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

by Michael J. Gorman

Kovacs and Rowland also suggest something that others have noted as well: interpreters of Revelation tend to focus on the past, the present, or the future in their reading of Revelation. Some, in other words, think that it should be read primarily or exclusively as an ancient document for the ancient church, some see it as a text that speaks above all to us today (that is, to any age, because its message is timeless), and some see it fundamentally as a set of predictions about the future. Few interpreters, however, would rule out the relevance of the time period that is not their own focus; even popular interpreters like Hal Lindsey and Tim LaHaye see Revelation as a text relevant both to the first century and to our time (indeed for all time), even if it primarily tells us about the future tribulation and associated events. If we put these two simple systems of classifying approaches to Revelation together we can construct a graphic with an x-axis and a y-axis on which we can plot interpreters’ interests between decoding and actualizing strategies and among past, present, and future foci7: