Understanding the Book of Revelation Isn’t Your Biggest Challenge
God’s Message Is for Us
Many people are intimidated by the book of Revelation—so afraid that they're not going to be able to understand it. And so my first encouragement to anyone who feels that way would be to say that the book of Revelation wasn't written for scholars. It was written for ordinary people in the first century, and it had a message that they were expected to be able to understand. And indeed, I'm sure that they did understand it.
Blessed
Nancy Guthrie
Blessed, by bestselling author and speaker Nancy Guthrie, gives individuals and small groups a friendly, theologically reliable, and robust guide to understanding the book of Revelation.
So that means that you and I can understand Revelation's central message. Are there challenges to interpreting and rightly understanding the book of Revelation? Yes, certainly there are. But we're capable of developing the skills for rightly understanding how to read these things, how to understand how the book is organized and put together. That helps us a lot with how to rightly interpret symbols, numbers, colors, and creatures.
Approach Revelation with a desire not simply to understand it, but to live in light of it.
We really can understand the meaning, but here's what I think is most important in regards to being intimidated by the book of Revelation and being afraid that we can't understand it. I have found that actually being able to understand it is not the most challenging part of Revelation. What I have found the most challenging is Revelation's very clear message, which is a call to bold allegiance to Jesus Christ, and a call to refuse to compromise with the world.
So don't be afraid that you might not be able to understand it. Instead, approach Revelation with a desire not simply to understand it, but to live in light of it.
Nancy Guthrie is the author of Blessed: Experiencing the Promise of the Book of Revelation.
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