Is it really Love? Spiritual Way of the Six Loves

Finally, we are at the point of finding the answers to our question 'what is the spirituality of the Book of Revelation?' As I have commented in previous episodes, what the Book of Revelation is about is answering questions about the problem of evil. If God is all powerful, how can God let the community of faithful believers be persecuted, killed and tortured? [Once again I am drawing upon Dr. Craig Koester's book Revelation and the End of All Things for much of these insights]. We find several answers to this question in the Book of Revelation. What Revelation actually says is not what many people believe. Listen and find the surprising answers, and in doing so, we will find what is the spirituality of the Book of Revelation and what it might be saying to us today.

For more information on this series, go to my website http://www.craigowen.net

Last time we looked at the story of the prophet Jeremiah and king Zedekiah. In this episode we will look at that story more closely and answer the following questions: 1) Does a prophet make prophecies about the distant future or mostly to the people and times in which they live? 2) Do we have free will in what a prophet predicts? 3) When a prophet makes predictions, are they set in stone and unchangeable, and are we powerless to do anything about it?

In the next episode, we will look at what does the book of Revelation say about the problem of evil.

To learn more about this series, go to my website at www.craigowen.net

What is the role of a prophet? Are the predictions of prophets totally accurate? Can predicitons be changed or are they fixed and there is nothing we can do? Do we have free will? These were the questions we left off with last time. In this episode, we look at a story of the Hebrew prophet Jeremiah. The story takes place in the year 587 BCE when Jerusalem was completley surrounded by the huge army of Babylon. We will find answers to these questions in this story. In this episode we go over the story and its details.

In the next episode we will look at what answers to our questions this story gives us and what insight they give us into the message of the Book of Revelation.

To learn more about this series, go to my website at www.craigowen.net

What do we make of all the scary and gory events portrayed in the Book of Revelation? For example, in chapters 8 & 9, it talks about the seven angels and the events the set in motion such as a third of humanity is killed, a third of the oceans are destroyed, a third of the vegetation is wiped out. Are these things predictions about events in the future we can do nothing to stop, or is it someting else? In wrestling with this questions, we come to the three questions at the heart of our study: 1) What is the role of a prophet? Make predictions about things far in the future or speak to their own day? 2) Are these images of destruction and widespread death events that cannot be stopped? 3) Do we have free will about these things? How we answer these questions will determine what is the spirituality of Revelation, the topic we will look at next time.

To learn more about thi series, go to my website at www.craigowen.net

We look at some of the specific symbolism of Revelation and try to figure out the message of the author. The cycles repeat- seven seals,seven angels and all kinds of bad and scary plagues and disasters. Part of what the author is doing is trying to is scare us into making a choice. We explore what that choice is and what it means for us today.

In the next episode we will look at all of the terrible events that these cycles portray a nd hat they might mean.

To learn more about this series go to my website at www.craigowen.net

Many people believe that the book of Revelation is a roadmap of the End Times, explaining what will happen and when. For this to be true, it is assumed that Revelation reads like a modern story, with a straight line plot containing a clear beginning, middle and end. But is this really the case? This is the issue we will look at in this episode.

I will be drawing upon the insights of Rev. Dr. Craig Koester, a scholar and Professor of New Testament who specializes in the Book of Revelation. His very readable book can be linked by clicking on the title: Revelation and the End of All Things.

In the next episode we will start looking at what the author of Revelation may be trying to say through some of the strange imagery found in the book.

For more information on my series and previous podcasts, go to my website at: www.craigowen.net

In this episode we look at when, where and why the Book of Revelation was written. This will give us a clue about what the message of the book may be. The author of Revelation copies a lot of his style from the Book of Daniel in the Hebrew Bible. The circumstances in which both of these books were written are very similar and will reveal a lot about the authors' intentions.

In the next episode we will look at the structure of the book of Revelation whcch will tell us something about how it should be read.

To leanr more about this podcast series go to my website at www.craigowen.net

The Book of Revelation is at the end of the Christian New Testament. Many people believe that this book is a road map or story of how the world will end. Revelation has exerted a strong influence way beyond Christianity. In this first episode, I want to begin a study of some of the themes and imagery in the Book of Revelation. Is it really about the end of the world? Or is it about something else? How should this little book affect our spirituality? If it is really about the end of the world, are we powerless about it? if it is not about the end of the world, what is its message and how does it affect our spirituality, what ever our specific religious beliefs might be? These are the questions we will consider in the next few episodes.

To learn more about this series, see my website at www.craigowen.net

In the last episode I closed with a proposed definition of what is the Kingdom of God. In this episode, we will look at this definition closely to see if common ground can be found between different religious traditions. Some of the values this definition suggest are humility and mercy. Mercy is perhaps the most important value suggested by the proposed definition of the Kingdom of God. I do not think very many people would argue that there is too much mercy in the world.

In the next episode we will begin another topic.

To learn more about Craig's books and music go to www.craigowen.net

So far, we have considered the Kingdom of God as a place, an intution or even a country. We have aslo considered the Kingdom as being found in the afterlife. None these seem to work too well. In this episode, we will look at a better definition: the Kingdom of God as the invisible community of faith. If this is correct, it would be an ever changing domain whose borders are not confined in time and space. This might explain why the Kingdom is considered by some to be here already, yet not completely here.

To learn more about Craig's books and music, go to www.craigowen.net