Davidizer13 (post: 1444591) wrote:Someone has said that people make one of two mistakes with Revelation: some people make too much out of it, poring over it and trying to understand it in order to find out what's going to happen in the future, to the detriment of the rest of the Bible. Others ignore it completely - there are some Syrian Christian sects that say it's not part of the Bible. But really, both of these arguments come down to the fact that it's really, really hard to understand, written in a coded language that would have made more sense if we were living in those times. This was a deliberate choice on John's part, I believe - lots of symbols in there point towards the Roman Empire being this enemy of the Christians discussed in the book, and rightfully so at the time.
Personally, I tend towards thinking less of the book. There was a whole genre of stories similar to Revelation at the time, known as Jewish apocalypses. These books were, like Revelation, stories describing the end of the world, the sundry judgments that would take place, and the eventual salvation of God's people, written in symbolic language. It'd be like a romance novel: you expect certain elements in it, like the characters' meeting, falling in love, the troubles that prevent them from being together, and their eventual marriage. Revelation is covering the bases of that genre, and it might not be as unique as people claim it to be. It was written specifically to the churches it describes at the beginning of the book, like Paul's letters, and so it would have some special meaning to them that we're missing by not living in those times.
Still, despite these issues, and whether or not the events that occur in it are going to happen at the end times, Revelation is primarily a message of hope. Despite all the disasters, judgements, etc., that it talks about, God is ultimately in control and His will will win out in the end, no matter what may come.
This more or less covers how I feel about it.
