Opening Revelation

If the Bible is seen as confusing to most readers, its last book, Revelation, fares even worse. To the casual observer, it appears as some sort of fantasy full of mysterious visions, terrifying disasters, frightening apparitions and dreadful events with enough threats and warnings to frighten the bravest of us. Over the centuries, its narrative has been viewed as a jigsaw puzzle whose images and scenarios never quite fit together. Disparate themes and unimaginable events seem to unfold devoid of meaning or context. For a book whose title promises an unveiling, it seems an inaccessible book leaving its readers in a fog.

Yet culturally, Revelation has left its mark. Who hasn’t heard of Armageddon, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the seven seals, the grapes of wrath, or the beast? And speaking of leaving its mark, who hasn’t heard about the mark of the beast, 666? Still the same, Winston Churchill’s musing on Russia is equally applicable to Revelation in many readers’ minds: “It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key.”

As it turns out, there is a key to cracking the code of Revelation. There is a path to understanding its text and it involves some familiarity with literary devices along with a commitment to relying on the Scriptures alone.