The Bible Study Podcast, episode 185. Today, the Bible Study podcast starts a study of Revelation.

Welcome to the Bible Study podcast. I'm your host, Chris Christensen. I start this study with some

fear and trembling, as this is a very

difficult book to understand, so I make no promises as we start this study that we will study

every chapter in Revelation. We may, in fact, skim over some. We'll just have to see how that goes.

I say the name of this book is Revelation, or the Revelation to John. If you are looking at a Catholic Bible, you'd see the word apocalypse, which means to reveal.

So that's the same name just in a different language.

That's the Greek word that's being used there.

And this is a book that is written by John, generally held to be John, who is the author of the gospel, John as in James and John the sons of Zebedee.

Now, there are some Bible scholars who thinks it's a different John, but the authority of this being John the apostle goes back pretty far.

To the second century, at least the author Justin Martyr who wrote in the second century attributed

this book to John. So I'm going to be assuming as I study this that we're talking about John

the Apostle. But I did want to bring up that that is not incontrovertible. But the book starts like

this. 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, who testifies to everything that he saw,

that is, the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ.

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.

This is a book that is written probably later than every other New Testament book, and it is

written in a time period where the church is already started to be persecuted.

Our understanding is that this is written by

John on the island of Patmos, probably already in exile, and that quite possibly by the time that

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