May I gripe a little?

There is just so much Christian silliness around.

I heard David Jeremiah in a sermon on YouTube—you know, big church in California, 10,000 on Sunday mornings. He was talking about how Jesus, at His Second Coming, will bring all the dead back to earth and set up His kingdom here.

Back to earth?! And all of these people will be reunited with their dead bodies?

Can you imagine some poor soul saying, “O God—after the joy of heaven, I’ve been shoved back into my old dead body and I’m back in Oklahoma!”

And it’s not just rich TV preachers pushing this stuff. Respected scholar N. T. Wright says much the same thing.

Where do they get such a strange, unlikely scenario?

Where else? The Book of Revelation.

We’ve got this script for a Star Wars movie tacked on to the end of our Bible.

Preachers, it’s a problem.

I know most of you feel like you have to defend Revelation and all its flights of fancy.

Yes, it’s in the Bible.

It’s historically important. But—

It is theological hokum.

Worse than that, it’s dead weight on the Gospel. If you mix this nonsense with the teachings of Jesus, it pulls the Gospel down with it.

Stop defending it.

Stop conflating the Jesus who told us to love our enemies with a Jesus who cuts off the heads of His enemies with a sword.

Revelation has nothing to do with the teachings of Jesus or the future history of God’s creation.

It’s time to be honest—both to God and about God.

Give people Jesus.

More about this on Sunday.