Scripture is inexhaustibly full of possibility. It's less like a cryptic code to be cracked and more like a story. And the best stories stay with us precisely because they resist single interpretations. So, I want to be very clear that I do not mean to suggest that what I offer below is a Correct or Definitive or Perfected reading of Revelations. What I do mean to suggest is a possibility. And the possibility is this: I think there's a way to read the book that isn't a story

In the beginning of the Book of Mormon, we are introduced to two prophets: one mature, and one who was in so many ways still a boy. Lehi, the older, receives a vision that Jerusalem will be destroyed, but his reaction is not to pack his bags and run as far away from the city as possible. Rather, he immediately walks into the streets and preaches repentance to anyone who will listen. No one does, but his faith in a people so doomed to wickedness and destruction is significant