In the sermon at church it was pointed out that the life of most Western Christians in the the twenty-first century is an anomaly, both in history and in geography. There were more martyrs in the twentieth century than there were in all centuries before. The norm for Christians is not health, wealth, and freedom to worship. Rather, it is suffering and persecution.
This is very much the world of The Revelation of John. Reading it with this background in mind is very helpful. Graeme Goldsworthy says:
At a time when many Christians were possibly quite literally running them for their lives he does not detain them with a closely argued theological treatise. Rather he draws from the familiar and fertile imagery of Jewish apocalyptic in order to paint vivid word pictures of the reality of the Kingdom of God. They are images that will stick in the mind and aid the recall of the basic truths of the Gospel.
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