Product Description: The Life Application Bible Commentary: Revelation provides personal help, teaching notes, and sermon ideas that will address needs, answer questions, and provide help for daily living. This Bible commentary provides explanation, background, and application for every verse in the book of Revelation.
Biblical Cliffs Notes If you are looking for an in depth commentary, then this is definitely not your book. I have not looked at these titles for other books of the Bible, maybe this brief commentary works for them, but this does not do justice to Revelation. It briefly gives the reader information about each chapter or group of verses. It goes without saying that this book only focuses on one interpretation of Revelation and presents it in such a way as it is the only acceptable view though in the introduction it does briefly mention that there are other views.
There are a couple of good charts and comparisons, especially of the millennial views, but information on the judgments leading up to that is too concise to be useful. Those who only use this as a guide to Revelation, run the risk of missing much of the book's meaning and relevance to the time it was written and to our lives today.
Revelation is not a book for the casual Bible student. Therefore I would not recommend this book as anything more than a supplement to a larger study.
Wonderful study guide As a pastor I highly recommend this commentary to anyone who is looking to delve into the mysteries of Revelation. I used it as a help in a 14 week study which we just concluded at my church.
The writing is such that most can understand it without too much trouble and the explinations and commentaries given are very well worded. It's easy to use layout makes it a perfect addition to any self study or small group study.
A readable commentary for the young Christian. This commentary is aimed for the young Christian and the group study leader. It is well designed and easy to navigate. It is also reasonably detailed and readable. Generally it gives the various alternative interpretations for difficult texts, including the rapture and millennium. The text of Revelation is in bold, and the comments are on one or two verses at a time, with the fragment of text being commented on highlighted in italics. It alternates between different modern bible versions, which I found annoying. It does a reasonable job of interpreting the meaning of the symbols. It includes additional tables and maps, an index, application notes and classic quotes from noted Christian thinkers.
There are instances of sloppy interpretation or editing, such as saying that the church at Ephesus was filled with pride, which is not what the text says, pride applies more to Laodicea. The mighty angel of 10:1 becomes an archangel by 10:2. On page 173 it misquotes Tertullian by saying, "The blood of the martyrs is seed" it should be "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church" (or seedbed of the church). However these are minor criticisms on what is basically a sound commentary.
Its strength is that it avoids the crass sensationalism and fiction of some modern interpretations and in general it follows the interpretation given by the more scholarly commentaries, which is to be welcomed. It is readable and not over technical and will help make Revelation meaningful to the young Christian. It is not so brief as to be useless but it packs quite a lot of information in its 284 pages making it worth buying.
The study leader will find Keener useful for application and Johnson or Krodel useful for further detail, with Mounce as a more scholarly reference. Other useful commentaries for the layman are Hendriksen and Ladd.
Anything Goes Trivia
Megaton Man
Trevor
