Eugene H. Peterson - This Hallelujah Banquet: How the End of What We Were Reveals Who We Can Be

If youve ever wondered what the book of Revelation could possibly have to do with your life now, youre not alone. Eugene Peterson asked the same question, and then he brought us the message of This Hallelujah Banquet. This is a wonderfully practical guide for finding joy and peace in a world that is sometimes anything but. Read it and be blessed.

Mark Batterson , New York Times bestselling author of The Circle Maker and lead pastor of National Community Church

In This Hallelujah Banquet, with Eugene Peterson as an expert tour guide, we step into the book of Revelation. He wisely urges readers to resist the temptation to turn Revelation into a road map toward future chaos. Instead, he shows us how to navigate the world of seven first-century churches to notice the parallels between their struggles and our own. I highly recommend this book to anyone who desires to live as though the banquet with Jesus has already begun. Transformative, prophetic in the best way, and timely!

Kurt Willems , pastor, podcast host, and author of Echoing Hope

The last book of the Bible is a revelation of Jesus Christ, but it is also a revelation from Jesus about the state of the world and the condition of the church. Petersons sermons on the seven letters to the seven churches speak to us about how we love, suffer, tell the truth, cultivate holiness, perceive reality, bear witness, and persist in commitment. Insightful and inviting, each chapter calls us to examine our lives so that we might endure till the end. This is Eugene at his pastoral best.

Rev. Dr. Glenn Packiam , associate senior pastor at New Life Church and author of Blessed Broken Given

They say the power of a sermon is not only in what it tells but in how it transports. The sermons carefully captured in this book still retain that kind of transformative power, even in written form and years after they were first preached. This Hallelujah Banquet invites us to a place where Eugene Petersons warm and challenging words are still alive and proclaiming good news.

Mandy Smith , pastor and author of Unfettered and The Vulnerable Pastor

Anyone who has read Eugene Petersons work knows that his pen pulses with the energy of the Spirit. And he brings some of his best work to bear on the last book in the BibleSaint Johns Revelation. For far too long, this book has been preached as if its bad news. But Eugene reclaims it by helping us rediscover the good news thats crackling on every page. So take this book and read it!

Daniel Grothe , associate senior pastor at New Life Church

This Hallelujah Banquet was created primarily from a sermon series that Eugene H. Peterson preached at Christ Our King Presbyterian Church in Bel Air, Maryland, during Lent in 1984, along with wider commentary and materials from his personal archives.

We at WaterBrook have selected and edited this material to read smoothly while remaining faithful to Eugenes unique voice and pastoral intention. Our edits and additions have been limited. Besides correction of minor errors and some reordering for flow and clarity, the only changes have been to remove dated references (to technology, politics, pop culture, and so forth), replacing those with the principles Eugene was making, and to add related material from other work on Revelation in places where additional context is helpful in a printed setting. (For example, much of the opening chapter of the bookwhich gives valuable insight into Eugenes thoughts on Johns ministry to the churches of Revelation and our need to return to these words of Christ through Johncame from a much earlier 1967 sermon.) As well, we occasionally have inserted a few especially profound insights from his later writings on Revelation in places where they fit naturally with his earlier preaching.

We have strived to take no unnecessary liberties with Eugenes words or thoughts and to present them to you with the craft and care that Eugene exercised in writing and preaching them. Speaking personally, as I have worked, I have noted with pleasure the special intimacy that comes from words meant to be spoken. I think Eugene would have smiled to see his sermons still preaching after so many years of Sundays.

A final structural note: each of the letters follows a similar outline. First, Christ presents a particular part of his character. Next, Christ examines the Christians. The examination reveals both strengths and weaknesses, and so corrective action is commanded. An urgent promise concludes each message. Far from a wooden devotion to this approach, Eugene honors its rhythm in each of the chapters. In these messages, we are confronted with how the end of one way of lifeor even one version of our faithcan usher in a new and more vibrant connection with Christ. Every ending can become a beginning. It is this theme of examination and invitation that forms the core of Eugenes teaching in this book.