Dave's Diary

Tomorrow our Bible Reading Plan takes us into the final book of the Bible: “The Revelation”.

This post is, to some extent an important disclaimer. My daily posts are devotional by nature. They are aimed at drawing out a life-application lesson from the sacred text of Scripture. To attempt to do that in the Book of Revelation is going to be as challenging as extracting life application lessons from “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, or C.S. Lewis’ “Chronicles of Narnia”.

While there are vital lessons to extract from each chapter of the Revelation it is more of a sweeping epic, best read and understood as a whole. The following extract from the ESV Study Bible Introcution to the Revelation is very helpful:

The word “Revelation” translates the Greek word apokalypsis, which means “disclosure” or “unveiling.” Revelation unveils the unseen spiritual war in which the church is engaged: the cosmic conflict between God and his Christ on the one hand, and Satan and his evil allies (both demonic and human) on the other. In this conflict, Jesus the Lamb has already won the decisive victory through his sacrificial death, but his church continues to be assaulted by the dragon, in its death-throes, through persecution (the beast), deceptive heresy (the false prophet), and the allure of material affluence and cultural approval (the prostitute). By revealing the spiritual realities behind the church’s trials and temptations, and by affirming the certainty of Christ’s triumph in the new heaven and earth, the visions of Revelation fortify believers to endure suffering. The reader of Revelation is encouraged to stay pure from the defiling enticements of the present world order. (https://www.esv.org/resources/esv-global-study-bible/introduction-to-revelation/)

For a really helpful overview of the Book, I encourage you to watch the two videos below from The Bible Project. Try to bear all these things in mind as we take our swift devotional journey through Revelation in the days to come.