Most of you know I’m Christian. No denomination, just Christian. In fact, I kind of think Jesus would be and God is not happy with the amount of sects there are. Anyway so over the weekend, one of my friends asked me to give my opinion of an article about the four big myths of the Book of Revelation. You might want to read the article before you continue, but here is my response to it.
First of all, Revelation is a prophecy and there are quite a few interpretations of it, so it doesn’t represent historical fact but rather a vision of the future. You, the reader, probably already know that. So, here’s is my response to the four “myths” listed.
Book of Revelation; image courtesy of Wikipedia
1. My belief is that Revelation is about the end of the world, but not in the sense that most people think. It’s about the end of the world as we know it and the beginning of a new, peaceful world. A lot has to happen before we get there.
2. I’m not going to speculate on the origin of 666. Quite frankly, I don’t think it’s as big a deal as some people make it out to be. I’m not a superstitious person though.
3. As for the faith of the author, I will agree that he was probably what we would now consider a Messianic Jew as opposed to what we would now consider a Christian. However, that’s the perspective of the time because Jewish followers of Jesus were consider just that as opposed to being termed Christians. I don’t really think that makes him any less Christian, just as my opinion is that modern Messianic Jews (including my mother) are Christians who won’t admit they are such.
4. While there may be other books that talk about Revelations, since this is the Word of God we’re talking about, I will say that this is the official Book of Revelation that God wanted to be a part of His Word. I know about the Council of Nicea and all that, but who’s to say they weren’t given divine revelation about what should be included?
No matter how you look at it, we won’t truly know what’s going to happen until it actually does, but I will say this: If we, as Christians, want to get more people on board and actually practicing, then it’s not just about spreading the Word. It’s about acting the way the Word tells us to act. Yes, it does specifically say to spread the good news, but it doesn’t say to force people; only to tell people.
It also says to love your neighbor as yourself. If we want to be emulated, we need to act in a way that’s worth emulating, as in being giving and loving, as in actually doing what Jesus did, which was being the ultimate giver and lover…by which I mean “agape” or unconditional love.
Inspired, I agree with point 4 especially. GL!