Reading Revelation Part V: The Challenge
There are many challenges to studying Revelation: the symbolism, the timeline, and the two thousand years of commentary on it. However, to us today I think the biggest challenge is that we are not John's primary audience.
I know, I know, the Bible is for everybody, in every age, etc. etc. I submit that is too facile an answer.
For example, in the ending chapters we are told "there is no more sea" and "the sea and the grave gave up their dead." The people of John's time, in the Near East and Roman Empires, would have seen the "sea" totally differently from how we do. They would have seen nature differently from our way. We see nature as beautiful, majestic. Nature (creation) to his audience was a source of food, either easily or by hard work. It was a symbol of God's power and a cause of disasters. They had little time to enjoy the Rocky Mountains just because.
Almost every phrase in Revelation challenges us to shift our worldview, get out of our mindset, to see past, present, future, here and there, heaven and earth, material and spirit, in new ways.
I know, I know, the Bible is for everybody, in every age, etc. etc. I submit that is too facile an answer.
For example, in the ending chapters we are told "there is no more sea" and "the sea and the grave gave up their dead." The people of John's time, in the Near East and Roman Empires, would have seen the "sea" totally differently from how we do. They would have seen nature differently from our way. We see nature as beautiful, majestic. Nature (creation) to his audience was a source of food, either easily or by hard work. It was a symbol of God's power and a cause of disasters. They had little time to enjoy the Rocky Mountains just because.
Almost every phrase in Revelation challenges us to shift our worldview, get out of our mindset, to see past, present, future, here and there, heaven and earth, material and spirit, in new ways.
Comments