Ted Grimsrud—August 7, 2023

[This is the first in a series of four blog posts on the book of Revelation. This one will introduce a peaceable-Revelation reading strategy for the book. The following three will offer an interpretation of Revelation based on that reading strategy./

Is there a way to read the book of Revelation as a peace book? To read it as a Jesus-centered book? To read it as source of encouragement and hope? What happens when we read Revelation with an Anabaptist sensibility? In a series of posts, I will show that indeed Revelation can be read as a peace book. In this first one, I will sketch what I mean by reading with an Anabaptist sensibility or, one could say, with an Anabaptist reading strategy. In the three posts to follow I will run through the main themes of Revelation and its peace theology to show the fruit of such a way of reading Revelation—a fruitful approach for non-Anabaptists too!

In a nutshell, I read Revelation like I read the rest of the New Testament, maybe most similarly to, say, the book of Romans. I read it as an Anabaptist. Actually, what happened when I started to make a list of the important assumptions I make about Revelation, I realized I was making an Anabaptist list—and that I probably would say that these are the assumptions I have about the entire Bible. I won’t argue that this is a list that is drawn directly from the 16^th century Anabaptists so much as that this reflects an Anabaptist sensibility, an Anabaptistic way of reading the Bible. I’m not trying to reproduce the way certain Anabaptists read Revelation in the 16^th century so much as present a reading based on a theological perspective in the 21^st century that is informed by what I understand to be Anabaptist convictions.

So often, people treat Revelation as if it is something different, something unique to the Bible with different assumptions—maybe most obviously that Revelation is predicting the future rather than speaking to the people of the first century. But I think we should read it in its own context—I would call it a “historic-symbolic” rather than, say, “future-prophetic” approach. Let me share my list—first, I will name the assumptions and then I will briefly explain what I mean by each one: I read Revelation as (1) Jesus-focused, (2) present-oriented, (3) blood-drenched, (4) Empire-resisting, and (5) discipleship-directed. I’ll explain:

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