Revelation: Introduction – part 1

Before getting into the Seven Letters, it seems like a good idea to look at the beginning of Revelation – the first chapter – which consists of three parts.  I didn’t do this when I first wrote the series.  It didn’t seem necessary, because I wasn’t planning on getting into any of the imagery in the letters.  It was only supposed to be about the reaction we have to what was in the letters.  However, when I used them in a class, people were asking about things like the lampstands, the stars, the angels, Etc.  So  this time – I’m going to do this introduction to take care of those kinds of questions right at the start – and hopefully allow for more focus on the human response / reactions to the seven letters.

The Prologue

In case you’re not familiar with the word “prologue”, here’s what it means – from dictionary.com

  1. a preliminary discourse; a preface or introductory part of a discourse, poem, or novel.
  2. an introductory speech, often in verse, calling attention to the theme of a play.

The prologue is only three verses, but they do set the scene for what’s coming in the rest of the book of Revelation –

Rev 1:1 The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, 2 who testifies to everything he saw—that is, the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. 3 Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near.

Before going any further, I need to point out that verse 3, in many new translations, is not clear.  It can easily be thought to mean something that it really wasn’t meant to portray.  The way the sentence is written, it seems like the following things are in it –

  1. Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy – as if just reading the prophecy somehow makes the reader blessed,
  2. and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it – as if those who hear it also need to take to heart whet they just heard – do something about it.

The problem comes up partly because of the way the sentence is constructed, and partly because somewhere along the line the rules for the placement of commas was changed – leading to many ambiguous and often misleading sentences.

Footnotes

  • 1
    Young, R. (1997). Young’s Literal Translation (Re 1:3). Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software.
  • 2
    Elwell, W. A., & Beitzel, B. J. (1988). Revelation. In Baker encyclopedia of the Bible (Vol. 2, p. 1844). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House.
  • 3
    Strong, J. (1995). Enhanced Strong’s Lexicon. Woodside Bible Fellowship.
  • 4
    Strong, J. (1995). Enhanced Strong’s Lexicon. Woodside Bible Fellowship.
  • 5
    Strong, J. (1995). Enhanced Strong’s Lexicon. Woodside Bible Fellowship.
  • 6
    Eckley, R. K. (2006). Revelation: a commentary for Bible students (p. 59). Indianapolis, IN: Wesleyan Publishing House.

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