The Book of Revelation is enigmatic. No text in the Bible inspires more confidence and confusion at the same time.
I’ve long argued that our biggest problem with Revelation is that we don’t actually know how to read it. Or more precisely, the base intuition that we use when we break into it jumps to wrong conclusions.
The reason for this is pretty simple. We associate a kind of historical actuality to the Bible that colors our thinking. Did this happen? is a normal question.
Revelation doesn’t work that way. So when we use that approach, we really are reading it wrong.
Why we read Revelation wrong
Our struggle with reading Revelation begins with our unfamiliarity with its genre. Revelation was written in the genre of Jewish Apocalyptic literature. This alone should tell us to read it differently. But this reveals a deeper problem.
Do we read the Bible with genre in mind at all? Different genres need to be read differently. We get that the gospels are different from the epistles, for the most part. But when we look at it all as an answer book that gives us answers in the same way every time, we’re going to miss a lot of it.
9 ways we read it wrong
Here are nine mistakes we make in our approach to reading Revelation.
1. We treat it like prediction.
Unlike every other book in the Bible, we act like this one book predicts the future. Nope. It is something closer to an allegory that helps us make sense of our present.
2 .We read it literally.
Because the book is full of vivid imagery, we usually treat the visions as literal, physical, and real—rather than what they are: imagery. In contrast, when Jesus tells a parable about seeds, we rarely struggle with recognizing that he’s talking about us.
3. We think it is about divine judgment.
The evangelist weaves a story about our behavior in light of divine judgment. It isn’t a story of the stuff God will do (see #1 again), but about who we are in light of who God calls us to be.
4. We ignore the critique of Empire.
The entire book is about the evil of empire, of exploitation, of stealing, and the ways people extort each other. By focusing on prediction and judgment, we ignore what actually is being judged—empire itself.
5. Those raptured are the ones who reject Jesus.
The underlying plot of Revelation is that the people who follow the way of Jesus are protected like the Hebrew people were protected in the Passover. When we say “you are marked as Christ’s own forever,” we are connecting ourselves with the mission of God, rather than with the mission of worldly empires.
6. Everyone is marked.
Not just the ones with the sign of the beast. It is a passover image, so the people marked by their allegiance to Jesus’s way are protected. We can see in our world who is marked by “the beast” because they choose to act like him.
7. The bad stuff happens to those who choose to do bad stuff.
And this isn’t about sex. It’s about choosing the ways of empire over the dream of God: like making war and exploiting the poor.
8. We focus on the scary stuff—not the point.
Yeah, the images are intense, but why is it happening? It is happening to the people who are rejecting God’s dream to protect the ways of empire. The scary stuff reinforces how unChristlike empire is.
9. Revelation sets up a useful frame for us.
It is designed as a reference for being more like Jesus. What looks like Jesus: love, compassion, sacrifice, community. And what looks like empire: brutality, cruelty, violence, and conquering.
Revelation is not only the most misunderstood book of the Bible. But knowing how to read it better helps us to understand why it speaks to our world right now.
A genre book for today
By using the apocalyptic genre, which requires an oppressed people to hide the critique of empire in a fantasy epic, the evangelist is able to be far more explicit about the danger of empire than Paul could ever be in a letter.
In this way, Revelation is the most direct application of Jesus’s teachings in the Greek Scriptures.
In this way, Revelation is the most direct application of Jesus’s teachings in the Greek Scriptures.
It doesn’t allow us to see our faith as having only spiritual consequence. And unlike the epistle writers, it doesn’t invite us to straddle the line of tolerating the ways of empire or embracing them (as the later epistles do).
Revelation condemns the behaviors Jesus condemns throughout all of the gospels: exploitation. Exploiting others (often for selfish gain) is the root of all sin: stealing, manipulating, enslaving, oppressing, killing.
Revelation draws a dark line between the ways of Jesus and the ways of empire: the ultimate engine of exploitation and sin.
We need Revelation’s message now. And to hear it, we need to first realize an uncomfortable fact. It is the way of empire to offer us the common false choice: to read Revelation wrong or to not read it at all.
There’s a better option. To read it as speaking to us today. So that we can speak God’s dream into our world.
Further Reading
If you want to dig into Revelation and learn more about it, I highly recommend the following books: