Shawn has a good post about apocalyptic writings that deserves a read. That’s what got me thinking on this subject.
I just recently finished a several-month study of the book of Revelation with my youth group. They requested the study and I was glad to take them through the book. Boy, talk about a confusing piece of literature. It makes Shakespeare look like he was writing for children. I mean, not only is the book really old, it’s really complicated and written fairly cryptically. You’ve got dragons, beasts, horns, crowns, blood, horses and wine presses all mixing it up in the Middle East while locusts eat everyone’s flesh. It’s a complicated book.
It’s not the only apocalyptic book in the Bible though. As a matter of fact, to correctly interpret Revelation you have to read it side by side with the book of Daniel (another apocalyptic book.) Apocalyptic books are fascinating things really; especially since people in general love the idea of getting a glimpse of the future. But we’ve got to be careful when we read apocalyptic literature.
Often times apocalyptic writing is vague and it’s almost always confusing even to scholars. That’s why brilliant men disagree so starkly concerning the proper interpretation of apocalyptic literature. I tried to keep that in mind and constantly remind the students of that fact as we were going through Revelation. Any time we would get to a point in the book on which scholars disagreed I would tell the students my view of that section, then follow it up with saying something like, “There are men much smarter than me that disagree with me on this. There are also men much smarter than me that agree with me.” I think I frustrated them more than anything. I think they wanted me to tell them, “This is the way it is, I’m positive.” But I couldn’t say that; and that’s OK.
An example of a teaching about which I can’t be positive is the idea of the rapture of all believers in the book of Revelation. Some people believe it will happen before the great tribulation (pre-trib), others believe it will happen in the middle of it (mid-trib), and still others believe it will happen at the end (post-trib). I presented all three arguments to my students and then told them my stance. I’m “pan-trib.” That is, it will all pan out in the end. I couldn’t tell them for sure which way to believe.
Could this be construed as waffling? Sure, I suppose it could. But I think that with non-essential issues such as this it’s OK for me to admit “I don’t know” and move on. This way I not only avoid conflict but I also avoid being wrong. I would rather say, “I don’t know” and discover later in life that I can know than to say, “I do know” and be incorrect; teaching others to be incorrect along the way. But then, that’s just me…and I love waffles.
