Revelation 1:4 ‘John to the seven churches that are in Asia.’ Want to know why you don’t understand Revelation? BECAUSE IT WASN’T WRITTEN TO YOU! Even though John was being inspired by the Holy Spirit to write, the letter was written to a specific audience, at a specific moment in time, which collectively had a specific knowledge base. The symbolism escapes modern day interpretation because we do not have the specific knowledge base.
We have, as a result of the council at Carthage in 387 A.D., the scriptures as we know them today. It was through the leadership of the Catholic Church and it’s bishops that the cannon of the Holy Scriptures came together. Just 24 years prior to that council, the council of Laodicea in 363 A.D. decreed that only canonized books of the old and new Testament were to be read in the churches. There is an ongoing debate as to whether the Catholic Church simply acquiesced to common usage of scripture. The scriptures were time stamped by their first publication, mostly hand written on scrolls. They have since been altered, arranged, paraphrased, interrupted, commented, and explained. But without insight into the mindset and thought process of the original audiences, we can only guess at original meaning.
That doesn’t mean we can’t come pretty close. But I personally don’t think we will ever know who is closest. Not on this earth at least, and in heaven or hell who will care?
Nor am I inclined to see it as fundamentally important to my response to the scriptures. What does concern me is that people want to use the scriptures to interpret everything around them.
To me, the scriptures are simply a love letter from God to his creation. It is a great insight into the life of Jesus and the early church. It is, to me, entirely a guide book for a personal relationship between man and God. It is NOT a history book. It is NOT an earth science book. It is NOT a book about how any of what we know came to be, or how we will become NOT to be.
My dream is that people who support Christian faiths would stop using scripture to disprove evolution, and that others would stop bashing creation. The truth lies somewhere far beyond either camp.
The earth is far older than fundamentalist can comprehend, and it is going to be here far longer than they can imagine. The world is not coming to an end this year, this generation, this decade, or this millennium. I used to believe, as many did, that the earth’s orbit would decay over time and the earth would fall into the sun. Scientist say no, because of the distance the earth is from the sun and the tiny size of the earth in relation to the sun. That is the great beauty of the creator. We are never going to figure it out. And ANY concept we have is inherently flawed by our humanity. The decaying orbit was a “neat” concept, because it gave an answer to the consumption by fire concept. But it isn’t true. Nor are any of our other stabs at describing the beginning, end, and progression of all we know.
Please stop using the rhetoric of Jesus returning “soon” as motivation. Jesus return is, as all of scripture, to be interrupted in spiritual terms. There will be no literal battle of Armageddon with the blood running as deep as the horse’s bridles. In the first place, wars will never again be fought on horseback, and second, there is not that much blood collectively in every creature on the earth. The battle of Armageddon began at the cross and is fought every day. If you are missing the battle you will surely miss the victory.
If you have never been introduced to Howard J. Van Till and his book “The 4th Day” you have missed what I believe is one of the best books ever written on scripture interpretation in a natural world. It is heavy reading if you haven’t had some college math and physics. Even having both, I struggled a bit, but hung with it and emerged with the first clear insight into reconciling my faith with physical observation.
I think one’s interpretation of the scriptures is one of the fiercest debated issues among Christians of differing denominational affiliations. Some even argue that one cannot hold a private interpretation; that understanding must come from the Holy Spirit.
Again I resort to my defense of individual experiences influencing individual understanding. The Holy Spirit cannot enlighten us about something in which we have no baseline of comprehension. Just as John could not write about things he could not understand, we cannot understand what we have no knowledge of.
In time, I may totally change my prospective on this, but for now it is the way I understand it.
I continue to hold to the premise that it is my response to Jesus each moment that determines my relationship with Him. That takes very little understanding of scripture and it certainly does not involve me knowing or comprehending how we got here, or how we are leaving. Debates on those topics to me are becoming superfluous.
Hope I have not stepped on anyone’s toes. My very deepest apologies if I have.
