What is the Book of Revelation? (Serious Thread)

Asiaprod

On a serious note folks, I am interested in seeing some real discussion on what place the Book of Revelations actually plays in your faith. I have always wanted to understand its place/role better.

It has given great milage to TV series like "Millennium and X-Files, but what role does it actually play in maintaining your faith in these modern times. How do you view it. Was it just a warning given in times when people were ignorant of the universe and the laws governing it? Was it an attempt to control/guide the populace through fear? Is it still perceived today as an actual irrefutable document predicting the end of time?
How does it relate to you and your faith?

*This is serious thread, Lol cat has paw on Infraction button*

JimiTime

I've always loved the book of Revelation, but have been careful not to pretend I know all of its meaning. There are many who claim they know what certain things are, but I think its all speculation.

I believe that it is relevant. I believe that it does inspire me, along with Christs Gospel. Especially when I see the fear in the world today. From the big ones like Nulear war, to the localised terror of gang voilence and anti social behaviour (a term I absolutely detest BTW. A political term which aims to minimise the damage certain elements in communuties do IMO). Revelation points to a New world. A wiping out of the wicked, and an end to mourning. It is a warning for all of us, and a hope for all of us. My 2 cent.

PDN

Asiaprod wrote: »

On a serious note folks, I am interested in seeing some real discussion on what place the Book of Revelations actually plays in your faith. I have always wanted to understand its place/role better.

It has given great milage to TV series like "Millennium and X-Files, but what role does it actually play in maintaining your faith in these modern times. How do you view it. Was it just a warning given in times when people were ignorant of the universe and the laws governing it? Was it an attempt to control/guide the populace through fear? Is it still perceived today as an actual irrefutable document predicting the end of time?
How does it relate to you and your faith?

*This is serious thread, Lol cat has paw on Infraction button*

The Book of Revelation was certainly not written to control/guide a populace through fear. It was written at a time when Christians were a despised and persecuted minority, hated by mainstream Judaism and suppressed by the Romans.

I think that many of the problems we have with interpreting Revelation, and sometimes our struggle to see its relevance, comes from our total inability to understand what it feels like to be persecuted in this way. Therefore I am fascinated by how important this book is to believers in the underground Church in China.

There is, of course, an officially approved State-sponsored Church in China, but most believers reject it as a puppet of the regime and prefer to risk imprisonment by worshipping in unregistered churches. Interestingly, the State-sponsored churches are forbidden to preach from the Book of revelation. Evidently the persecutors have also understood the significance of the book!

So, talking about this with believers in China, the following aspects of the Book of Revelation become very important.

1. The good guys win in the end. The Book gives hope to those who seem to be powerless. The kingdoms of this earth will be destroyed and the suffering church will be delivered and vindicated.

2. When you are being persecuted the temptation is to give up. It is important to feel that there is some point to your suffering - that God is working to a plan. The Book of Revelation tells believers that God is in control and that their suffering is not in vain. The emphasis on predictive prophecy in the Book is also part of this.

3. Symbolism is used extensively. A persecuted church operates in conditions of secrecy, therefore people avoid using their real names and have a system of codes to convey messages while minimising the risk of being arrested if the messages are intercepted. For example, when I am in China I keep my wife informed of my activities so she can coordinate people to pray for us. But my SMS messages read like a tourist's innocuous messages in case they are being read by the authorities. Revelation is full of such coded messages, which obviously makes it hard for us to interpret today.

4. When arrest, torture or even death is potentially only a heartbeat away, then the supernatural world becomes much more real. You are aware of the power of evil, and of demonic forces. You are also aware of God's protection - often ascribed to the activity of angels. In a Chinese underground Church meeting you can often hear people testifying of miraculous deliverance from danger and of angelic interventions that would sound embarrassingly naive in a Western context. This emphasis is also reflected in the Book of Revelation.

5. Another characteristic of the underground Church is the importance of dreams and visions. This is sometimes because people have less chance to read the Bible (some churches have only one copy between all the people). Therefore the idea of God speaking to you through a dream or a vision is not considered strange or unusual. To those of us in the west, unaccustomed to such a method of communication with God, the idea of a whole Book based on an apocalyptic vision seems much more strange.

I hope this glimpse of Revelation from a different perspective helps.

Asiaprod

PDN wrote: »

I hope this glimpse of Revelation from a different perspective helps.

Very helpful, thanks to you both:)

Dog Fan

Very Interesting, PDN!

The different perspective really shows how hard it can be for us to get outside of our own cultural perspective, and the importance of doing so if we really wish to understand a book, or a people.

Oh, and I've nothing new to add - I could never claim to be a biblical scholar!

kelly1

Asia, here's a good birds-eye view of the book of Revelation:

http://www.fisheaters.com/revelationoutline.html

There are also strong parallels between the liturgy of the Mass and Revelations:

http://www.scripturecatholic.com/the_eucharist.html#eucharist-IIf

Run_to_da_hills

I believe that much of Revelations has yet to come and I debunk any theory of mark of the beast referring to Nero’s empire for several reasons as discussed on a previous post, the main one that Nero’s empire was local and not Global. I believe we are quite close to major changes happening in the world with both unity in world religion and global goverrnments. Much of the book of Revelations is linked to other chapters in scripture such as Matthew 24 the book of Daniel.

TravelJunkie

There are several schools of thought concerning interpretations of the Book of Revelation:

In the Biblical prophecy school of thought, the contents of Revelation constitute a prophecy of the end times; especially when interpreted in conjunction with the Book of Daniel and other eschatological sections of the Bible. This school can be further subdivided into the preterits view, which interprets the book in light of 1st-century events; the futurist view, which interprets most of the events in the book (chapter 6 onwards) as prophecy concerning the end times; and the historicist view, which regards the events in the book as occurrences spanning history from the first century through the second coming.
The historical-critical approach, which has become dominant among scholars of religion since the end of the 18th century, attempts to understand Revelation in its first century historical context within the genre of Jewish and Christian apocalyptic literature. This approach considers the text as an address to seven historical communities in Asia Minor. Under this view, assertions that "the time is near" are to be taken literally by those communities. Consequently the work is viewed as a warning not to conform to contemporary Greco-Roman society which John "unveils" as beastly, demonic and subject to divine judgment. There is further information on these topics in the entries on higher criticism and apocalyptic literature.
The view of the esoteric schools is that Revelation bears multiple levels of meaning, the lowest being the literal or "dead-letter." Those who are instructed in esoteric knowledge enter gradually into more subtle levels of understanding of the text. The Gnostic Kabbalist believes that Revelation (like Genesis) is a very profound book of Kabbalistic symbolism. This view is held by schools related to teachers such as H.P. Blavatsky, Eliphas Levi, Rudolf Steiner and Samael Aun Weor.[citation needed] Edgar Cayce held the view that the Book of Revelation is symbolic of the body and that each emblem, emotion and condition relate to self. For example, the 24 elders of Revelation 4:4 relate to the 12 pairs (24) of cranial nerves; and the seven churches of Asia in Revelation Ch. 1 are symbolic of the 7 chakras or spiritual centers.
Recently, aesthetic and literary modes of interpretation have developed, which focus on Revelation as a work of art and imagination, viewing the imagery as symbolic depictions of timeless truths and the victory of good over evil.
The "Patristic Interpretation", or the view held by St. Augustine[citation needed] , Jerome[citation needed], and other early Church Fathers, views Revelation as an attempt to describe a spiritual reality and heavenly worship and therefore compares it to the liturgy of the Christian Church. Although all but forgotten today, this interpretation is alluded to in the Catechism of the Catholic Church[citation needed] and has been avidly promoted by modern theologians such as Scott Hahn [17].
These schools of thought are not mutually exclusive and many Christians adopt a combination of these approaches. The Biblical Prophecy school of thought is popular among Protestant fundamentalists and other evangelicals, as well as Rastafarians. Members of more mainline and liberal churches tend to prefer the historical-critical and aesthetic approaches. Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches have also established their own specific positions on Revelation.

I saw the above on wikipedia. As I was reading, by the time I got to the last one, I realised then that I believed in the first one; Biblical Prophecy. Then I read the last para and it said that this is the popular view amongst protestant fundamentalists and evangelicals... (I don't know any rastafarians) It just makes me wonder why? It is my natural reaction to believe in biblical prophecy, no one told me to believe that way about it. It's really weird, because I like evangelicals and am prone to that type of teaching. How did this happen?