Top Highlights

• This now puts John in the hot seat. There are new things yet to happen as part of God’s purpose, and John’s words will bring them to pass.
• now the scroll can be read, and John is to be the one to do it.
• This is how prophecy works. God’s words are to become John’s words in order that they may become reality.
• Like every gift of God, the scroll is sweet as honey to the taste (Psalm 19.10; 119.103). But once John has digested the scroll, he discovers that its message is bitter. More dire warnings are to follow,
• ‘Eating the scroll’ is a vivid metaphor for the way in which the prophet, then or indeed today, can only speak God’s word insofar as it has become part of the prophet’s own life. It may be nourishing; it may be bitter; it may be both. This is part of what it means to say that God desires to act in the world through obedient human beings. Prophecy –...