Revelation: 6
If you remember, the first “commercial” in Revelation is chap. 7, the vision of the Jewish and non-Jewish saints, which comes between the opening of the 6th and 7th seal of divine judgment. 10:1-11:14 comes between the 6th and 7th trumpet blasts, and thus represents the 2nd “commercial” in this apocalypse.
Several elements in chap. 10 [...]
Revelation: 5
While the physical setting of Revelation is on the island of Patmos (1:9), the visionary setting slides back and forth between earth and heaven: in chap. 3 Jesus comes to John and speaks to the local churches; in chaps. 4-5, John is taken up into heaven to the throne room of Almighty God. Beginning in [...]
Revelation: 4
In Rev 4 John’s vision moves from the local churches to the heavens, specifically, Heaven.
When John is taken up into heaven, he finds himself in the throne room of the Almighty. What is clear in this vision is the centrality of God—God is at the heart of heaven, and everything else revolves around him (Rev [...]
Revelation: 3
Having appeared to John, the risen Christ now speaks to the 7 churches (chap. 2-3).
I’ve heard some pastors claim that each church represents a different era in church history: Ephesus represents the apostolic church, Smyrna the post-apostolic period, and so forth, with Laodicea symbolizing the modern/contemporary church. There are 2 problems with this claim (besides [...]
Revelation: 2
Scholars have come up with different conclusions about the structure of Revelation. For the sake of personal convenience, I’m simply going to follow the one offered by some old profs of mine, Drs. Carson and Moo (and Leon Morris): the prologue (1:1-20), messages to the 7 churches (2:1-3:22), the vision of heaven (4:1-5:14), the 7 [...]
Revelation: 1
Whenever I’ve asked different youth groups what book of the bible they want to study, their answer is always the same: Revelation (although it’s typically mispronounced “Revelations”—but there’s no “s” at the end). Clearly, it’s the most popular book but also probably the least understood. So, I think it’s worthwhile to spend at least a [...]
Jude
So what of this little letter, situated right next to the very last book of the bible?
Let me mention a few things regarding its social-historical background. In terms of authorship, conservative scholars maintain that it’s the brother of James (v. 1), i.e., another of Jesus’ step-brothers (cf. Matt 13:54-55). If this was the case than [...]
2 & 3 John
Since 2 and 3 John are so short I’ll survey each in this 1 blog entry.
2 John is the 2nd shortest text of the NT (3 John is the shortest). As we’re about to see, 2 John largely reinforces the teaching of 1 John. Some of the more common words in 2 John include “love”, [...]
1 John: 2
Many of John’s community departed from the faith (2:19) having been led astray by the false, Gnostic teachers (1 John 2:26). Gnostics taught that in order to be truly saved you needed—their secret teachings, for no one else knew the secrets of salvation. John flatly denies this in 1 John 2:27. He does not mean [...]
1 John: 1
1 John is part of what NT scholars refer to as the “Johannine Corpus”—texts thought to be written by the Apostle John (and/or 1 of his disciples)—the other texts being the Gospel of John, the letters of 2 and 3 John, and Revelation.
This body of texts was written within a 10-15 year period. In terms [...]