Reading Revelation Responsibly: Uncivil Worship and Witness: Following the Lamb into the New Creation

by Michael J. Gorman

Interest in decoding and correlating has been heightened before epochal moments (such as the years 1000 and 2000) and during turbulent political events, whether in the world or in the church. We find this approach in two basic forms. Some interpreters are focused on history, seeing Revelation as a prediction of world or church history (at least Western history), usually culminating in or near the time of the interpreter. This is sometimes called the historicist or church-historical approach. In the Middle Ages, Joachim of Fiore (12th century) and Nicholas of Lyra (14th century) read Revelation as a sequential chart of church history. Their reading strategy influenced many later interpreters. Most recent predictive interpreters are focused on eschatology, seeing Revelation as primarily concerned about the “end times.” Sometimes called the futurist approach, it is obviously what is found in the many popular books, web sites, and other media that view Revelation as an advance DVD or blueprint of the end. The most common form of this approach today is dispensationalism, popularized especially by the Plymouth Brethren teacher J. N. D. Darby (1808–82), then by the Scofield Bible, then by Hal Lindsey (The Late Great Planet Earth), and most recently by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins (the “Left Behind” series). Dispensationalists, as we have noted, divide history into various ages, or dispensations, in the divine story; connect the tribulation of Revelation 6–19 with the 70th week in...