently pained to see how abused the book is in the popular imagination. Scot McKnight has a nice post on this.

But none of these opinions recognize the true beauty of Revelation. Revelation is a violent book, but the violence is not dished out as much as it is absorbed. And although there’s a lot of bloodshed, it often flows from the veins of Christ and His followers, not from His enemies.

In fact, Revelation supports Christian nonviolence more aggressively than any other biblical book. Nowhere does Revelation encourage the church to act violently. Human violence is always condemned, and suffering is exalted. Now, make no mistake: Jesus will return as Judge, and He will pour out His wrath. But the thought of a tatted, buffed out, commando Jesus hacking His enemies to pieces with sadistic pleasure is nowhere to be found in Revelation. Jesus receives authority to judge His enemies because He first suffers by their hands as a slaughtered Lamb.

In Revelation, victory belongs to victims and Lamb-like warriors conquer their enemies by being conquered. That’s the theme of this violent book.