M. Eugene Boring’s commentary on Revelation doesn’t try to build a timeline of future events. He warns readers not to force the book into fixed theological systems. Still, he admits that if someone insisted on labeling his view, it could be considered “amillennial.”¹ He prefers, however, that Revelation be understood the way the first-century church would have heard it—as a symbolic letter meant to encourage struggling believers, not a blueprint for the future.¹ Boring stresses that the prophecies in Revelation were either about what was soon to happen to John’s original audience or about God’s final victory, which John believed was near.² He does not believe Revelation foretells specific modern-day events. In fact, he calls that kind of interpretation a “fundamental misunderstanding” and warns that it can become “insidiously dangerous.”² ³ He wants readers to focus on the message of endurance and hope, not to treat the book like a puzzle to predict headlines. The book, he says, still has something to say to our time—but its meaning comes through its original context and symbolic language, not in literal predictions.² Boring also makes an important point about resisting cultural pressure. In writing about the letters to the churches in Revelation, he says the figures of the “Nicolaitans,” “Balaam,” and “Jezebel” promoted “the ‘progressive’ doctrine of accommodation to the culture around them.”⁴ His warning is clear: compromising the truth to fit in with society is a danger for the church. Yet Boring served as a professor—and is now professor emeritus—at Brite Divinity School, an institution that openly promotes the very kind of cultural accommodation he criticizes. Brite publicly supports LGBTQIA+ ideology, aligns with the Disciples of Christ's full affirmation of LGBTQ participation in all areas of church life, and advocates for progressive policies that conform to modern culture.⁵ This makes Boring’s critique of cultural compromise in Revelation seem at odds with the environment he helped represent. --- ¹ M. Eugene Boring, *Revelation*, Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1989), 205. ² Ibid., 23–24. ³ Ibid., 49. ⁴ Ibid., 93. ⁵ Brite Divinity School, “Pride Statement,” accessed April 19, 2025, https://brite.edu/pride-statement.