Lesson One

Introduction: Started the study on the book of Revelation. We read Revelation 1:1-5 and discussed the following:

1. We listed the popular discussions on why people read the book of Revelations today:

- Pre-tribulation doctrine

- Blood moons

- The Lost Tribes of Israel (Black Hebrew Movement) i.e. Gathering Tribes of Israel

- Mark of the Beast

- Judgment

- The Four Horsemen

- End Time Prophecies

- Who is the Antichrist

- One-world Government

- Who are the two witnesses

- Pre-tribulation period

- Pre-millennium, post-millennium or a-millennium

- One or Two Returns of Christ

2. Why is the book of Revelation so unique in New Testament?

- It was written somewhere between 81-96 AD. (Gospels were written 70-95 AD; Acts was written 80-85 AD; Pauline Epistles 36-60 AD)

- It is an "epistle” or letter written with pastoral concerns to the seven churches.

- John expected his readers to see themselves and their current situation through the lens of this book and to realize that as the church of the last days, they were corporately identified with the church at the end of the age. When did the last days begin? Read Acts 2.

- It is an “Apocalyptic” writing. These writings tend to be visionary with pessimistic tones of a better future than the present.

- It is a “prophetic” writing. These writings tend to be oracular with optimistic tones of judgments not occurring if the nation repents.

- Prophetic nature of the book: John is not merely producing his own epistle (like Paul or Peter), but it is the prophetic channel of a message directly from God and Christ. It is not from John’s imagination, but from God’s imagination

- The book is also influence by post-Pauline ideas during the time of Asia Minor (seven churches) and product of early Christian apocalyptic traditions and by the prophetic circles led by John

3. Who was John?

- John was probably the leader of a group of prophets who ministered to the chorus of Asia (Rev 22:6,9)

- John was commission to his prophetic ministry in the way Ezekiel was (Rev 10:8-11; Eze. 2:8-3:3)

4. Interpretation Approaches: Because this book has a lot of symbols within it, this had made it difficult for readers to decipher what is to be taken as literal and what is to be taken as symbolic. There are four approaches that different people use to interpret the book of Revelations:

a) Historicist Approach

b) Preterist Approach

c) Idealist Approach

d) Futurist Approach

e) Eclectic Approach

5. Our approach: We will use the Eclectic Approach, which is a mix of all four approaches. The aim is to minimize speculation as much as possible. We are going to be using the Old Testament Scriptures as our guide to decode the text and help us better understand what this book is communicating to us today.