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Revelation Explained
Book by Fogle, Lerry W.
323 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 1981
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 18, 2022
The 1987 reading date for this popular level commentary is a rough guess, but I read it in the period of my career when I was teaching Bible courses at the college level. Since my Sunday school class has embarked on a three-month study of the book of Revelation, I'm currently using Fogle's book as a resource for my teaching, which prompted my interest in finally reviewing it here. Like the author of the commentary, as an evangelical Christian I approach all of the Bible, including its last-written book, as an inspired revelation from God (and so, obviously, take its interpretation very seriously).
Generally, though, Revelation has been seen by most of its readers as a very difficult book to interpret, and its difficulty is increased for modern Western Christians (and non-Christians) by the great degree to which we're removed from its historical and cultural context. It's steeped in the concepts and imagery of the Old Testament; and it's also heavily influenced by the language and style of the apocalyptic literature that grew up in the centuries between the testaments. That style includes much use of complex symbolism and figurative language. For English-speaking evangelicals in the 20th and 21st centuries, another complicating factor is the great influence of the theology of "dispensationalism," developed in the 1820s by former Anglican priest turned Plymouth Brethren leader John Nelson Darby, and spread far beyond Plymouth Brethren circles by the wide popularity of the Scofield Reference Bible around the turn of the 20th century, and of the writings of Hal Lindsey in the 1970s. This peculiar (and IMO fallacious) form of premillennialism, built around Darby's signature theological invention, the "pre-tribulation rapture," gives great attention to the book of Revelation, but views its contents almost entirely as a detailed and relatively literal description of events destined to take place near the very end of the present age.
Lerry W. Fogle, at the time he wrote this book, was a Church of the Brethren (a different denomination from the Plymouth Brethren) minister, who was also active in the charismatic movement of that era. (I don't know anything more about him than what's given in the brief write-up on the back cover.) His short (a bit over four pages) Introduction just explains his purpose in writing the commentary. It grew out of a Bible study in his congregation, as a result of which he felt led to share with the wider church an interpretation of Revelation that sees it as primarily intended to reveal Christ and his message of exhortation and encouragement to the church when it was written, and in all the ensuing centuries. That encouragement finds its climax and strength in the vision of the eternal kingdom of the coming age that will replace the present one; but the biblical book itself isn't mainly just a description of entirely future events. The intended readership of the commentary is primarily evangelical laity; in keeping with this, the Bible text used is the King James Version, and there's no scholarly jargon and little reference to the Greek. Fogle's language is conversational, much like an expository sermon in many ways, though the commentary isn't a "homiletical" treatment studded with modern examples and applications. Few footnotes are included, and references to other writers in the text are rare.
29 of the 30 chapters of this book are simply passage-by-passage, inductive explanation of the text of Revelation. (Chapter 30 just consists of a single page, and is a short summation in Fogle's words of Revelation's central message.) The whole text of the passages aren't repeated, but italicized quotations are cited throughout, and other Scriptures are referred to and quoted as appropriate. A short review can only touch briefly on some of the more significant interpretive stances. As I do, Fogle understands the "John" (Revelation 1:1) writing the biblical book to be the Apostle John, though he isn't dogmatic about it. In direct contradiction to Darby, he understands "Israel" in John's sense to refer to Christian Jews and Christian Gentiles together, as God's one people. He explicitly rejects and rebuts the "pre-tribulation rapture" theory, and recognizes both the descriptions of judgments in the body of the book and of the "millennium" as symbolic descriptions of different aspects of the church age. Likewise, he sees the "beast" of Revelation 13 as a collective entity opposing God throughout the present age, and the "New Jerusalem" as a symbolic depiction of the church.
If I have one significant criticism of the commentary, it would be that Fogle ignores the historical background of John's situation, which is the persecution of Christians (and observant Jews) by the Roman emperor Domitian, who demanded that his subjects worship him as a god. (Most scholars date the writing of the main part of Revelation at around 96 A.D., "towards the end of Domitian's reign,” as Irenaeus stated --though I personally believe part of it was written earlier, in the reign of Vespasian-- but Fogle doesn't discuss the date at all.) That persecution, to my mind, is an important context for understanding the prophecy. As would be expected, I have a few specific disagreements with interpretations of particular verses. The bibliography is not strong; it lists only eight sources, and two of those, Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress and Foxe's Book of Martyrs, are used only for illustrative, not interpretive, purposes. (Dave MacPherson is the only other cited author whose name I recognized.) In fairness, Fogle would assert that his focus is the biblical text itself, not other writer's thoughts about it; but interactions with others' thoughts and information can often help us formulate and deepen our own.
But those quibbles aside, this is a very sound, sober and sane approach to an often misunderstood and undervalued book of the Bible, written at a level easily understood by the average lay person with no background in academic study of the subject, but offering insights that would be useful for preachers and Bible scholars as well. This isn't a book that would be apt to interest non-Christians; but I'd highly recommend it as a resource to any Christians studying the book of Revelation.
Generally, though, Revelation has been seen by most of its readers as a very difficult book to interpret, and its difficulty is increased for modern Western Christians (and non-Christians) by the great degree to which we're removed from its historical and cultural context. It's steeped in the concepts and imagery of the Old Testament; and it's also heavily influenced by the language and style of the apocalyptic literature that grew up in the centuries between the testaments. That style includes much use of complex symbolism and figurative language. For English-speaking evangelicals in the 20th and 21st centuries, another complicating factor is the great influence of the theology of "dispensationalism," developed in the 1820s by former Anglican priest turned Plymouth Brethren leader John Nelson Darby, and spread far beyond Plymouth Brethren circles by the wide popularity of the Scofield Reference Bible around the turn of the 20th century, and of the writings of Hal Lindsey in the 1970s. This peculiar (and IMO fallacious) form of premillennialism, built around Darby's signature theological invention, the "pre-tribulation rapture," gives great attention to the book of Revelation, but views its contents almost entirely as a detailed and relatively literal description of events destined to take place near the very end of the present age.
Lerry W. Fogle, at the time he wrote this book, was a Church of the Brethren (a different denomination from the Plymouth Brethren) minister, who was also active in the charismatic movement of that era. (I don't know anything more about him than what's given in the brief write-up on the back cover.) His short (a bit over four pages) Introduction just explains his purpose in writing the commentary. It grew out of a Bible study in his congregation, as a result of which he felt led to share with the wider church an interpretation of Revelation that sees it as primarily intended to reveal Christ and his message of exhortation and encouragement to the church when it was written, and in all the ensuing centuries. That encouragement finds its climax and strength in the vision of the eternal kingdom of the coming age that will replace the present one; but the biblical book itself isn't mainly just a description of entirely future events. The intended readership of the commentary is primarily evangelical laity; in keeping with this, the Bible text used is the King James Version, and there's no scholarly jargon and little reference to the Greek. Fogle's language is conversational, much like an expository sermon in many ways, though the commentary isn't a "homiletical" treatment studded with modern examples and applications. Few footnotes are included, and references to other writers in the text are rare.
29 of the 30 chapters of this book are simply passage-by-passage, inductive explanation of the text of Revelation. (Chapter 30 just consists of a single page, and is a short summation in Fogle's words of Revelation's central message.) The whole text of the passages aren't repeated, but italicized quotations are cited throughout, and other Scriptures are referred to and quoted as appropriate. A short review can only touch briefly on some of the more significant interpretive stances. As I do, Fogle understands the "John" (Revelation 1:1) writing the biblical book to be the Apostle John, though he isn't dogmatic about it. In direct contradiction to Darby, he understands "Israel" in John's sense to refer to Christian Jews and Christian Gentiles together, as God's one people. He explicitly rejects and rebuts the "pre-tribulation rapture" theory, and recognizes both the descriptions of judgments in the body of the book and of the "millennium" as symbolic descriptions of different aspects of the church age. Likewise, he sees the "beast" of Revelation 13 as a collective entity opposing God throughout the present age, and the "New Jerusalem" as a symbolic depiction of the church.
If I have one significant criticism of the commentary, it would be that Fogle ignores the historical background of John's situation, which is the persecution of Christians (and observant Jews) by the Roman emperor Domitian, who demanded that his subjects worship him as a god. (Most scholars date the writing of the main part of Revelation at around 96 A.D., "towards the end of Domitian's reign,” as Irenaeus stated --though I personally believe part of it was written earlier, in the reign of Vespasian-- but Fogle doesn't discuss the date at all.) That persecution, to my mind, is an important context for understanding the prophecy. As would be expected, I have a few specific disagreements with interpretations of particular verses. The bibliography is not strong; it lists only eight sources, and two of those, Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress and Foxe's Book of Martyrs, are used only for illustrative, not interpretive, purposes. (Dave MacPherson is the only other cited author whose name I recognized.) In fairness, Fogle would assert that his focus is the biblical text itself, not other writer's thoughts about it; but interactions with others' thoughts and information can often help us formulate and deepen our own.
But those quibbles aside, this is a very sound, sober and sane approach to an often misunderstood and undervalued book of the Bible, written at a level easily understood by the average lay person with no background in academic study of the subject, but offering insights that would be useful for preachers and Bible scholars as well. This isn't a book that would be apt to interest non-Christians; but I'd highly recommend it as a resource to any Christians studying the book of Revelation.
May 15, 2014
Probably one of the best kept secrets in terms of commentaries on Revelation. Fogle takes an approach to reveal Christ from the text rather than make claims about future events. His approach is Idealism, and is amillennial.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews