Have you ever wondered how the Bible fits together chronologically?

Revelation opens saying it is an apocalypsis of Jesus Christ. An apocalypse was a particular genre of writing in the time of Jesus. It’s like announcing something is a romance or a sci-fi or a documentary. It alerts the audience that it’s a particular type of story.

 

And that’s important to keep in mind as the curtain rises on a sweeping story full of angels and demons, saints and monsters.

 

The book first introduces Jesus Christ as we’ve known him thus far in Scripture, but then reveals him as we’ve never seen him before.

The preface to the apocalypse is a set of letters, one for each of seven churches in Asia Minor where John ministered. The letters aren’t addressed to the churches, but to each of their angels. We’ll spend a little time pondering the significance of that.

 

Each letter praises the churches, chastises them a bit, and then gives each one a promise. There’s a lot of war language used--victory and overcoming and laurels of reward. We’ll think about that a bit as well.

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We cover Revelation 2:1-11.

We cover the letters to Pergamum and Thyatira in this class. And while we’re at it we begin to get a feel for why John wrote Revelation as a “dream” in an apocalypse prefaced by a few seemingly innocuous letters. 

 

John uses these letters to define several of the important metaphors he’ll use throughout the book. This is a Master Class in resistance under oppression.

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We cover Revelation 2:12-29.

We finish the last three letters to the churches: Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. The imagery is tied very closely to the shortcomings and challenges facing these believers. John knows these churches intimately.

But as difficult as the messages might be to hear, Jesus always offers hope. He reminds them of their call to be light in the word--lampstands for the Holy Spirit. We gather some more building blocks we’ll need for the study ahead, including insight into the significance of the Book of Life.

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We cover Revelation 3.

As John’s vision of heaven begins he sees God on the throne, four kerubim, and 24 elders on thrones. And in the midst of them is a Lamb looking as if it has been slaughtered. 

 

The Lamb alone is found worthy to open a scroll sealed with seven seals. As each of the first six seals is opened, a new terror is released upon the earth. 

 

What do we do with this? Is God good or not?

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We cover Revelation 4-6.

There is a pause in heaven before the seventh seal is broken. Terrible things are about to be set into motion. But before that happens, God places protective seals on the foreheads of all of Israel (or only 144,000?)--but not on the Gentiles who serve him. They have to go through the Great Tribulation.

Afterwards, however, God wipes every tear from their eyes. We think about the implications of this in our breakout groups.

 

Meanwhile, we take a whirlwind ride through the sounding of the first six trumpets, including trumpets 5 and 6 which are the first of particularly terrible events called “The Woes.”

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We cover Revelation 7 thru 9.

There’s some heavy duty imagery in this section of Revelation. We meet two witnesses/martyrs of God who are represented by olive trees that can withhold rain from the earth and spew fire at anyone who comes against them.

 

We also are introduced to some characters that will figure large in the rest of the story--a woman crowned with the sun, moon and 12 stars and a red dragon with seven crowned heads and 10 horns.

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We cover Daniel 7 and Revelation 10-12.

We take a moment to sync up the timelines in Revelation with the timelines found in the Hebrew Bible in the book of Daniel. It is eye-opening. (And when we do that we stumble across the surprising answer to why John says in Rev 21:1 that when the new heaven and earth come there is no sea.)

 

The Beast makes his first appearance in Chapter 11, but in this class we get his back story. Spoiler Alert: It’s seriously twisted.

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We cover 

• Daniel 7 thru 12

• Revelation 13:1-10

The Rapture is the idea that Christians will be snatched up in the clouds by Jesus so we do not undergo the Tribulation described in Revelation. In this class, we look at the Scriptural case for the Rapture to see if it holds water. 

 

As a starting point, we look at what Revelation says about the fate of Jews and of Gentiles before and during the Tribulation. 

 

The Hebrew Bible maintains a solid position that the Messiah comes while Israel, and Jerusalem in particular, is under direct military attack. God and the Messiah save Israel in a cataclysmic show of power. We go through some but not all of this background. Zechariah 14 is a good example, if you want to look it up for yourself. 

 

Since the Rapture is a uniquely Christian idea, we then focus on the New Testament. We examine the words of Jesus and Paul, to see what they have to say about the Second Coming and whether there is any mention of a Rapture of Christians.

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We cover 

• Daniel 12:2

• Matthew 24-25

• Luke 21

• Romans 5:8-10

• 1 Corinthians 15:51-52

• 1 Thessalonians 1:10; 4:13-5:2,9

• 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12

• Revelation 21:8; 22:14-15