The book of Revelation has, since the Church’s earliest days, proved challenging for the people of God. Challenges include speculation over its authorship, its place in the biblical canon, and its usefulness for Christian living. In a more positive sense, it challenges Christ’s church to live faithfully during difficult times and in the face of opposition from the Enemy. Given the Christian belief that it is inspired by the Holy Spirit and therefore of apostolic origin and written for our instruction, how, then, are we to read it profitably? How can we hear it as the Word of God for the people of God? More particularly, for those of who serve in ecclesial contexts, how can we faithfully proclaim and preach it? Below I want to offer a few broad guidelines for preaching John’s Apocalypse, and then mention some key resources for the preachers in their study.

The first key feature of Revelation to remember while reading and preaching is that it is a New Testament letter. In fact, it serves in many ways as the culmination of the NT letters, with its emphasis on the universality of Christ’s church in the letters to the seven churches (Rev 2–3) and its connection to the other NT letters in the language and structure of chapter 1 and 22:6–21. As with other NT letters, this means that Revelation is written to a particular people at a particular time facing their own particular challenges, but is also meant both by the human author and the divine author to speak to Christ’s church throughout space and time.

As we read and preach Revelation, we should recall often the fact that it was written to Christian churches throughout the Roman Empire facing challenges related to local and imperial persecution, socially-pressured opportunities for sinful pleasure, and a growing number of false prophets attempting to subvert the claims of Christ’s lordship over all things. While Revelation speaks to us today, it does so first of all to those believers within the first century of the church’s post-apostolic life. Attempting to understand its relevance for today thus means first understanding its relevance for that initial audience.

A second key feature of Revelation is that it is an apocalypse. That is, it is intended to communicate to its audience the nature of the end of the current age and the beginning of the eschaton, and it does so through heavy use of figurative imagery. We cannot miss that John begins his letter by giving us a figural key in 1:20 – the stars are messengers, or angels, and the lampstands are churches. John is telling us clearly that the contents of his book are intended to be read figurally. That is, John, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, uses figurative images to communicate the truth about reality. And, while he explains only two at the beginning of the book, stars and lampstands are but the surface of the deep well of images that John uses.

While attempting to understand and communicate the truths of Revelation’s imagery, we should also remember that the images John uses are taken primarily from the Old Testament. The Apocalypse is steeped in OT imagery (and textual allusions!), from the throne room scenes (chapters 4 and 5) to the woman in the wilderness (chapter 12) to the New Jerusalem (chapter 21) and everything else in between. We cannot understand what John is saying to his readers without understanding their socio-historical context because of its nature as a letter, and we also cannot understand what he is saying to his readers without understanding the Old Testament and the ways in which John deploys OT imagery throughout his book.