Bill The Baptist
Puritan Board Graduate
Here is great quote from Graeme Goldsworthy about the problem that most people run into when interpreting Revelation. It is from his book, The Gospel in Revelation.
"The problem of Christian existence is that we easily allow the tribulation which we experience within the suffering church to obscure the glory that is already ours by faith in Christ. This is the problem that the Book of Revelation sets out to rectify. If only that object and aim of the book were kept in mind we could be spared a lot of speculative interpretation. John's first concern is not to minister to arm-chair prophets in some far-off age, but to the battlers of his own age who struggle to reconcile the fact of their suffering with the fact of Christ's victory over sin, Satan, and death."
"The problem of Christian existence is that we easily allow the tribulation which we experience within the suffering church to obscure the glory that is already ours by faith in Christ. This is the problem that the Book of Revelation sets out to rectify. If only that object and aim of the book were kept in mind we could be spared a lot of speculative interpretation. John's first concern is not to minister to arm-chair prophets in some far-off age, but to the battlers of his own age who struggle to reconcile the fact of their suffering with the fact of Christ's victory over sin, Satan, and death."