Revelation background

Revelation

Author: John
See Ecclesiastical History by Eusebius; Book 6, Chapter 25, Verse 10.

Date: Around 95 A.D. is quite a popular date.

Language: Greek

Place: Island of Patmos

Purpose: There is a clear threefold purpose. First, to give compliments and corrections to churches at the time of John, which has been advice to heed for Christians ever since in these "last days." Second, to present a vision of God's majesty and just wrath during the "last call" of the end times. Thirdly, to close Scripture with a prophecy of Judgement Day and a promise of heaven for those who have given their heart to Jesus, the One who died to forgive sins.

What kind of book?: Apocalyptic, revealing prophecy, through a vision given to John the apostle by God, full of metaphors, full of truths.

Reflection: A little more than one year after I turned to Jesus, I decided to read the entire New Testament. That was in 1991. I would usually do the reading on the way home from work on the subway. One evening I was reading Revelation. The chapters involved some "far out" stuff. Not being into "sci-fi," that stuff was rather foreign to me, and brought doubts to my mind regarding the legitimacy of all Scripture. After the subway ride, I would then take a bus from the subway station, and then I would have a bit of a walk from the bus stop to my parent's house. So after that subway reading I had the bus ride, and I was kind of out of it thinking about what I had read. Then I had the walk from the bus stop where I was really thinking about what I had read. Coming out of the woods I had to go through, I looked up to see a grand rainbow. A rainbow had been something that I knew God had used to reach out to me in the past. It had become a sign from God for me. (Whenever I see a rainbow now, I say the Lord's Prayer.) The cool thing was that it was a really sunny day. I was not even expecting a rainbow. I knew that God gave that rainbow for me that evening to comfort me. And comforted I was.
Hunter Irvine