Does your church avoid Genesis and Revelation?

My church thinks of Genesis as a poetic way of saying that God created the universe . They basically accept mainstream science which I’m fine with. I honestly don’t know what my church thinks about Revelation as I tend to think it sounds too much like schizophrenic word salad, so I tend to go to the bathroom if it comes up (in other words I tend to ignore it. ) I do know that we don’t preach that the end is nigh.

Liturgical churches like the Catholic church have their readings formatted in such a way that books of the Bible can't be avoided. The Church has come up with a 3-year rotation of weekend readings, and a 2-year rotation of daily readings, so that anyone who goes to Mass every day reads almost the entire Bible, Genesis and Revelation included.

One of the dangers of an individual preacher deciding what parts of the Bible to read is that certain parts of the Bible can be avoided, leaving the congregation ignorant of pieces of God's word. It's sad, really, and I pray for these churches to bring their people a fuller understanding of Sacred Scripture.

Oh, and if you're interested, you can get the daily readings sent to your e-mail every morning: Memorial of Saint John of the Cross, Priest and Doctor of the Church

My church uses a lectionary, so that doesn't allow us to choose which books of the Bible we like to read often and which books we'd rather ignore. (It's very similar to the lectionary that Unofficial Reverend Alex has described.)

The cycle of daily readings goes through the entire Bible in 2 years. The cycle of Sunday readings includes most of the Bible, but not all of it. It doesn't include the "begats", for example, and I don't think it includes Nahum or Obadiah. While there are some passages from Revelation in the Sunday lectionary, as best as I recall it doesn't include the passages that give the details of the various trumpets and vials and seals and beasts, which is actually quite a bit of the book. So I chose "Genesis but generally not Revelation" as my best approximation of what's in the Sunday readings.

Calminian said:

Curious your experience. I've definitely attended some churches that seem to avoid these books, and others that preached them diligently.

You might find this article interesting:


Should Churches Avoid Genesis and Revelation?

This post is not intended to be a creation or eschatology debate, per se, just curious what your general experience is. Early on when I was saved, I recall these books being preached often and enthusiastically. This seems to be decreasing, however, in later times. But that's just my anecdotal experience. Let me know yours.

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Hi Calminian, my senior pastor (who does the vast majority of our preaching) is an expository preacher and, Lord willing, he has or he will preach through every book of the Bible, OT & New, before he retires .. save one. Care to take a shot at which book will forever be a holdout?

BTW, he has already preached through Genesis, and he taught both it and Revelation in Adult Sunday School, but he has not preached through Revelation yet (though it is on the list).

--David

Never heard of a church avoiding Genesis before. While I've been in churches that specifically avoided the topic of end-time prophecy, I can't say they've avoided any books but would use whatever scripture was conducive to the message.

I know of people who avoid creation & end-times topics. But my church doesn't. Neither do they emphasize it. Just as I've seen people avoid those topics, I've seen people who treat Genesis as if it's only purpose is to refute archaeology & biology - as if the only 2 books in the Bible are Genesis and Revelation.

They need to be taught in the context of the Gospel.

Per that view, I didn't see an option in your poll that suited me.

We read from Genesis and Revelation on Marian feasts sometimes. For example, we got into Genesis on December 8th to talk about Eve (Jesus as New Adam, Mary as New Eve). I could have sworn I saw Revelation in the hymnal within the past week, but I could be mistaken.

We don't avoid any books. We get into all of them over a period of time (though the gospels are read from every day).

Our church also follows a lectionary, as others have spoken of already.

TuxAme said:

I could have sworn I saw Revelation in the hymnal within the past week, but I could be mistaken.

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The Revised Common Lectionary had Revelation 1:4-8 a couple of weeks ago ("alpha and omega") and Revelation 21:1-6 ("he shall wipe away every tear") on All Saints' Day. If the Catholic lectionary is the same for those days, that may be what you're thinking of.

FenderTL5 said:

Our church also follows a lectionary, as others have spoken of already.

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Right but I didn’t think the E.O. lectionary included Revelation.

PloverWing said:

The Revised Common Lectionary had Revelation 1:4-8 a couple of weeks ago ("alpha and omega") and Revelation 21:1-6 ("he shall wipe away every tear") on All Saints' Day. If the Catholic lectionary is the same for those days, that may be what you're thinking of.

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It would have been Revelation 12:1-6 if I saw it at all.

Tigger45 said:

Right but I didn’t think the E.O. lectionary included Revelation.

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It's not part of the daily readings but neither is it ignored. It is referenced frequently in sermons and teachings.
It is far more nuanced than the poll choices allowed.

FenderTL5 said:

It's not part of the daily readings but neither is it ignored. It is referenced frequently in sermons and teachings.
It is far more nuanced than the poll choices allowed.

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That’s probably true. From my experience having visited many Divine liturgies I’ve only heard it referenced one time.

Calminian said:

Curious your experience. I've definitely attended some churches that seem to avoid these books, and others that preached them diligently.

You might find this article interesting:


Should Churches Avoid Genesis and Revelation?

This post is not intended to be a creation or eschatology debate, per se, just curious what your general experience is. Early on when I was saved, I recall these books being preached often and enthusiastically. This seems to be decreasing, however, in later times. But that's just my anecdotal experience. Let me know yours.

Click to expand...

Yes, and we hold that the genesis account is literally historical account, and that God created by Himself, and did not use the evolutionary process!

I wouldn't say that Genesis and Revelation have been discarded in effect, but it is true that the church places more emphasis on the Gospel.

Calminian said:

Curious your experience. I've definitely attended some churches that seem to avoid these books, and others that preached them diligently.

You might find this article interesting:


Should Churches Avoid Genesis and Revelation?

This post is not intended to be a creation or eschatology debate, per se, just curious what your general experience is. Early on when I was saved, I recall these books being preached often and enthusiastically. This seems to be decreasing, however, in later times. But that's just my anecdotal experience. Let me know yours.

Click to expand...

My church doesn't harp on either of them. It also doesn't mention them every time we meet.

The popular website Got Questions? states that, broadly speaking, the Gospel is the whole of Scripture, but more narrowly speaking it refers to Christ and his work of salvation. I use the word in the latter sense.