:: in.a.mirror.dimly ::

Have you ever noticed that the dictionary is a boring read. The plot is lacking, the main characters aren’t developed, and after the first few pages you know that you’re in for hundreds, if not thousands, of pages that  feel exactly the same.

Clearly the authors of the dictionary did not care about words and language.

And while the dictionary is organized alphabetically, it’s terribly difficult to find anything in a dictionary. There’s no search box. If you misspell a word, it doesn’t supply corrections or words that you may have meant. You’re left flipping pages, hoping that you spelled the word correctly and can read the tiny print crammed onto the page.

Clearly the authors of the dictionary did not care about helping us find information.

Using the Wrong Standards

The Bible is capable of doing a lot for Christians today. Nevertheless, sometimes we ask it to do something that it cannot do and judge it by the wrong standards: to support our faith as the completely error free foundation. Even if we aren’t staying up late to line up the chronology of Israel’s kings, which some folks do, many of us still speak of the Bible as the number one item in our doctrinal statements.

Does that sound familiar? If I had a nickel for every doctrinal statement that lists the Bible first, I’d be able to buy a lake house… and probably a mountain or two.

The trouble is, we’re asking the Bible to be something that it is not able to do, and we’re using standards to measure it that are not relevant to its original intent. The Bible is a reliable and trustworthy source of information about God, it is not deceptive, and it certainly is essential.

However, it was not intended to stand as the foundation of our faith. Minor oversights in chronology or numbers do not nullify its status as inspired by God. We weren’t intended to read the Bible and to then worry about the Bible’s minute details.

If reading the Bible only makes you more obsessed with the Bible, you’ve missed the point.

Witnesses to What?

The book of Acts utilizes the word “witnesses” frequently in reference to the testimony the apostles gave. The Bible is the written account of witnesses—their testimony about something that happened.

The testimony itself can only be judged successful if that testimony persuades listeners and readers that the events described are true. A testimony from a witness points to something other than the testimony itself. The testimony is valuable and reliable, but as Christians we can take things a step further.

We ourselves become the witnesses.

So, we read the testimony, we believe, and then we meet with God. And when we meet with God, we have reached the goal of the testimony. The testimony remains valuable, but there is no other foundation to our faith than Jesus himself and no greater source of truth for us than the Spirit of God who was given to us. We use the Bible, and use it often, to keep ourselves focused on meeting with Jesus.

Whatever folks prove or disprove about the Bible, it only exists to connect us with God. And when we meet with God, encountering him becomes the evidence we rely upon. The testimony is proven true when we ourselves experience God as we were told to expect.

When you meet the living God described in the Bible, suddenly controversies about chronologies become moot points.

Keep in mind that significant chunks of the Bible, say half of Exodus and all of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, spell out the laws that govern God’s interaction with his people in the tabernacle. The goal is meeting in the tabernacle, not the boring book that explains how to set up the tabernacle.

I know we don’t usually read those books in the Old Testament, but that may be why we have this problem. Fellowship with God is our goal, and the Bible is one of the tools used to make that happen.

Note: This post addresses some of the issues brought up in Jason Boyett’s post.

Over the past weekend I had a chance to hear a variety of Christians speak about writing and our call to be ambassadors for Christ. For the most part I was encouraged by the sincerity, kindness, and insight shared among these believers.

However, at certain key points I heard speakers, some who spoke to large crowds, sharing a kind of counterfeit version of the Gospel that almost left me in tears. I’d like to address this matter, but I want to avoid words like “danger” or “threat” that just inject venom and anger into these discussions. I’d rather just say that I heard some sincere followers of Jesus clouding and possibly distorting the Gospel and particularly our motivations for sharing it.

I’ll spend the majority of my time focusing on my understanding of the biblical witness concerning what the Gospel does and why we should share it. I’ll end with a few words of caution about ways Christians have distorted these ideas.

What Does the Gospel Do?

The Gospel reconciles us with God. I think we can all agree on that. As we join others who share the same Spirit and relationship with God, we form the people known as the church. We have all been saved and sustained in the same way.

The Gospel makes us citizens of God’s Kingdom, which is the other worldly and this worldly place where his will is done. When we pray, “Your will be done, your Kingdom come,” we are asking God’s Kingdom to expand on earth as his will is done.

Why Should We Share It?

We share the Gospel because Jesus asked us to do so, because it is the way others can be saved, and because God intensely loves his creation and longs that all would come to know him. We don’t share the Gospel to preserve our churches, to ease our egos, or to give a soul fire insurance. We want others to know the joy and freedom that comes from knowing Jesus today, sharing in his sufferings, and moving toward eternal life with him.

What’s at Stake

In getting back to our problem of a distorted Gospel. I heard several speakers challenge the Christians present to preach the Gospel in order to preserve America’s Christian character and to prevent God’s judgment from falling upon us. One speaker made it clear that Democrats were to blame. Such teachings cloud the real reasons why we should share the Gospel and what it accomplishes.

I used to think that America was a Christian nation, so when I speak of Christians who operate from this assumption, I can identify as a former insider. The trouble is that the Kingdom of God cannot be affiliated with the agenda of any one nation since the Gospel is Good News for “all people” and “all nations” are blessed through Abraham.

In addition, classifying America as Christian at its founding raises serious historical questions since many founders were deists, slave owners, and generally greedy and corrupt. While some may have resembled evangelicals today, crediting good fortune to Providence—a common practice among the founders—did not make someone a Christian.

Christian sociologist Bradley Wright has also found that there is a much higher proportion of Christians in America today than during the Revolution. We could point at some places where Christianity impacted the founding of America, but calling America a Christian or godly nation from the start is a mistake that only white Americans could make. Our African American friends have much to teach us in this regard. America’s history is not a fall from grace spurred on by Democratic politicians. It’s more realistically a mix of high and low points.

Having said that, we should not ignore the possibility of God’s judgment. The Old Testament shows that time and time again God will judge a nation that neglects the poor, allows corruption, attacks its enemies without mercy, and concentrates wealth among the few to the detriment of the many. These are real, bi-partisan problems to consider in America.

Nevertheless, we should seek righteousness and preach the Gospel not as a means to preserve America or to keep America as a Christian nation. That turns the Gospel into a self-serving, political tool that unintentionally brands unbelievers and sometimes Democrats into religious terrorists who are calling down God’s judgment on America and only the true patriots will hold off destruction through their preaching.

In a sense, this kind of thinking turns the objects of God’s desire, those who do not know him, into enemies who are ruining our country and our place as the keepers of our country. Christians are servants who are called to follow Jesus and Jesus alone. Even allegiance to one’s country cannot be allowed to cloud the goals and motivations behind our calling.

I won’t say that such teachers are ruining Christianity or America, but they are distorting their Christian practice with political agendas and suspect history. As I stated in Coffeehouse Theology, an unexamined context can influence our theology and fool us into thinking that we are free from its influence.

Sadly, there are still some evangelicals who are failing to consider how American culture and particularly conservative politics are skewing their understanding of the Gospel and our mission as believers. They can be Christians who happen to be American patriots. That’s a different conversation. Our problems come when they create a Christian patriotism that uses the Gospel as a means of preserving America.

America is not the light on a hill. The light is Jesus shining through his people—a people that is not limited to those found in America.

As I look back on the positive impact diverse Christian perspectives have had on my faith, I should not neglect the downside of diversity.

Some question the merits of being overly inclusive, and caricature diversity as a wishy, washy and uncritical validation of every perspective. That, of course, is not what I’m talking about in this series on diversity. So while I’ve shared what we stand to gain, perhaps it would help to paint a realistic picture of where it could go off track.

A Time of Corrections and Over-Corrections

Many Christians in the west, particularly in America, are in a time of adjustment and correction. We could say this about nearly every period of Christianity, as we’re always making adjustments to the mistakes of those who preceded us, while clinging to all the good things they also left us.

During this time of correction for the mistakes of the past, it’s quite possible to become divisive in our embrace of diversity. In other words, we can set a bar for inclusivity and then alienate others if they aren’t as liberal or progressive as we think they should be.

While we want to correct the mistakes of the past, we should be careful to avoid a wholesale rejection of what has been passed to us or of those who still hold to what we view as a flawed version of the faith.

A Variety of Points without a Center

By including a variety of perspectives in our Christian faith, whether by denominations, locations, income, or ethnic make up, there is a danger of never quite settling on some central beliefs. Without a center for Christianity, we run the risk of letting the faith become reshaped dramatically into something that it may not be.

In this sense, both extreme exclusivity and extreme diversity run the same risk of remaking Christianity so that it reflects one or many perspectives. Either way, we can make the same mistakes without a center.

The hard part is that we arrive at our center through a diversity of perspectives: the revelation of the Triune God, the scriptures, Christian tradition, and the local/global body of Christians. Therefore, we have an imperfect but still Spirit-directed process where we hold to the central creeds and beliefs of the Christian faith while we interact with other perspectives.

Our beliefs and practices may change dramatically over time, but our interactions with diversity should not tinker with the core. If one particular culture can’t believe that God would enter the world incarnate in human form, then we can’t rewrite the Nicene Creed by way of accommodation.

We may be wrong about a lot of things, but there are certain beliefs and practices that stand at the center of Christianity. Someone has every right to disagree with us, but then that person is not talking about the historic Christian faith that has been passed down to us by Christian communities and the scriptures.

We gain much by interacting with a diverse group of perspectives, but the core elements of Christianity are not for us to modify.

I remember the diversity group that the lone east Indian student started at my predominantly white high school in the Philly burbs: CAFE. It stood for Cultural Awareness For Everyone.

I was like, PHHHBBB! What’s there to know? I was shocked to see a friend of mine start attending the meetings, and just didn’t get it. I KNEW there were other cultures in the world. They just weren’t around me. What’s the big deal?

Thankfully I’ve left the foolishness of my youth behind, though I’m not always as proactive about correcting my diversity deficiency as I should.

A revelation came rocketing down on me while, if I may name drop a little bit since all Christian bloggers name drop—say if NT Wright sneezes on us or whatever, chatting with Christine Sine in New Haven, CT. I heard the words come out of my mouth, but didn’t realize how true and challenging they were until later that night.

While discussing the diversity of the Christian faith, I said, “All of my significant moments of spiritual growth resulted from interacting with a different Christian tradition.”

My trajectory is something like this:

Bored Catholic.

Jumpy Fundamentalist.

Saved but uptight evangelical.

Saved but relaxed evangelical.

Saved evangelical with spiritual gifts.

As I look back at my growth and how my life as a Christian changed, I can see that interactions with Christians from diverse denominations, backgrounds, and countries opened fresh experiences of God in my life.

Next week I’ll talk about why we need diversity and take a couple swings at what diversity can look like in our church today. If you want to take this a step further, check out my book Coffeehouse Theology, as I get into the place of Christian tradition and the global church in the development of our beliefs and practice.

I’ve invited a few friends to share their thoughts on writing as a ministry, and today author Chris Tomlinson shares his perspective. Chris is a talented writer who recently published Crave: Wanting so Much More of God.

His blog is well-written and his book has received some nice reviews and endorsements. You can read you review of his book here. In his post he fleshes out the various reasons and motivations we may have as writers. Here’s a teaser to Tomlinson’s post on writing as a ministry:

I would love to say that I write books and this blog purely as a ministry.  I would love to say that because I desire for this to be my heart’s deepest desire.  What I can honestly say is that I write in order to:

• Be affirmed
• Express a gift
• Force myself to think more deeply about daily life
• Prove I have something worth saying, or prove I am valuable because of what I do
• Attempt to know more of God
• Share ways in which the gospel touches our daily lives
• Satisfy my ego
• Proclaim Jesus as the greatest satisfaction to our soul’s deepest cravings
• Feel important or impactful

To read the rest of Chris’ thoughts on writing as a ministry, check out his post here.

The book of Revelation came together in a specific period of time with political leaders, literature, and previous history that would have all been familiar to the original author and his audience. I’ve been chipping away at our some of our modern interpretations of Revelation because I think they depart from these elements that should guide our interpretation and application.

Since we study every other biblical book with its context in mind, we need to also do the hard work of historical and literary study in the case of Revelation. As we leave certain lines of interpretation behind, we’ll find that reading Revelation as Jewish apocalyptic literature has much to teach us. In fact, Revelation has a powerful message for us today.

While I can’t cover every theme and point of Revelation in a blog post, here are a few things that jump off the page when I read Revelation:

God’s War against Evil

Rather than banding together to fight against a secular one-world government, the Lamb of God who willingly died for our sins bids us to hold on and to recognize that our physical world is part of a larger drama. God is fighting evil in the spiritual realms, even if the things we see on earth suggest that all is not well. 

In fact, Revelation deals with many of the same themes raised in the Psalms and prophets about the suffering of the righteous. While the righteous are still in hot water, Revelation pulls back the curtain to reveal an ongoing spiritual battle that will result in God’s victory.

Persecution Will Come

God is powerful and fights against evil, but God fights evil in ways that are tough to understand: namely, by persevering in the face of suffering and persecution. The cross and Resurrection show us the way forward, even if that is a difficult path to follow.

We should not be surprised when we suffer or face persecution. In addition, we should not be discouraged in thinking that these are the final word for us.

God Wins in the End

God will reward and punish us one day according to what we have done (see Matthew 25). We don’t know what it will look like when Jesus returns, but we look forward to his final victory with the hope that his Resurrection and indwelling Spirit give to us.

Revelation assures us that those who continue to love God, to obey him, and to keep in step with the Spirit will share in God’s victory.

What the Future Holds

I used to read Revelation expecting the future tribulation and end times to be terrifying and scary. Reading Revelation in this way still kind of gives me the creeps. However, I believe the Spirit inspired John to write an apocalyptic book that was meant to encourage the saints both in his own time and today.

Reading Revelation in this way tells us that we’re already in the midst of the mess. If we are familiar with the suffering and persecution Jesus promised us in the Gospels, that shouldn’t be anything all that new. Rather than frightening us with the events that are to come, Revelation can encourage us to face our trials and tribulations today with the hope that God is with us and will win in the end.

Revelation wasn’t written to give us nightmares, but rather to help us fend off the nightmares. God is with us and he is coming, and so we hold fast to him and to his promises.

Yesterday I suggested that the book of Revelation is a Christian version of Jewish apocalyptic literature. This kind of literature is written during times of persecution as a means of encouraging the faithful to persevere.

Apocalyptic literature tells a spiritualized version of current events and also speaks of a future when God will intervene and bring justice. Given what we know of Revelation, I think such a reading is quite fitting.

However, we also have a lot of books (such as the Left Behind series), radio shows, and Bible teachers who say that Revelation gives us a blow-by-blow prediction of what will happen in the future. Can such a perspective be correct? Or is this the end of the end as we know it?

I’d like to look at Revelation in two very broad senses as I compare the apocalyptic view to the popular Left Behind view.

Revelation as Prophecy

Prophecy in the Bible tends more toward discerning the will of God and calling people to repentance. When people called Jesus a prophet (eg. John 4), it was because of his knowledge of God and God-given insight, not necessarily because he could predict the future. In fact, Jesus didn’t know how the world would end exactly.

Though the prophetic books do sometimes predict future events or warn of possible consequences for sinful behavior, they are primarily concerned with calling God’s people to repentance. There are predictions that accompany their warnings, but the emphasis is not on granting secret, insider knowledge. The goal is repentance.

In light of the general trend in scripture, a reading of Revelation that leads us to repentance and Godly living is much more consistent and likely than a coded message about the future that we need to figure out. We profit little by arguing over when the millennium will take place because it’s far more important to remember that Jesus is Lord today and that Revelation promises he will be Lord of all in a more complete sense one day. Reading Revelation as apocalyptic literature makes the latter interpretation far more likely.

Revelation and the Gospel

I look at the Gospel as God’s invasion into our world. Think of Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia where Aslan is thawing the long winter and bringing new life and Spring. Aslan didn’t come to torch Narnia. I think the same holds true to God and the biblical story.

The cross and Resurrection are the turning points of salvation history, and Jesus sent his followers out to make disciples. However, if we take the whole scope of Jesus’ ministry into view, we can see that he didn’t just come to save souls before God blows up the earth. There is something much more complex going on that I don’t have time to fully flesh out here.

In brief, God is bringing his Kingdom in both physical and spiritual ways. There is a judgment to come, but we should be slow to claim knowledge of what it will look like. Keep in mind that the key enemies of Jesus were the religious leaders and scholars. The Gospels tell stories that should give academics, seminary students, and pastors nightmares. Many of those who knew the scriptures best missed God.

When we turn to Revelation, we need to make sure our interpretations aren’t interfering with the larger call of the Gospel to go into the world, to join the present coming of the Kingdom. The Gospel isn’t about how to get us out of the world or how to separate us from the world, but how God’s Kingdom can shape the church in such a way that it brings the Kingdom INTO the world. Reading Revelation as apocalyptic literature fits better into the calling and work of God’s people as developed throughout scripture.

A New Beginning for the End

Therefore, in the broadest of terms, Left Behind theology doesn’t do justice to the Gospel and to the biblical picture of prophecy. While I believe it has bits and pieces correct, the overall scheme raises some problems for this view as an interpretation of Revelation, even if it’s still a fun read for those into books about the apocalypse.

Tomorrow I’ll wrap up this series with some specific ways that reading Revelation as Jewish apocalyptic literature unfolds a relevant message for us today.

Can you imagine what would happen if your pastor began his sermon on God’s covenant with Abraham by comparing a modern business contract? We’d learn hardly anything of value about the ancient story from such a contemporary example.

In fact, we run the risk of misunderstanding the significance of certain elements of the story. There is much more value in comparing God’s covenant with Abraham to ancient Suzerainty covenants from the same time. In studying these ancient documents we discover the unique significance of what God promised Abraham.

By the same token, most scholars and teachers study Paul’s epistles by comparing them to letters written by Paul’s contemporaries. I doubt a comparison to a “Dear Abby” letter would provide the illumination we seek. The same goes for comparing the Gospels to ancient works of history.

Revelation as Literature

When it comes to Revelation, many read it as a blow-by-blow account of future history. They turn it into a prophetic and predictive mash up, seeing it as a highly symbolic chronicle of the future that can be matched up piece by piece with certain events and people.

However, there are a number of books quite similar to the book of Revelation that stand out as contemporaries and demand our attention. To ignore them would cut us off from the best sources we have for understanding a very confusing and symbolic book.

Many scholars agree that Revelation is undeniably a Christian form of apocalyptic literature. In doing this we are also affirming the Jewish roots of the New Testament that are easy to overlook 2,000 years after these books were written.

Revelation as Apocalyptic Literature

When I first read Jewish apocalyptic literature, my mind almost exploded. I kept thinking to myself, “This is just like the book of Revelation!” There were heavenly visions, angelic guides, symbolic beasts and horns, battles between good and evil, and God’s triumph and judgment of evil.

For example, have a look at 2 Esdras 16 and consider if any of that sounds familiar. Chapter 15 should sound familiar too for that matter. For more info, see: Esdras.

In short, Revelation utilizes many of the existing literary elements of a particular genre. The original audience of Revelation would have known how these elements worked and interpreted them accordingly.

This means we need to understand how apocalyptic literature functioned within the Jewish context and how the author of Revelation used this form to communicate with his audience. It is quite possible that the author of Revelation was John the apostle and he did in fact have a heavenly vision. However, whether or not that actually happened, he certainly used a very familiar form to communicate a particular message.

This is quite different from the Gospels, which are documenting historical events that truly do matter. The Gospels hinge on the historicity of what they say about Jesus, but Revelation is performing a different function as apocalyptic literature.

Apocalyptic literature was written during times of persecution as a way to encourage the faithful to endure to the end, to trust that God is fighting evil, and that God will triumph in the end. The symbolism and other-worldly nature of the writings may have been particularly helpful in avoiding the notice of authorities.

Therefore, if Revelation was a form of apocalyptic literature written during a time of persecution, which is most likely the case, what does this mean for our interpretations? Is this the end of the end as we know it? Should we toss our end times charts and the theology of the Left Behind Series? That’s where we’re going tomorrow.

Today I am offering a very brief snapshot of the history of interpreting Revelation, made all the more limited because I’m focusing on the outcomes that have impacted evangelicals. I’m generally going to avoid labels and technical terms in the interest of brevity, but these links will provide a next step with more information about Revelation and Christian eschatology.

Uncertainty About an Unusual Book

During the 100-300’s Revelation was included in many, though not all, lists of New Testament books in the West, while it was rejected by many churches in the East. It was generally interpreted as a prediction of the immanent return of Jesus in the future, but after Constantine rose to power Christians began to interpret it in more symbolic ways, a trend that generally held throughout the following years.

The return of Jesus wasn’t literal or immanent, but was rather a spiritual reality. The millennial reign was already in process, and the book did not line up with contemporary or future events and people.

Generally speaking, Christianity became increasingly distant from its Jewish roots after the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD, an event that Christians fled due to the warnings of Jesus. While I can’t vouch for every theologian that followed, generally speaking the Jewish roots of the New Testament became less important, especially in the case of an obscure book such as Revelation that bore a resemblance to a small body of Jewish writings.

If Revelation wasn’t about the immanent return of Jesus in a series of cataclysmic global events, it also wasn’t recognized as a particularly Jewish kind of book. Without either of these options on the table, theologians in the west struggled to interpret it.

The Urgency Returns

Throughout the years Christian scholars wrestled with the meaning of Revelation, and throughout to the Reformation debates continued about its value. In the early to mid 1800’s, evangelical theologians in America found fertile ground for a reading of Revelation that interpreted it as a prophecy of future events that foreshadowed the literal return of Jesus.

An urgency and anticipation gripped evangelicalism in America and eventually in other countries. Some groups took the extreme measures of setting actual dates for the return of Jesus, but by and large the greater impact was one of urgency for evangelism and a fervency to remain close to Christ—shifts that leaders such as Moody viewed as beneficial.

However, throughout the late 1800’s the popularity of this view also led to a general withdrawal from many social programs that focused on serving the poor. In fact, historian David Bebbington cites this theological shift as influential in the gradual move away from evangelical social action at the turn of the 20^th century (The Dominance of Evangelicalism p. 200).

What’s Different Today?

Many modern scholars today make the faulty assumption that historians today care about the facts more than ancient historians and scholars. Just look at the circus known as the Jesus Seminar that has sought the real Jesus, but generally muddies the water. Such scholars see our traditions as a liability to be removed, which is quite wrong and unhelpful in the majority of cases.

However, when it comes to Revelation, the literary context of the book has been so widely unknown and its history of interpretation so uncertain and shifting, that I think a reexamination of the book is warranted. While we are not more intelligent or more committed to the facts than those before us, we do have a new angle on the book of Revelation in light of its contemporaries in Jewish literature.

By doing this, I think we can take some huge steps forward in our understanding of Revelation, our grasp of the larger biblical story, and the points of application to our daily lives.

I used to read the book of Revelation as a series of prophecies predicting the future of the world. Locusts were helicopters, the anti-Christ took over the United Nations, and events such as the rapture, slaying of unbelievers by the returning saints, and the millennium were all to be read as actual events that will happen some day.

Entire systems of theology have emerged in response to this prophetic reading of Revelation. You can read a decent overview of Christian beliefs about the end times at Wikipedia. While I’m not particularly enamored with any one view, I’m more concerned that we have tended to read the book of Revelation without a proper understanding of its Jewish context and its place among Jewish literature from its day.

Though most interpreters may try to uncover element’s of Revelation’s context, the failure of most interpreters to read it as a Christian version of Jewish apocalyptic literature has cut us off from the most likely and most relevant reading of the book.

I want to look at the way a contextless reading of Revelation has led us to interpret the book of Revelation and the consequences. Such a reading has a strong impact on our beliefs about God, the approach we take to our faith, and ultimately our practice. In fact, this theology has become quite pervasive in many Christian congregations today through the Scofield Study Bible, the Left Behind Series, and the appeal of trying to uncover Revelation’s coded message for us.

What I’m Not Saying

While I would never question the salvation or reputation of anyone who reads Revelation without an eye to its Jewish context and literature, I am concerned that a suspect belief system of the end times has taken hold in the church today. In fact, many of our critics, both inside and outside of the church, cite our readings of Revelation with fire consuming people and the earth as particularly problematic in their critiques of Christianity—critiques that need not stick to us in my opinion.

This contextless system of interpretation fails to do justice to the Gospel and to the larger biblical narrative. It’s not heresy or a damning doctrine, but it does lead us off course in some significant ways because it fails to read Revelation according to the literary standards of its time.

Why This Matters for You

A contextless reading of Revelation has become so pervasive that it has subtly—and sometimes not so subtly—influenced how we read and apply the rest of the Bible. If we expect the world to perish in a ball of fire, then why should we worry about verses extolling the sanctity of God’s creation? If God is coming back to drown his enemy’s in their own blood, why should we have compassion on them today? If God is going to whisk us away someday soon, shouldn’t we separate ourselves from the world to prepare for him?

The shift in thinking has been gradual and perhaps some may deny its impact. True enough, there are many factors that influence what we believe. However, this contextless understanding of Revelation, has influenced our belief and practice more than many of us would care to admit.

The ending of the biblical story matters a great deal. There is a huge difference between a God who engulfs all of creation in literal fire and a God who judges all people with his figurative fire and does combat with spiritual forces in our world. The scope of our mission and the Gospel itself can be changed significantly by such an understanding of the end, even if the basics of Jesus’ life, death, and Resurrection remain untouched.

If many Christians believe in an unbiblical view of the end times, then we have a significant problem when it impacts the rest of our beliefs. In addition, we are missing out on the message of Revelation for us today.

Tomorrow I’ll discuss a little of the interpretive history of Revelation, and in particular where our contextless reading of Revelation comes from.