Revelation frightens people, and a good deal of what frightens them comes from reading it as a coded description of next year rather than as what it is.

What kind of writing it is

Three things at once. It is a letter, addressed to seven named congregations in what is now Turkey. It is prophecy, which in Scripture usually means addressing the present in the light of God rather than predicting dates. And it is apocalyptic, a recognised literary form of its time that used vivid symbolic imagery to say that God rules and that present suffering is neither final nor meaningless.

The first readers knew that form. Beasts, numbers, lampstands and horsemen were a visual language to them, not a puzzle. Treating symbols as literal photographs is the single most common way to misread the book.

Who it was written to

Christians under real pressure, some of whom were being killed. The letters in chapters two and three name their actual problems: compromise, tiredness, wealth, false teaching, persecution. Any reading that has nothing to say to those seven congregations has left the text behind.

The main approaches

Christians have long read it in several ways: as describing events of the first century, as a picture of the whole church age, as portraying the end of history, or as a symbolic account of the conflict between good and evil in every age. Serious believers hold each view, and the differences do not divide orthodox from unorthodox.

This should lower the temperature. If the church has not settled it in two thousand years, a confident chart from one teacher deserves caution rather than alarm.

How to read it

Read it in one sitting, out loud if you can; it was written to be heard in a gathering. Notice the repeated pattern of sevens, and notice that the visions circle back rather than march forward in a timeline.

Read the ending first if you are anxious. The book finishes with a city, a river, a tree and the words that God will wipe away every tear. The destination shapes how the middle reads.

What to do with the fear

The recurring instruction in the book, said to trembling people, is do not be afraid. A reading of Revelation that leaves you more frightened than comforted has probably missed the point, because its first readers needed courage, and that is what it was sent to give them.

If a passage puzzles you, ask in our questions section rather than searching for the most dramatic answer online.