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

CONTEXT

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.

Christian eschatology comes from the Greek meaning "last" and "study" and is the study of the end of things. "Rapture", in the context of eschatology, is derived from the Latin verb meaning caught up or taken away.

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.

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)

Split into small groups and share what you think about The rapture Left behind series Tribulation End times

Who wrote the Book of Revelation? The author of Revelation identifies himself several times as "John". The author also states that he was on Patmos when he received his first vision. As a result, the author of Revelation is sometimes referred to as John of Patmos. The traditional view holds that John the Apostle was considered to have written the Gospel and was exiled on Patmos.

More recent methods of scholarship have been influential in suggesting that John the Apostle, John the Evangelist and John of Patmos were three separate individuals. It has also been contended that the core verses of the book, in general chapters 4 through 22, are surviving records of the prophecies of John the Baptist.

In a quote from Craig Hill in the book, current prophecy books tell us the nuclear war is inevitable, the pursuit of peace is pointless, the planet’s environmental woes are unstoppable. Belief in a concept like the rapture can be a form of escapism and lead believers to abandon interest in the world and its problems. The rapture is coming soon, the good will be saved and the bad will get what’s coming to them. How do you feel about this statement?

Dispensationalism is a nineteenth-century evangelical development based on a a series of chronologically successive “dispensations” or periods in history in which God relates to human beings in different ways under different covenants. Dispensationalism may have come about because of unfulfilled Biblical prophecies. What is dispensationalism?

The problem in part with dispensationalism is that it did not recognize that many Biblical prophecies had been fulfilled, maybe not literally. It also failed to recognize that some Biblical prophecies were conditional in nature and when those conditions were not met, the the prophecy was not fulfilled.

No one knows when the end will come and we should live each moment as if it were our last. Read Matthew 24:35-36 Suppose that all of the things in Revelation have already been fulfilled in John’s time during the Roman Empire.

What is a prophet and what is a prophecy? Give an example of when a prophecy was not fulfilled? Read Jonah 3:1-10

So there is more than one option in the future. A prophet is a spokesperson for God (or a god). Prophets and prophecies were understood across cultures in Biblical days. The OT contains several prophetic books. The NT maybe has one, Revelation.

The NT writers believed that they were already living in an age where prophecies of the OT were rapidly being fulfilled. We need to distinguish between the prophetic experience, the prophetic expression, the prophetic tradition, and the prophetic body of literature.

A prophet was an oracle, a mouth piece fro someone divine being. A prophecy was spoken in known languages. It could be understood, although it may have been puzzling. It might have been spontaneous utterings or a reading of omens or signs. It was not a deciphering of ancient texts.

Consulting a prophet was an attempt to obtain a current word from a deity about some pressing issue. How do you feel about people today being prophets? Read 1 Corinthians 12:7-10

Now that you’ve been reminded that prophecy is one of the gifts of the Spirit, how willing would you be to listen to someone claiming to have that gift? In the first century, a prophet was the interface between the community and the divine as well as those outside the community. The events were thought to be on the near horizon, not decades or centuries in the future.

Ancient prophets did not speculate about events far into he future like the Mayans or Nostradamus. Biblical prophecy, such as that found in the OT, was vague and more universal in nature; and could be applied to current as well as future events.

Read Isaiah 7:14 How could this be applied to the future? Read Isaiah 7:10-14 and see how it was applied in the OT and the context in which it was originally written.

Prophecies about remote future events typically involve metaphors, similes, and hyperboles to make a point. What are metaphors, similes, and hyperboles?

A Metaphor is the concept of understanding one thing in terms of another. A simile is a figure of speech that indirectly compares two different things by employing the words "like", "as", or "than”. For instance, a simile that compares a person with a bullet would go as follows: "Chris was a record-setting runner and as fast as a speeding bullet." A metaphor might read something like, "When Chris ran, he was a speeding bullet racing along the track.”

A hyperbole is the use of an exaggeration as a figure of speech to create emphasis or for effect. An example of hyperbole is: "The bag weighed a ton."

Read Isaiah 2:4 This is not a secret code for modern concerns like nuclear stockpiling and not literally about building ancient factories to make plowshares out of swords. It is a metaphor for ceasing hostilities.

In the OT, when prophets like Ezekiel, Daniel, and Zechariah thought about the distant future, they did not dwell on impending doom or Armageddon, but the redemption and restoration of God’s people and the return to Eden like conditions. They used figures of speech NOT intended to be taken literally.

Taking these figures of speech literally does a disservice to the Bible. It also creates the problem of mistaking material that was fulfilled long ago in Israel or fulfilled in a more general way in Biblical times as material awaiting fulfillment as the Christian era nears an end.

Read Mark 13:1-3 This was fulfilled when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple in 70AD.

Read Revelation 13:5-8 Who or what is the beast? Preterist interpretations, a theological position also advocated by most academic scholars generally identify the First Beast with Nero.

The Beast was given a mouth speaking in blasphemies against God and His Name. Inscriptions have been found in Ephesus in which Nero is called "Almighty God" and "Savior". Revelation 13:7 speaks of the power given to the beast to make war with the saints Nero was the first of the imperial authorities to persecute Christians.

Revelation 13:5 says the beast would continue for 42 months. The Neronic persecution was instituted in 64 AD and lasted until his death in June 68 AD, which is three and a half years, or 42 months. The manner of Nero’s death corresponds with the prophecy of Revelation 13:10. If any one kills with the sword, with the sword he must be killed". According to Tertullian Nero was the first to assail the Christian sect with the imperial sword. He committed suicide by the sword at the age of 30.

Read Revelation 13:18 Since the Book of Revelation was written to a first-century audience, maybe in late 64 AD (Nero’s death) or as late as 96AD, John did not expect that his readers "who had understanding" to have any difficulty identifying the beast, since they could simply calculate the meaning of this cryptogram.

Resh ( ר )Samech ( ס )Qof ( ק )Noon ( נ )Vav ( ו )Resh ( ר )Noon ( נ )TOTAL The Hebrews used letters for numbers. They had no zero. The Greek "Neron Kaisar” when transliterated into the Hebrew Nrwn Qsr had a number of 666.

What is an apocalypse? Apocalypse comes from the Greek word meaning lifting the veil or revelation and is a disclosure of something hidden from the majority of mankind in an era dominated by falsehood and misconception,

Apocalyptic literature can be treated as a hard and fast prescription of the future all the way to being completely imagination. One form is a literature written in a coded language to comfort a group of believers undergoing some kind of crisis.

It begins with the present circumstances of the people and tries to help them interpret and endure those experiences in light of the larger perspective that John’s visions of what is above and beyond them. How does this relate this to what was happening to Christians in the 1 st Century.

Apocalyptic literature may or may not relate to the end times. It usually deals with visions which may be hyperbolic or metaphorical in nature. The heart of this literature is the “unveiling” of secrets and truths about God’s perspective on difficult subjects like justice, evil, etc. and what God proposes to do about them.

Apocalyptic literature was the dominant form of prophecy from the 2 nd century BC through the second century AD. The authors believed that they were in an age where earlier prophecies were being fulfilled and were thinking about what God’s final solution would be.