The writings of the youngest of the founders of the Christian Community is inspiring for our own times.

The Revelation of St John, the Apocalypse, knows the secret of the increasing power of evil. When humanity consistently rejects Christ, then the Beast, the possibility of the sub-human, emerges from the abyss. Yet it is within the mission of this increasingly powerful apocalyptic evil to ‘provoke’ the good — to call it forth and thereby help it to come to realization.

Just as evil increases in intensity, so should Christianity continue to ‘grow up.’ Christianity must become increasingly mature and conscious, ever more clear and capable of transformation. Only a Christianity with an apocalyptic orientation will carry us through apocalyptic destinies. Such a Christianity will be capable of placing us in proper relationship to the apocalyptic event of the Second Coming. What does this ‘return’ of Christ mean? Since the Resurrection, is he not with us ‘always, even unto the end of the world’ (Matt 28:20)? True, but until now his presence has remained more or less hidden from humanity’s view. With the development of Christian awareness, human beings will gradually unfold eyes of soul, eyes of spirit which will enable them to contemplate the supersensorily present Christ… Christ’s coming is his entry into the waking consciousness of human beings. Christ thus, becomes more and more manifest. ‘Apocalypse’ means an ‘uncovering.’ The hidden presence is revealed.

Rudolf Frieling from “The Essence of Christianity,” 1948.

If we need another reason to read the Gospels...

Mankind is always in need of truths which cannot, in every age, be wholly understood. The assimilation of truths is not significant only for our knowledge; truths themselves contain life-force. By permeating ourselves with truth we permeate our soul-nature with an element drawn from the objective world, just as we must permeate our physical being with air taken from outside in order to live. Deep truths are indeed expressed in great religious revelations, but in such a form that their real inner meaning is often not understood until much, much later.

The New Testament has been written; the New Testament stands there as a record for humanity — but the whole future course of the Earth's evolution will be required for a full understanding of the New Testament to be reached. In the future, people will acquire much knowledge of the external world and of the spiritual world also; and if taken in the right sense it will all contribute to an understanding of the New Testament. The understanding comes about gradually, but the New Testament is written in a simple form so that it can be absorbed and, later, gradually understood. To permeate ourselves with the truth that resides in the New Testament is not without significance, even if we cannot yet understand the truth in its deepest inwardness. Later on, truth becomes cognitional force, but it is already life-force, in so far as it is imbibed in a more or less childlike form.

(Italics added.)

-Rudolf Steiner, from Lecture 4 of Christ and the Human Soul, GA 155