Revelation 1:1-2:

The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His servants—things which must shortly take place. And He sent and signified it by His angel to His servant John, 2 who bore witness to the word of God, and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, to all things that he saw.

The original readers of this book would have seen this book as a comfort during a tremendously difficult time. They would have taken it as a call to a Holy and blameless life just like in 2 Peter 38-14. It would have been a reassurance knowing that Jesus was coming back and that they have the ultimate victory.

We need to remember that Revelation is a book of prophecy, and that prophecy is always clear AFTER it’s fulfilment. We will not fully understand until after the events! (Just as with Jesus 1st coming!!). Therefore it is not wise to build doctrine on literal interpretation of apocalyptic literature, or on something mentioned once in the bible.

However we can rest assured that this is the end. This world that we are in is temporary it will fall away. Through God’s unbreakable and fully complete love, sin and death have been defeated.

Satan, the enemy has lost, and is overcome through the death and resurrection of Jesus.

No matter what we face in this life we can overcome any and all adversary.

We also have hope, because Jesus IS coming back.

Revelation 1:1-2:

The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His servants—things which must shortly take place. And He sent and signified it by His angel to His servant John, 2 who bore witness to the word of God, and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, to all things that he saw.

Writer/Church/Dates:

The apostle John wrote the book of Revelation. It was written around AD90 while he was exiled to the Greek island of Patmos, and it was written to the 7 churches of Asia Minor as mentioned in the text.

Literature:

Apocalyptic literature: A type of Jewish Literature popular between 200BC and 100AD, where the message was expressed in vivid and bizarre symbolism. The writers sought to express the conviction that although times were currently difficult, God would eventually intervene and destroy evil.

Most of Revelation and parts of Daniel are considered to be Apocalyptic BUT they differ from general, or Jewish apocalyptic literature that is found outside the canon of scripture, in that they ARE genuine experiences and not imitative literary works! Symbols convey deeper meanings than everyday language & convey truth.

Revelations is also what is called Eschatology, which is a subgenre of apocalyptic literature. It is a Greek word meaning the study of the last things, Jesus 2nd coming, the final judgement and the new heaven and new earth.

Historical Background:

From the time of the emperor Nero in AD64 the church had undergone a series of intensified persecution authorized by the Roman government. Within this later part of the 1st century there were quick secession of Roman rulers, and with each emperor, the maltreatment of the church quickened in violence to magnitude.

Main Purpose:

John is writing to express the visions he had been given by Jesus, and prophesies of the time to come/the end of the world. This was to correct failings in the churches mentioned in the text, and correcting false teaching. He is trying to bring comfort to the church and Christians who are finding themselves under the torment of Roman.

Structure

Introduction: 1:1-8

7 Letters to Churches in Asia: 1:9-3:22

7 Seals on Scrolls: 4:1-8:1

7 Trumpets 8:2-11:18

7 Signs from Heaven: 11:19-15:4

7 Bowls: 15:5-16:21

Judgment on the Whore/Babylon: 17:1-19:10

7 Acts of Judgment: 19:11-21:8

The Bride/Holy City Jerusalem: 21:9-22:9

MAIN THEMES:

God’s complete supremacy

Visions of the end of the World

Correction for the church

To give a testimony of the preeminence of Jesus Christ

John 20:30-31

30 And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; 31 but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.

Johns heart was that all should know that Jesus is the Messiah and he came to seek and save the lost. He wanted to show all his readers that Jesus loved each one of them! And it is only by Faith in him that anyone of them could have eternal life.

Lets pray that we would have a heart like John to share the message of Jesus the Messiah who loves all people and died to save them! By the power of the Holy Spirit we are called to continue that wonderful good news.

Hebrews 4:14 Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the son of God, let us hold fast our confession.

The book of Hebrews was written to people struggling with memories of past traditions or habits, a people who found it comforting to fall back to the rules and regulations they knew before they were in Christ. This is something that all of us can relate to, none of us are immune to falling back into bad habits or to living the Christian life out of habit and ritual rather than a love for Jesus.

Let’s examine ourselves and ensure we don’t slip into old ways . The Bible should always be our plumb line, not other people, not other churches or anything else we read. Our challenge is to know the word, live the word and stay in love with Jesus Christ.

Jude1:21 – Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.

Although Jude was most likely writing to a group of Christians with good knowledge of the word they still needed reminding to make a stand against anything that was other than God’s way. Even though we may know our word, we still need that constant reminder to stand up for what is right, knowledge alone isn’t enough, we must also act. Grace isn’t a licence to sin, but should remind us of the great sacrifice our Lord made and keep us from sin.

Jude knew that Christians needed encouragement to live a life set apart and to stand up for Biblical truths. In our everyday lives, we regularly encounter things that are not in accordance with God’s will. The challenge we have is to do something about it. Telling others we are Christians is only the job partly done, we need to then ensure we act in accordance with the word and not remain silent on issues that need a biblical view putting forward.

This isn’t easy, but we have a great example in Jesus who said what needed to be said and did what needed to be done.