The Book of Revelation: Helpful Ways to Read It

Of all the books in the Bible, the book of Revelation, the final book in the Bible, has drawn mixed reactions. For many, Revelation is the most puzzling book in the entire Bible. For others, it is an exciting, accurate guidebook to the final days of earth. For still others, it is a terrifying book, leading readers to wonder how much they will have to endure in the future.

Four Common Interpretive Principles. There are four common ways that people have used to interpret Revelation. I'll just list them and let you decide which one, if any, makes the most sense to you.

A. The Preterist-Believes that most of the events in Revelation have already been fulfilled in the early life of the Church.
B. The Historicist-Believes the different events have been fulfilled during successive periods of history, leaving only the end of the book to be fulfilled.
C. The Idealist-Believes that the events in Revelation are not real, but only symbolize spiritual truths.
D. The Futurist-Believes that most of the events in Revelation have not yet been fulfilled, but will be.

Some Simple Principles. Given those choices, there are some simple principles to help the reader appreciate the book of Revelation. Here they are.

1. Read the book of Revelation as a letter written by a pastor to encourage his people who are undergoing-or will be undergoing-persecution from hostile forces. The book is addressed to seven specific churches. A quick reading of letters addressed to those churches (Revelation 2-3) reveals that most of them are suffering. John uses his book to tell his readers that in the end, everything will be all right.
2. Read the book of Revelation as a summary of what is taking place in today's world: A struggle between good and evil where it seems that evil is winning the war.
3. Read the book of Revelation as a statement that regardless of how bad things get, God cannot be defeated. Believers throughout the centuries have trusted in God and found that trust to be justified, if not in the short term, then certainly in the long term.
4. Read the book of Revelation as the witness of a man who has been shown the future and has done the best he could to put the events of that future into words that made sense to his original readers, even if they don't always make sense to us.
5. That leads to another point: Remember that Revelation was not written to 21st century readers who have the luxury of sitting in a comfortable home and spending unlimited time trying to figure out what it says to the 21st century. We're just "overhearing" something meant originally for someone else.

I remember reading a book years ago by a pastor named Jerry Cook. His book was titled Love, Acceptance and Forgiveness. According to Pastor Cook, the typical new believer wants to read the book of Revelation, so his church went through the book together. When they finished, they had come up with four basic ideas:

1. The Power of Jesus
2. The Sovereignty of God
3. The Security that is Ours as Believers
4. The Triumph of the Church

A friend of mine once summed up Revelation more simply: "I have read the end of the book and we [Christians] win!"

Really, that's all you need to know!

Source:

Jerry Cook, Love, Acceptance and Forgiveness (Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 1979), 63.