The next
“revelation” I would share with you on the Book of Revelation has to do with
the vital importance of asking the right questions in the right order.
If there ever
was a book of the Bible that raised questions, it’s the Book of Revelation. In
fact, it has spawned so many questions and confusion that, as I shared, some
have thought it best just to ignore it. I can imagine that if you have lots of
questions already. That’s a good thing. Asking questions is the right step to
better understanding it. However, we need to begin with the right question.
That question is simply this:
“What
DID it mean?”
In other
words, what was John trying to say to his people in his time? How did they understand
it? What was the historical, political, religious context in which he wrote?
What was going on with John and his first readers? Unless we first ask and seek
to answer, “What did it mean?” we cannot rightly and accurately go on to ask,
“What does it mean for us today?”
When we fail
to ask, “What did it mean?” we risk making it mean whatever we want; we are
very likely to misuse and abuse it, making it say or mean something it was
never intended to mean. This is quite true of the whole Bible for that
matter—that if we ignore its original context and setting, you can make the
Bible support just about anything you want. So it is that the Bible has been
used, for example, to justify the persecution of Jews and other people over the
centuries. It was used to support slavery. Some still use it to exclude women
from leadership in the church or to keep lesbian and gay people from fully
participating in the life of the church. Rather than looking at the contexts of
these passages and the whole message of the Bible, persons come to it seeking
to find support for views they already hold, not to discover what it really has
to say.
To get a
little more technical, the word for finding out what the Bible really says is
“exegesis.” It means to “bring out” the meaning of a biblical text. In other
words, to discover what it meant. The opposite of this is “eisegesis,” which
means reading a meaning “into” the text.
I remember a
cartoon that had a little boy lying on the floor flipping like crazy through
the Bible. His sister walked up to him and he said to her, “Don’t bother me!
I’m looking for verses to back up my preconceived notions!”
Who hasn’t
been guilty of that, of doing more eisegesis than exegesis?
One of the
major concerns I have about many of the popular books about Revelation is that
they pretty much ignore the first and most crucial question. They rush right
onto, “What does it mean?” without having first asked and answered, “What did
it mean?” Why? Because they already have a lot of “preconceived notions” about
what it should mean and are very creative in finding passages that they can cut
and paste and twist to support their views.
Most of their
views or understandings of Revelation can be traced back to an Irish clergyman
named John Nelson Darby. Darby lived in the 1800’s during times of great
political, social and economic change and turmoil. It must have seemed like
apocalyptic times to him. Many began to believe that the end was near. Darby
began a whole system or understanding of the Bible based on his belief the end
was near. He saw the Bible as basically prewritten history, that is, a record
not so much of what happened but what was to happen. Many of the most popular
ideas being written and preached about today, like the rapture and the great
tribulation, go back to him. He began to spread his ideas in the late 1820s,
going everywhere he could, preaching and teaching his beliefs. Many Bible
students and pastors were attracted to his views, which became known as
“dispensationalism.” One of them was a lawyer named Cyrus I. Scofield, who was
so inspired by what he saw that he had an idea—a Bible with notes. This is
simply the King James Version with C. I. Scofield’s notes, based on the ideas
and theories of Darby. This came to be called the “Schofield Bible,” and it had
a huge impact all across America.
My concern
about this approach is that it doesn’t begin with Revelation itself but with
ideas, theories, and preconceived notions that are imposed on Revelation. All
too often, the result is the blatant distortion and abuse of scripture, using
it to support views and political agendas that are the very opposite of what
the Bible actually teaches.
One book about
Revelation I ran into on Amazon.com is Can
America Survive? Updated Edition: Startling Revelations and Promises of Hope,
written by one of my least favorite
TV preachers, John Hagee. Here are some selected comments from Amazon’s blurb
for the book:
. . .
the seeds for tragedy. . . evidenced by the disturbing economic, geopolitical,
and religious trends that now threaten to dismantle the very nation itself. . .
. recent events . . . that could bring down the “unsinkable” United States of
America including:
. .
. history’s evidence of the danger to
any nation that challenges Israel’s God-mandated right to exist
The
dangerous belittling of Iran’s nuclear threat . . . the super-weapon that could
stop the U.S. in its tracks instantly
. . .
Iran as one of six countries that will form an Islamic military force “as a
cloud to cover the land”
The .
. . national economic trends that are poised to bring about the death of the
American dollar
The
criminalization of Christianity around the world . . .
And so forth.
Books like
Hagee’s are a total abuse of the Bible and a cynical manipulation of the very
real concerns and fears of many. (No doubt, in spite of the economic disaster
Hagee predicts, his own financial situation will improve considerably as
fearful, worried and gullible people buy his book!)
Here’s the
point. The writer of Revelation isn’t here to defend himself. He can’t say,
“Hold on there! That’s not even close to what I was saying!” So, we must go to
some lengths to put on first-century glasses, to try and understand what John
was saying in his own historical context. In other words, we must first ask and
answer, “What did it mean?” setting aside as much as we can all our
preconceived notions about what we think or want it to mean.
James Efird, a
professor at Duke University, often used a wonderful illustration about how
important it is to understand the original context and setting for biblical
writings. He held up an editorial cartoon from a newspaper. (Keep it in mind
that the year was 1976.) The cartoon had a large, grinning peanut on it with
lots of teeth standing on top of the world. Professor Efird asked, “What if in
200 years from now, someone found this and declared, ‘Oh no! Peanuts are going
to come alive, unite and take over the world!’ Would that be an accurate
interpretation?”
Actually, this cartoon was referring to the fact that in 1976
a peanut farmer named Jimmy Carter was elected as President of the United
States, the most powerful country in the world! Dr. Efird went on to make the
point that too many people do the same thing with the Bible. They read
something in it and then jump to conclusions about what it means before they
ever ask, “What did it mean?” What was the original and full context?
I hope you’re
beginning to understand this vital point for the Bible as well. Context is everything. What it really
comes down to is this—truly respecting and valuing the Bible! It is far easier
to misuse it, than doing the painstaking study necessary to understand what
these writers were saying in their own time and setting. That takes work! It’s
far easier and quicker to lay on the floor flipping through it looking for
support for preconceived notions! It’s far better to try to come to it, not
seeking to impose our views on it, but rather listening for its views, hearing
its story and letting them inform, correct and challenge our own. Yes, it is
far easier to read and preach and teach the Bible un-biblically than
biblically!
Think about
this in another way. If the writer of Revelation was just writing for those in
the distant future, of what possible use was he or his book to the people of
his own time? No where do I hear him saying, “Uh, sorry, fellow Christians. I
know you need help and comfort and guidance right now, but I’m writing for TV
preachers and bestselling authors 20 centuries from now!” The fact is that John
had a powerful message for the people of his time, whom he loved dearly. Had it
not been so, it is doubtful that this book would have been preserved at all. If
we are to do right by the author and benefit from his message, we must not
begin with, “What does it mean?” but, “What did it mean?”
Next week I’ll
share with you more revelations about what Revelation meant. Keep reading it or
start if you haven’t. Remember as you read that Revelation had a powerful,
timely message for those Christians living under persecution by the Roman
Empire in the first century—a message that we will also discover is relevant
for us as well!
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