Who you talkin' to?

Were you surprised yesterday when I quoted Adam Hamilton:  "The question Revelation raises is, will you worship God or will you give primary allegiance to the state?"

I wonder sometimes if we get so caught up in the "puzzle" that is Revelation and in the futuristic interpretation that some people are prone to adopt in our media that we fail to really read the book for what it says and means.  We forget how important it is to know to whom the letter is being written and in what circumstances the original reader found himself. Why would we ever try to understand a letter without knowing to whom it was written?

Once you know that - once you know why Paul was brusque when he wrote the Galatians or why his letter to the church at Philippi was so full of joy or even why John wrote what he did to the seven churches mentioned in Revelation - then the content of the letter makes much more sense.

God certainly speaks to us through these letters, but the author was not writing to us.  To ignore that fact short changes the interpretation of what was written and leads to dangerous and harmful mistakes.