Uncovering the Treasures of the Apocalypse: Keys to Unlocking the Mysteries of the Book of Revelation
Digital Verbum Edition
Overview
The book of Revelation continues to baffle and confound present-day readers. Its strange imagery and the bewildering number of interpretations of the book have left most readers paralyzed with fear. What is needed is a book that introduces the reader to the most important keys to keep in mind when interpreting the last book of the Bible. This book provides just that: it offers, explains, and illustrates five of the most crucial keys for unlocking the message of the Apocalypse. These keys grow directly out of the kind of book Revelation is and reads it as the word of God for the church. It leads the reader to take Revelation seriously as a message first addressed to seven historical churches in the first century, before reading it as the word of God for today. These five keys can instill greater confidence in understanding the book that has always been out of the reach of most readers.
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- Offers, explains, and illustrates five of the most crucial keys for unlocking the message of the Apocalypse.
- Leads to take Revelation seriously as a message first addressed to seven historical churches.
- Instills greater confidence in understanding the book that has always been out of the reach of most readers.
- Acknowledgments
- INTRODUCTION Revelation—A Locked up Treasure?
- Key #1 A GENRE LIKE NO OTHER
- What Kind of Weird Book Is This Anyway?
- What is This Thing Called “Genre”?
- What Kind of Genre is Revelation?
- Conclusion: Principles for Interpreting Revelation
- Putting It into Practice
- Key #2 THE MYSTERIOUS WORLD OF THE BOOK OF REVELATION
- Did Anything Really Happen?
- The Roman Context
- The Roman Empire at a Glance
- When Was Revelation Written?
- The Seven Cities in Revelation 2–3
- “In the World but Not of the World:” The Harassed and Persecuted Church
- “In the World and of the World:” The Complacent and Compromising Church
- Conclusion
- Putting It into Practice
- Key #3 GOD’S SECRET AIMS IN THE BOOK OF REVELATION
- What Was John up to?
- Getting Our Bearings Straight
- What Revelation is All About
- Conclusion
- Putting It into Practice
- Key #4 AN ENIGMA, WRAPPED IN A MYSTERY, WRAPPED IN RIDDLE
- What’s This Story All about?
- The Story of the Seven Churches
- The Story of Revelation 4–22
- Now that the Story is Over. . ..
- Putting It into Practice
- Key #5 BEASTS, AND BOWLS, BEACONS, AND BEELZEBUB
- Mapping Metaphors in Revelation?
- What is a Metaphor
- Some Major Metaphors in Revelation
- The Numbers in Revelation
- Where Does John Get His Metaphors?
- The Power of Revelation’s Metaphors
- Putting It into Practice
- Tying It All Together
- Let’s Read the Book!
- Bibliography
- Author Index
- Subject Index
- Scripture Index
The quantity of books already available about Revelation is enough to make one confused, jaded, and exhausted. Mathewson bypasses the maze of competing interpretations by helping us know how to read Revelation. He offers an interpretive approach that is comprehensive, accessible, plausible, and refreshing. In the process, he relieves the pressure to answer every question and helps us read Revelation with fresh eyes so it can do its intended work on us.
—Don J. Payne, Denver Seminary
Matthewson provides interpretive lenses that bring Revelation into focus. Uncovering the Treasures of the Apocalypse encapsulates his decades of scholarship. If Revelation is a foreign land, Matthewson is a tour guide who teaches us how to appreciate what we are reading. I commend this book to those who wish to mine Revelation for all its worth.
—Brandon Washington, Pastor of Preaching, The Embassy Church
In Uncovering the Treasures of the Apocalypse, Dave Matthewson provides expert advice and necessary keys for how to approach, navigate, interpret, and apply Revelation: not only for the sake of understanding its message but also for the sake of putting its truth into practice. To these ends, I wholeheartedly recommend this book.
—Joey Dodson, Denver Seminary