Most preachers have little fondness for apocalyptic texts because of their scathing language, surrealistic plots, and enigmatic symbols. David Jacobsen not only helps preachers move past these barriers, but offers a three-part approach for preaching these texts today.

First, preachers can interpret apocalyptic texts by looking not just at what they say but at what they evoke among those who hear them. Second, analysis of apocalyptic texts as a literary genre shows that many objectionable features of the stock plots are parodied or even omitted in the New Testament. Third, seen from the perspective of emerging new realities, symbols of cosmic cataclysm become pastorally helpful for interpreting theologically our own situations of wrenching social change.

In the final chapters, Jacobsen shows how to move from text to sermon for apocalyptic texts included in the lectionary.