Thoughts from PoimenJohn

Bible Study Notes
Revelation 1:9-20 – John’s Vision of Jesus

“The best is yet to be.” John Wesley

What do those of us in this room share as believers?

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Prophecy
Divine prophecy is a message from God. It may concern the past, the present or the future. It may be information to help us understand, commands for us to obey, messages for us to give to others or it may concern things which we cannot understand at all.

Prophecy usually tells us about God, his nature and his will for us, or about us and our nature.

When prophecy concerns God or a time in the future, it must use figurative language, because we cannot understand God completely and we don’t understand the context of future times. This is especially true when prophecy concerns spiritual concepts.

The Gospels represent prophecy as historical fact. While the Gospel writers used figurative language, it was, for the most part, used with the common meanings of their culture and was used to convey a factual description of Jesus’ life. However, what Jesus said and did was often highly symbolic and concerned spiritual concepts that cannot not always be understood in the context of His culture.

Bible Study Notes

Revelation 1:4-8 – Doxology & Theme

Joseph Tkach, president of Grace Communion International (formerly World Wide Church of God) wrote this concerning Biblical interpretation:

Whenever we read the words of the Bible, we are faced with a choice: Does God intend this passage to be taken literally, or is the meaning symbolic or metaphorical? Is the language used strictly literal or is it a figure of speech?”

Our goal in understanding the Bible is not to prefer either literal meanings or figurative meanings. It is to understand what God intended the words to mean. Sometimes God intended a literal meaning, sometimes a figurative meaning, and occasionally both. We need to explore each context. …

It is dishonest to reject figurative meanings when they were intended, just as it is dishonest to read them where they shouldn’t be. We should not be hasty to seek a figurative interpretation, nor should we be hasty to reject one. We need to cautiously examine each verse in its context, and to exercise some patience with ourselves and with interpreters who come to different conclusions.

All students of the Bible need to be aware of the figurative devices in the Bible and interpret accordingly.

Bible Study Notes
Revelation 1:1-3 – Introduction

“Let us then continually persevere in our hope, and the earnest of our righteousness, which is Jesus Christ, ‘who bore our sins in His own body on the tree,’ ‘who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth,’ but endured all things for us, that we might live in Him. Let us then be imitators of His patience; and if we suffer for His name’s sake, let us glorify Him. For He has set us this example in Himself, and we have believed that such is the case.” ~ Polycarp c. 100

“Revelation is a frequently neglected book partly because its symbolism makes it obscure. Therefore it cannot be read lightly but with diligence it will yield its treasures to those who seek them.” (Ross A. Taylor)

ΑΠΟΚΑΛΥΨΙΣ ΙΟΑΝΝΟΥ
(ap·ok·al·oop·sis ee·o·an·nas)

Disclosure [To] John
The Apocalypse

This, the final book of the Bible, is named with the Greek word ἀποκάλυψις (apokalupsis) from the first word of the text. This word means literally “lifting of the veil,” or disclosure. So in English we have revelation.