The end of the beginning or the beginning of the end or has it all already happened??

Systems of Interpretation for Revelation Spiritual System – deals only with great principles, a poetic and prophetic depiction of the eternal struggle between good and evil Preterist System – Revelation has largely been fulfilled and has reference in particular to John’s time and the Roman state Historical System – embraces the whole history of the Church and its foes from the time of its writing to the end of time Futurist System – the whole book following Chapter 4 takes place sometime in the future

To best understand the Bible, we need to understand the historical context in which it was written. This will help us understand why the author wrote what he did as well as understand the audience to whom he was writing. Could it be that the author of Revelation was writing for 1 st century Christians instead of 21 st century Christians? Let’s look at this more closely.

We have Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension, followed by Pentecost. The disciples stayed in Jerusalem and created a Jewish sect that believed that Jesus was the long awaited Jewish Messiah.

The created a commune like community, very socialistic. People put all their possessions into the common pot and given out according to need. Read Acts 5:1-11 Since many people were poor and lived just day to day, they were probable eager to join.

The disciples started going to other cities and creating similar communities, but still Jewish at this point. When the disciples visited these new communities, the people would want them to tell them stories about Jesus and what Jesus had said to them.

Soon there were so many cities with these new Jewish communities, the disciples had trouble going to them all. So when they would visit and tell the stories of Jesus, someone would write them down. And each week, they would pull out the stories and read them.

So each community would have their own set of stories depending on which disciples had visited and what stories they had told. The center was still in Jerusalem. Perhaps, the leaders wanted each community to have common stories so they had someone write down the stories they thought were important.

From this we would get what is now known as the Gospel of Mark. Some say Mark followed Peter and wrote down what he said. This book would have been copied and distributed to the communities so all would have a common source. It’s kind of a Readers Digest version.

Everything changed in 70AD when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and burned down the Temple.

Around the 1st century CE there were several small Jewish sects: the Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots, Essenes, and Christians. After the Temple was destroyed in 70AD, these sects vanished. Christianity survived but broke away from Judaism and became a separate religion. The Pharisees survived but in the form of Rabbinic Judaism.

In the Gospels, which group is primarily at odds with Jesus? The Jewish Pharisees In addition to Mark, there was also a “Q” source which contained sayings of Jesus. We know that both Matthew and Luke had access to both Mark and Q.

After 70AD, there was competition between the Jews and the Christians for members, since initially the main converts to Christianity were Jews. The Pharisees, who really had no power or authority before 70AD during the life of Jesus, became the prime adversaries afterwards.

The author of Matthew takes Mark and the Q source and writes what essentially becomes a handbook for new Jewish Christians. A lot of time is spent on showing how Jesus fulfilled the OT prophecies of the coming Messiah.

The author of Luke takes Mark and the Q source and writes what essentially becomes a handbook for new Gentile Christians. His purpose is to pull the gentiles away from the pagan religions.

These Gospels were written during the religious battles between the Jews and new Christian religion, so they tend to make the Jews, especially the Pharisees look bad because that was the context in the 1 st century in which they were writing.

For example, they pretty much laid the Blame for the crucifixion on the Jews rather than the Romans. He has Pilate saying Jesus was innocent and washing his hands of it. He has the centurion recognizing Jesus as the son of God.

There were later battles among the different forms of Christianity such as Marcionites, Ebionites, Gnostics, and the form we have today called proto- Orthodoxy. So we other books like some of Paul’s writings written in the context of combating those other sects.

We also see changes in the context, especially in the writings of Paul as the early church moves from expecting Jesus to return soon, to the realization that Jesus was not coming soon. As we see, the books of the NT were written in the context of the times dealing with issues of those times. Why would Revelation be any different.

Who remembers about the predictions that Jesus would return in the year 2000, 2000 years after His birth? How did you feel about that? Since there was no year zero, 2001 would have been 2000 years after His birth. Since Jesus was actually born between 6 and 2BC, the correct year should have been around 1997.

Now all the talk is about December 21, 2012, the end of the Mayan calendar. How do you feel about this?

When will the end time begin? The end times began at the resurrection of Jesus. This was the first great eschatological event. What does eschatological mean?

Christian eschatology comes from the Greek meaning "last" and "study" and is the study of the end of things. A more interesting question is when with the “end times” end? How do you answer that one?

What is the rapture? Use your concordance to find verses containing the word rapture. "Rapture", in the context of eschatology, is derived from the Latin verb meaning caught up or taken away. The Word “rapture” is not in the Bible.

Some Dispensationalist Premillennialists, including many Evangelicals, hold the return of Christ to be two distinct events or one second coming in two stages. 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17 is seen to be a preliminary event to the return described in Matthew 24:29-51.

In 1 Thessalonians, Paul is responding to a particular problem in that church. Paul had preached Jesus was coming soon. People in that church had died and the others were concerned that those who had died would not share in the joys of the second coming. Paul is assuring them, that not only will these people not be left out, they will be taken first.

Notice in verse 34, the current generation would not pass away until these things had taken place. In 70AD, the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple.

What’s unusual about the concept of the rapture as it pertains to this study? It’s not mentioned in Revelation unless you want to count Revelation 3:10 which can be interpreted several ways and is part of a letter written to a specific church, Philadelphia.

So the order of events would be Rapture of the church (thief in the night) Tribulation 2 nd Coming with church (every eye will see) Millennium (1000 years of peace) What is the tribulation?

The Tribulation is a relatively short period of time where anyone who chose not to follow God before the Rapture and was left behind will experience worldwide hardships, disasters, famine, war, pain and suffering, which will wipe out 75% of all life on the earth before the Second Coming.