Everything I Need to Know about Revelation I Learned in the First Eight Verses
You are already well equipped to productively read this wonderful book. You don’t have to understand it all to get something out of it. If you are able to immerse yourself in it and stand in awe of the Victorious Lamb, you are doing well.
There’s a saying I’m kinda fond of, though it’s not very sophisticated: “the beginning of things tells you stuff.” The idea is that writers tend to show their readers how to engage with and appropriate their work within the opening lines of their work. I’ve written about that elsewhere, and it’s true for most works, both ancient and modern, but it’s especially true of Revelation.
There is so much we learn about the book in the first few verses. Moreover, what we learn in that short space has a systemic impact on how we interpret the book. Revelation seems so difficult and confusing, but John has actually given us firm footholds in the opening of his letter. He’s guiding his readers in how Revelation is to be read.
Here’s an incomplete and “in brief” list of some of the essentials.
- Jesus is the first recipient of Revelation, not John. Most English Bibles title the book “The Revelation to John,” but that’s only partially correct. This is actually the very first thing that John tells us. This book constitutes “the revelation” that “God gave to him” (1:1), and the “him” in that clause can’t be anyone other than “Jesus Christ.” The verse goes on to explain how this book got into John’s hands. The Father first gave it to Jesus (and you can read about that in Rev. 5
), then Jesus passed it along to John via an Angel, and John in turn wrote it down and sent it to the churches (Rev. 1:2). There’s a lot to unpack here, but remember when Jesus told the disciples that “not even the Son of Man knows the day or the hour” (Mark 13:32)? Well, the obvious next question is: when will that information be disclosed? Revelation is that disclosure, and it was disclosed first to the only one accounted worthy (Rev. 5:9). Then, and marvel at this my friends, the one worthy chose to disclose all these things to us (Rev. 1:19). - The first form of this Revelation was seen, not imagined, written, read, or heard. We haven’t left the first two verses yet. Revelation is “shown” to Jesus, then to John, then to the church. The first and primary iteration by which the Father revealed these things is through visions.
- By contrast, the church at large only receives Revelation in its written form (1:19 again), not its visual form. John “writes what he saw.” The writing down of that which was first seen involves a kind of “conversion” of media. We’re moving from the visual, to the verbal. This in itself has multiple implications. Here’s two:
- First, we can note that communicating information visually and communicating information verbally require different skillsets. How do you “novelize” a movie? How do you describe the impact that a personal experience to friends without lamely concluding “you just had to be there?” It’s tough, and it requires a lot of artistic and literary and story-telling skill. John has those skills (he wrote a Gospel!), and he uses them to “show” the church what he saw.
- Second, and equally importantly, there is a corresponding burden on the reader to now “recreate” the vision from the written word. John is supposed to write what he sees. The reader, in their turn, is supposed to “see” what is written. There’s a burden on both writer and reader here. Our burden is to visualize the word written. You have a ready tool for this, given to you by God. It’s called the “imagination.” Use it.
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Why The World Does Not Care
Written by Bruce A. Little |
Monday, September 27, 2021
While evangelical Christians nervously were wringing their hands, most did little to rise to the spiritual challenge. In fact, their naivete fueled intellectual laziness and biblical illiteracy. Pulpits continued to preach weightless sermons, musicians started writing meaningless feel-good choruses, while business model programs were developed in an attempt to breathe life back into the church. However, little to no time was dedicated to developing the Christian mind in the lives of the faithful to prepare them for the onslaught against truth that was to come.There was a time in America when Christianity had the presumption, that is to say, Christianity was considered true, and all other religions were measured against it. During that time Christians were happy with religious freedom because they were majority voice. It was assumed that Christianity was the unofficial religion of America and so it would ever be. Arguments for that conclusion were made by claiming those who came to the new country were Christians seeking freedom to practice their religion. It is true that a case can be made that that was at least in part right.
Furthermore, it is also true that America’s primary political documents were heavily influenced by Christian principles. Undoubtedly this explains the presence of the Decalogue on the Supreme Court building.
Furthermore, in reading primary documents of the Founding Fathers the truth of Christianity was clearly on their minds even if all did not subscribe to a personal faith in Christ. So, I think it fair to give the argument that Christianity had a strong presence in the life of America its due.
The question is, however, how did that give Christianity a permanent status as more people immigrated to this country or how could it guarantee that children born of Christian parents would necessarily choose the Christian way?
Unfortunately, over the last 70 years, there has been a thinning out of the Christian voice in American culture and today many young people growing up in the church are choosing to walk away when they become of age. This has led to frantic attempts by evangelicals to court the younger generation by making the church worldly friendly, that is to make the church look and sound much like the world. This is done in spite of courting theological treason. I suppose many Christians who belonged to the greatest generation (Tom Brokaw’s term) evangelical Christians in America thought it would always be religiously as it had been. Even in face of seismic cultural changes signaling the loss of many traditional beliefs, evangelicals held out hope that it was only a cultural ‘phase.’
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Called to be a Blessing
This is a call for reflection. I know the places my heart has gone since March 2020. I also know how I ought to treat others. Those two things haven’t always meshed. As we stumble through the backside of 2021 together, let us consider how we can bless others. The world needs Jesus much more than it needs anything else.
It’s been a tough 18 months. The world has been wrecked by a pandemic that has taken the lives of 4.5 million people. Many others have been without work and have had significant changes to their daily lives and their “normal.” We’ve been asked to do things none of us have ever had to do. We’ve been asked to wear face masks in public. We’ve been asked to social distance. We’ve been asked to forego important things like graduations, weddings, and even funerals. The world has been turned on its head. To make matters worse, mistrust and division are at all-time highs. A divisive presidential election has divided the country and has even threatened to divide the Church. Two normal men were given messiah status, and we were told that if either one wins, we are all doomed.
When I look at the past 18 months, I can think of many ways I have repaid evil for evil. I can think of many times I’ve insulted those who have insulted me. I’ve become defensive when I heard of the difficulties churches in this country have faced due to COVID. Rather than seek reason and understanding, I’ve sought justice in the form of winning arguments and vilifying the people on the television. In the first few months of the pandemic, I was angry and just knew that this was all a major conspiracy.
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All of Our Nightmares Will Become Untrue
Hearing the words of Psalm 91 brought me back to a few realizations. The Psalm begins and ends with a focus, not on our troubles, but rather on our relationship with God, namely that our safety comes from dwelling in his shelter and holding fast to him, and that our job is to look to him for protection and deliverance.
This past year, my seven-year-old son has been plagued by nightmares. Though he had experienced them many times before, they increased in regularity and we noticed him becoming anxious as bedtime approached. He became fixated on my prayers for good dreams, re-checking if I had already prayed, insisting that I do it a certain way—only when he was in bed—and even posing that these prayers might be causing more nightmares.
Eventually, he shifted from trying to prevent the nightmares to grappling with the reality that they would likely happen. One evening as he was peppering me with suggestions that would allow him to avoid going to bed, I began to sing “On Eagles Wings” to him.1 It is a song I grew up hearing at family weddings and funerals that included the words of Psalm 91:You need not fear the terror of the night,Nor the arrow that flies by day, …Though thousands fall about you, near you it shall not come.
“But I am afraid!” he responded, “and I don’t want to go to sleep. What if it happens again?” And these words came to me: “Our nightmares have the same ending as Jesus’ story.His death was like a nightmare, but did it last? What will happen to the things in your dreams when you wake up?” My son, who’s been hearing the words of The Jesus Storybook Bible since his birth, replied, “they will be gone forever, and everything sad will become untrue.”2
For some reason, this thought hadn’t occurred to me before. Like my son, I had vacillated between strategizing ways to prevent his suffering (monitoring his exposure to scary media, trying to address his anxiety about the day’s events as it came up, etc.) and ultimately feeling powerless to protect him. Hearing the words of Psalm 91 brought me back to a few realizations (ones I speak with counselees about all day long!)
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