From my visiting churches to preach on the book of Revelation, I’ve discovered something. People tend to talk more about the book of Revelation than about the message of the book.

Many people hear Revelation and, like a word association test, their minds immediately go to their position on the millennial reign of Christ. Most recently when a congregant heard that I was there to speak on Revelation, he felt compelled to identify himself as a premillennialist, as though that settled the matter and satisfied the book’s purpose. On another occasion, a member of the congregation lingered to inform me that he was a staunch partial preterist. He went so far as to say that Revelation cannot be understood apart from an early date for its writing.

While hermeneutical approaches and questions of date are worthwhile considerations, are they necessary to glean benefit from the book of Revelation? I believe that our Lord’s message to us in the book is apparent apart from these considerations, and a preoccupation with them can lead us to miss the substance our Lord has for us.

A Pastoral Letter from Our Lord

Imagine going off to college. While unpacking, you discover a letter from your parents. The letter contains counsel to you at this stage of your life, telling you what to expect, what challenges you will face, and how to conduct yourself. They assure you of their love and provision for you. They paint a picture of what your future could be like. As you read the letter, you hear echoes of things your parents have taught you your entire life.

That sort of letter is what our Lord Jesus has given to us in the book of Revelation. Just as college can hold many dangers through worldviews contrary to the Christian faith and temptations to indulge in self-serving ways, so this fallen world presents challenges for us who bear the name of Christ. In the final book of the Bible, our Lord speaks to equip us for life as His disciples in what can be a hostile and inhospitable world.

Revelation is often seen as a cipher, an answer key to the future. While things to come are certainly in view, the primary focus is not tomorrow but today. John lays out how we are to approach the book. “Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near” (Rev. 1:3).

Read-Hear-Keep

John instructs us to read, hear, and keep what is written. We handle the “word of God” and “testimony of Jesus” (Rev. 1:2) properly when we give ear to it. We are not to neglect it but must take it in hand and take note of the message our Lord has packed for us for the journey we face as those who are in the world but not of the world.

Not only are we to take note, but we are to take heed. We must attend to what our Lord says, and especially in the book of Revelation, what He shows us. Revelation is filled with evocative imagery that brings to mind Old Testament anticipation. Like that letter from parents to their student at college, we have heard these things before and are eager to see them at hand. We are to incline our ear to God and dig deep to plumb the depth and richness of the redemptive landscape in which we find ourselves in these last days (Heb. 1:1–4).

One other element is necessary for rightly approaching the book of Revelation.

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