Revelation's Rhapsody

June 23, 3:15 PMMethodist ExaminerJames-Michael Smith

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This book should be on every Christian's shelf!

The book of Revelation (NOT the book of "Revelations") has fascinated readers for over 1,900 years now.  It has been interpreted so many way by so many people that many simply throw their hands up in frustration and avoid reading or preaching from it altogether. 

On the other end of the spectrum you find some people who seem to ONLY focus on Revelation and are confident that they are able to chart out in detail all the world events (usually from a suspiciously American point of view!) it is supposed to be describing as they unfold before our eyes.

For responsible readers of Scripture, however, neither of these two extremes are beneficial or acceptable.  Revelation is not a random addendum tagged onto the end of the Bible haphazardly, which can be safely avoided...nor is it the "newspaper written in advance", despite the claims of many in Christian media. 

Revelation is a 1st century Apocolyptic Epistle written by a follower of Jesus who was steeped in the world of the Hebrew Bible as well as the reality of Greco-Roman society.  It was written to the early church in order to give them hope and conviction in the face of impending suffering they were about to undergo.  While many excellent commentaries are available to guide the reader through the imagery, grammar and allusions found in the book's pages, popular level books on Revelation often contain the errors and anachronistic readings of various modern systems of theology which were quite foreign to the book's author and audience (as well as Christianity in general until the mid-1800s!).  This has led to a disjunction between Biblical scholars who study and write on Revelation and popular understandings of it which are advanced through novels and straight-to-DVD movies. 

This state of things makes Robert Lowery's recent book "Revelation's Rhapsody: Listening to the Lyrics of the Lam" so valuable!  In it, Lowry addresses the issues involved in approaching Revelation on ITS terms rather than on our own modern presuppositions.  Lowery, a graduate of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (Th.M) and the University of Aberdeen, Scotland (Ph.D), introduces the reader to various concepts required for understanding Revelation-- --but in a manner than is accessible to those outside the halls of academia.

The following excerpt from the first chapter is indicative of the overall purpose and message of Revelation's Rhapsody:

On the one hand, there are students who divorce the book from its original setting and adopt a self-centered approach, believing the book speeks only to the so-called "end-time" generation, often meaning their own generation.  On the other hand, there are some who want to limit its message exclusively to Christians in the first century.
I argue that Revelation is a book for all generations until Christ returns.  We ar ecalled to study it properly  so that we find God's timeless words of encouragment and exhortation.  It is relevant as any othe rwork found in Scripture.  We are called to meditate upon it because it is as inspired as Romans or Psalms.  The book beckons us to look at it because its prfound message applies to all Christians.  We live in a world wherein we are called to be witnesses to the Christ revealed in Revelation, the one who was, and is, and is to come. And as in John's day, many in th eworld reject the church's call to repent and follow Jesus and even violently reisist God's witnesses.  Church history reveals that God's servants seem to be either always living on the edge of compromise or living under the shadow of efforts to destroy the church.  Indeed, it is a book that will be relevant until Christ comes a final time. (pp. 17-18)

Revelation's Rhapsody is short, well-paced and theologically-sound.  Anyone curious about the book of Revelation would do well to invite Lowery along as their guide before setting out on the journey, lest they end up getting lost among the weeds of pop-theology surrounding it.  As Lowery states in his chapter on the symbolism of the book:

[W]e must never read Revelation in one hand and the newspaper in the other.  We must not think that John saw visions of helicopters, communism, nuclear weapons, adn the most recent military conflict in the Middle East.  It needs to be repeated: The visions must have had meaning for John and the other followers of Jesus.  Therefore, we must seek to know first and foremost what the meaning would have been for John and his recipients before we seek to know what the meaning is for us. (pp.116-117)