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Reading Revelation Rewardingly

All books of the Bible are rewarding, for all are God’s Word and reveal aspects of his breathtaking salvation plan. Revelation, however, comes with a special promise of reward (blessing) to those who ‘read’ and, ‘take to heart’ its message. Perhaps this reward is held out right at the beginning (1:3) because the book is a bit intimidating. The first few (maybe few dozen and more) times we read the book, most of us, despite being intrigued by the bizarre images, soon find we haven’t a clue what it is meaning and round about Chapter 12 we probably give up (and lose half the blessing).

We assume it must have been easier for C1 Christians to understand, and while in some ways that may well be true, nevertheless, the promised blessing is in the first instance for them so presumably they struggled too. We have at least the advantage of centuries of scholarship devoted to unlocking its meaning. This, however, is a two-edged sword for scholarship is often as guilty of obscuring meaning as revealing it. In any case, while God has given gifts of teachers (presumably including scholars) to the church and expects us to benefit from them, John reminds us in his first letter that ordinary Christians are not entirely at the mercy of teachers and scholars for the indwelling Holy Spirit is their teacher and will give them understanding. Nonetheless, the norm is that by means of reliable teachers and personal enquiry dependent on the Holy Spirit a book as seemingly impregnable as Revelation can be unlocked and its riches enjoyed.

And riches it has for the reader, in abundance. As we begin to make sense of its message, at least in its general flow, even if we struggle with some details, the ‘blessing’ of reading it begins to be experienced. Despite its vivid images and surrealism it is as down to earth a book as Christians could hope to read. It was written, of course, not for scholarly enquiry in some academic cloisters but for Christians living in the rough and tumble of every day life facing all the difficulties that Christians could conceivably face until the return of Jesus. The seven churches in chapters 2,3 (probably the easiest part of the book to understand) experience all the dangers and struggles for survival that any church at any stage of history might face (persecution, formalism, smallness, worldliness, materialism, false teaching etc). These were real churches but also representative of the whole church through history. As a matter of fact, the rest of the book is largely the same struggle described in much more vivid and coded language,

Which brings us back to the book itself. How can we read Revelation rewardingly? I almost entitled the article Reading Revelation Rightly, however, I thought that might be a bit too presumptuous. In any case (post)modern people are chary about words like ‘rightly’ (wrongly of course). Nevertheless to read Revelation rewardingly and get the blessing that comes from understanding its message we have to learn to read it rightly for unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, we find the book harder to understand than we ought and perhaps harder than C1 Christians who although they may have struggled with it, probably were more familiar with the basic rules for reading it rightly than we are.

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About John

Hi there - I am a member of Greenview and have been for over 20 years. For a number of these years I functioned as an elder, however, indifferent health forced me to take more of a back seat. I see this as an opportunity to do a little writing, often focussing on issues that are a matter of evangelical debate today. Naturally the views expressed are my own and may not reflect the views of the elders or church at large, though differences are likely to be in the detail and not the substance.

These articles and sermons were written partly to clarify my own thoughts and partly with the intention of provoking thought in others who may read them. If you read one I hope you find it stimulating. Please feel free to give me feedback or discuss my articles in the forums.

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