Revelations from Revelation

For the first time in my life, I am studying through the book of Revelation (yes, it is singular). There are several parts of the Bible that are easy to avoid, such as The Revelation, Hebrews, and the entire Old Testament. Unfortunately, that leaves us incomplete as Christians who believe that the ENTIRE Bible is God's word. Yet, I do understand that this specific book is quite overwhelming and widely misinterpreted.

As far as the misinterpretations go, I want to first say that I don't believe that I am right and everyone else is wrong. As a teacher of scripture, I believe that is the wrong way to approach even this blog. I'm not going to intentionally demean those who hold opposing views, nor am I going to do injustice to their interpretations. With that said, the interpretations that I make are what I confidently believe at this point in my life based on my limited education, experience, and interpretive abilities.

With the disclaimers out of the way, I want to quickly discuss one vital hermeneutic (rule of Biblical study). Contrary to popular belief, the Bible was not written to you. It truly wasn't. You are not a first-century Jew or Greek. You don't come from a pre-enlightenment era (which does not mean they were stupider, but simply that they approach life in a different way). And so, the way you approach a book like The Revelation is naturally going to be drastically different than those to whom John wrote. Your worldview is not a bad thing, so I'm not necessarily telling you to think like them in your every day life. But, you cannot understand the themes and messages of this book without trading your worldview for theirs while you study The Revelation.

So, The Revelation was not written to you, but you can definitely benefit from studying this incredible piece of holy literature. Otherwise, I wouldn't be writing this at all.

More to come...
-Matt