Journal: Journal of Ministry and Theology
Volume: JMAT 18:1 (Spring 2014)
Article: Preaching The Book Of Revelation
Author: Michael D. Stallard

JMAT 18:1 (Spring 2014) p. 5

Preaching The Book Of Revelation

Mike Stallard

Dean, Director of PhD Studies
Baptist Bible Seminary
Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania

Introduction

Friedrich Engels, the nineteenth-century Communist colleague of Karl Marx, once wrote the following about the book of Revelation:

Christianity got hold of the masses, exactly as modern socialism does, under the shape of a variety of sects, and still more of conflicting individual views—some clearer, some more confused, these latter the great majority—but all opposed to the ruling system, to “the powers that be.”

Take, for instance, our Book of Revelation, of which we shall see that, it is the simplest and clearest book of the whole New Testament. (emphasis added)1

In the context of Engels’s statement, the book of Revelation is about class struggle and is the earliest book written in the New Testament. With that lens, he incredibly asserts that the book is the easiest book to understand in all of the New Testament. Thus, he gives us another reason not to trust Communists! Their perception appears to be somewhat lacking.

However, dispensationalists normally do not make the mistake of going to the other extreme—making the book of Revelation so hard to understand that only the technical elite among the scholars can interpret it for the rest of us in the pews of our churches. Instead the dispensational tradition has acknowledged the difficulties of interpreting such a book while at the same time believing that the common man can come to

JMAT 18:1 (Spring 2014) p. 6

many right conclusions with a correct understanding of proper hermeneutics. In this light, what follows is a discussion of many specific issues that should assist in the understanding and preaching of the book of Revelation.

Hermeneutics, Literal Interpretation, And Apocalyptic Genre2

Perhaps the first issue that needs to be examined is the claim that the apocalyptic genre of the book of Revelation makes it impossible to practice a straightforward, literal hermeneutic.3 If this be so, then the preaching of sermons from this book is greatly affected. Sandy represents one approach to how apocalyptic genre should shift the interpreter’s eye:

From Revelation 12–13 we learned that an apocalyptic vision may actually be a sermon in disguise. We must not focus on deciphering the bizarre details and miss the underlying message.

Reading...