Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for the Bible Recap.

John, maybe the apostle, wrote the book of Revelation on the island of Patmos. It was a tiny

prison island, kind of like Alcatraz. The church was still undergoing

lots of persecution at the time, and in fact, church history tells us Rome first tried to

burn John alive in oil, but he survived. And since they couldn't figure out how to kill him,

they exiled him to Patmos. This letter, he wrote, is a singular revelation, not plural, not

revelations. John tells us in verse one that this is

the revelation of Jesus. Some believe that means the book is revealing Jesus to us, and others

believe that means Jesus is the one doing the revealing, while some others think it could actually

be both, because if Jesus is revealing something to his people, his body, then that also tells us

more about Jesus himself.

So as we read this book, just like with all our books from Day 1 and Genesis 1, we're going to look for Jesus and what we learn about him.

And by the way, verse 3 says we'll be blessed if we read this book aloud and pay attention to it.

That is the first of seven blessed our statements in this book. Be on the lookout

for them. They're called the seven beatitudes of Revelation. John wrote this letter to seven churches,

some of whom we've met already, and his message is first and foremost to them in their immediate

context. Jewish teaching and culture love numbers and symbols. So while this book still has a lot to offer

modern readers, most scholars warn against trying to treat it like a combination lock where you can

connect the numbers in just the right way to unlock some kind of secret hidden information about

the future. The stated purpose of this book is to reveal something. When you're trying to reveal

something to your reader, you don't hide it and bury it in code. That means you can take a deep breath because the pressure is off for you to figure out how and when the world ends over the course of the next four days reading. I also want to encourage you to watch the video overviews we link to in the show notes. In case you missed the one from yesterday, we'll link to it again in today's show notes. These will be really helpful in filling in any gaps from the recaps because we're moving through this at a fast clip. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the word eschatology, it refers to the end times. So now I'm going to throw another big word at you, eschatological. That's the adjective form. There are a handful of eschatological views in Orthodox Christianity,

and if you want to learn more about these viewpoints, check out the links in the show notes.

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