Why Read Revelation?

I openly admit that I rarely think about Revelation in particular.  It is not the most relevant book of the Bible to core Christian metaphysics, morality, and soteriology--the more important components of Christian theology by far.  What does not follow from this is that it has no importance at all within the broad framework of Biblical content.  As a part of the Bible, it still clearly has something to contribute to Christian theology, albeit in a much less primary sense.  No Christian needs to read Revelation in any immediate sense to understand core philosophical and theological issues and facts with great clarity.  This much is true.  Readers will nonetheless find at least miscellaneous details about a figure called the beast, the return of Christ, and the final condemnation of the unsaved (including how eternal conscious torment is not some default destiny for unsaved humans).

Just as the Bible starts with an account of how the cosmos came into existence, it ends with the redemption of Earth itself as the old cosmos passes away and is remade.  The description of New Jerusalem in Revelation 21 and 22 is by far the clearest in the entire Bible.  Going into elaborate detail about the layout of the city and the nature of its inhabitants, these chapters fittingly close the Bible with an eschatological vision of the paradise that is said to await the saved.  The description of New Jerusalem alone is actually a point of controversy in that it is the general point at which some interpreters of Revelation just assume that everything (or almost everything) mentioned before it is an allegorical prediction of church history--church history that has now already taken place.  Assumptions like this highlight one reason why reading Revelation can be beneficial.

Sometimes, familiarity with Revelation is very useful just for the sake of understanding the merits or errors in what random Christians say about it--even if only in the sense of showing that certain figurative or literal interpretations contradict, leave, or ignore the text in some way without having a replacement idea.  If someone thinks Revelation directly describes contemporary events in American politics, it would be easy to show them that there is not a trace of textual evidence for this and they they have to make assumptions, and false ones at that.  If someone thinks all of the prophecies in Revelation other than the coming of New Jerusalem must have already occurred, it would be easy to show that the book itself does not say anything about an arbitrary division between historical chapters about the beast and its defeat and then eschatological chapters about New Jerusalem.

There would be merit in reading Revelation just to be able to point to the text as well as wield reason when reacting to the many random theological claims Revelation gets associated with.  There just also happens to be other potential reasons to contemplate at least parts of this apocalyptic book.  Whether someone reads Revelation out of curiosity, in order to systematically analyze the Bible, or mostly to become familiar with why some popular claims about it are incorrect, the experience does not have to be as confusing as it could appear beforehand.  In its first chapter, this controversial book declares that its unveiling can be summarized as a "revelation" from or of Jesus himself, so it would be contradictory on one level for a Christian to wholly dismiss the book as an almost worthless addition to the canon.

Indeed, Jesus plays a major role in the later events of Revelation as he displays the warrior side of his character, something described here in a far more explicit way than many Christians I have known would sincerely dare to.  It should not be entirely surprising that the same figure who said he came to bring a sword instead of peace and that God will annihilate the unsaved in hell would be referred to as wearing a robe dipped in blood and having a sword coming out of his mouth in Revelation 19.  This is something wholly in line with how the gospels portray him even when his conditional mercy is fully recognized.  Just as Jesus features prominently in the first chapters of Revelation, so he is featured prominently in the last chapters.  There is not a better place to see certain qualities of his presented as brazenly.