Prophecy or History?
Even a few sentences in, we can tell the Book of Revelation is unlike anything else in the Christian Testament. But the truth is, there is really nothing like it in the Hebrew Scriptures either, although there are many references to various prophetic imagery and events from the Hebrew scriptures.
APOCALYPSE
Typically, this sort of document would be called an Apocalypse, which literally means, “uncovering” or “revealing,” and which references the complete and final destruction of the world, leading to a new world. The uncovering or revealing is the parting of the curtain to show the heavenly or divine perspective of what is happening now and what will come.
But the Book of Revelation is so much more, for it is a letter containing seven more letters. And at regular intervals throughout the whole of this epic document we are given to understand that it is also prophecy—we must pay it heed.
But how? As spiritual allegory? As predictions of actual future events? As prophecy already fulfilled long ago, yet with truths still relevant for today?
Answering these questions is all part of the adventure as we read these ancient pages together.
First time to the site? Start here

From the blog

Revelation 16: The First Bowl, Hideous Sores
“… there came a hideous and painful festering wound upon the people who have the permanent imprint of the dangerous creature and who throw themselves prostrate in homage of its image.”
Keep reading
Revelation 15: Holy Smoke
As John watched, smoke filled the heavenly Holy of Holies, preventing anyone from entering in. For John, this would have brought to mind God’s instruction to Moses that God later portrayed in all reality. #Revelation15 #HolySmoke #Shekinah
Keep reading
Revelation 15: The Sea of Glass Flickering Red
After John took in the angels, he saw the glassy sea spread out beneath or before them, and a scene of worship and adulation. #Revelation15 #BowlsofGodsWrath #GlassySea
Keep reading
Revelation 15: Reprise of the Glassy Sea
It seems John was gazing up into the sky, or perhaps he was in a transported state in heaven. Either way, what came before him now took his breath away.
#GlassySea #Revelation15 #SongofMoses #SongoftheLamb
Keep reading
Revelation 14: Future Fulfilment
Futurist theologians look ahead, staying alert to the signs of impending divine rescue in the Rapture and divine judgement in the Great Tribulation. For futurist scholars, Revelation 14 remains a pivotal event yet to occur.
#Revelation14 #Apocalypse
Keep reading
Revelation 14: Historical Fulfilment
Revelation 14:14-20 speaks of harvesting earth and trampling the grapes of that harvest in the winepress of God’s wrath. But it is not juice that runs deep and red, it is an immense river of blood. What is being depicted here? #Revelation14 #Winepress
Keep reading
Revelation 14: The Winepress of God’s Wrath
Whatever this passage may mean in concrete terms, for its intended audience it was as if the Lord were saying, “I hear your cries, and I see your pain. I have not forgotten you.” #Revelation14 #Winepress #GrapesofWrath
Keep reading
Revelation 14: Blessed Are the Dead
Whether from the point of the cross, or from the point of each believer’s death, the blessing is the same—believers will be in the Lord, receiving rest and refreshment from their earthly ordeal, and rewarded for their enduring faith. #Revelation14
Keep readingRevelation 14: Fire and Brimstone
Expositors agree this is one of the strongest supporting passages for the doctrine of hell. But is it a literal description? #Revelation14 #Hell #CupofGodsWrath #FireandBrimstone
Keep reading
Revelation 14: Fallen, Fallen is Babylon
Technically I should have translated “it” as “she,” but I did not. Because even more technically, in English, a city is not a female. It is a very large cluster of buildings organized as an entity.
Babylon is not a woman. #Babylon #FallenFallen #Rev14
Keep reading
Revelation 14: Eternal Gospel
Whatever this “eternal good news” might be, scholars from every perspective agree that it is an authentic Gospel, and not the anathema Paul warned of. #Revelation14 #EverlastingGospel #EternalGoodNews
Keep reading
Revelation 14: Reprise of the 144,000
All perspectives recognize the unique position of Chapter 14 acting as a bridge between what has so far transpired and what is about to come. John described the Lamb of God standing upon Mount Zion, surrounded by a mighty company. #Revelation14 #144000
Keep reading
Revelation 14: The Final Cycle
Revelation 14 introduces the third and final cycle of sevens, which is also the fourth in a set of sevens. #Revelation14 #144thousand
Keep reading
Revelation 13: The Mark of the Beast, Four Views
The Mark of the Beast is an iconic image from John’s Apocalypse, a number, or a name, etched into the hand and/or the forehead of every person living in the time of the dragon and its beasts. #Revelation13 #MarkoftheBeast
Keep reading
Revelation 13: Mark of the Beast
I spent some time just sitting with this, because it is such a famous couple of lines. The Mark of the Beast! Does it not conjure up story after story of those who have tried to imagine what this would be like? #Revelation13 #MarkoftheBeast
Keep reading
Revelation 13: The Second Beast, Four Views
The second beast conscripted people to create an image of the first beast, then imbued this image with a spirit that could speak. The second beast insisted – using threat of execution – that all people worship the image of this first beast. #Revelation13
Keep reading
Revelation 13: The Second Beast
If the first beast is strange and frightening, the second is downright shiver-worthy. It comes as a promoter of the first beast, which is now weirdly passive, but it has far more power than the first.
What does it all mean? #Revelation13 #TheSecondBeast
Keep reading
Revelation 13: Four Views of the Beast
Who is this beast, exactly? What is the beast’s war against the saints? Why is the length of time so specific? How are Christians supposed to respond?
Four different views shed at least some light. #Revelation13 #TheBeast #Tribulation
Keep reading
Revelation 13: The Beast’s Blasphemies
The original first century audience for John’s Apocalypse was in the middle of some of the worst persecution Christians have endured. So this scene cut close to the bone for them. And there was also an overlay of the Temptations of Christ #Revelation13
Keep reading
Revelation 13: The Beast!
All four perspectives note a conscious connection between Daniel’s and John’s visions. #Revelation13 #TheBeast #Daniel7
Keep reading
Revelation 12: The Dragon Wages War
It is the final scene in the dragon’s three-act narrative, and as you might expect, there are a variety of ways to understand John’s vision. #Revelation12 #FieryDragon #WingsofanEagle
Keep readingRevelation 12: Cliffhanger
The narrative from beginning to end certainly reads as a mystical vision. #Revelation12 #TheDragon #TheWomaninTravail
Keep reading
Revelation 12: Saints versus Satan
A massive heavenly conflict, the ultimate in cataclysms.
Is this oracle a glimpse into the prehistoric dawn of creation, long before humanity entered the stage? Or is it a harbinger of the terrifying time to come, the Tribulation? #Revelation12 #Satan
Keep reading
Revelation: Heaven-Wide War
A heavenly war, a huge victory, a retreating enemy, scorching the earth in his fury …
It is an epic vision!
But where does it fit in the Apocalypse? #Revelation12 #SatanCastOut #ArchangelMichael
Keep reading
Revelation 12: The Woman, The Son, The Dragon
It is a pivotal story placed at the center of John’s Apocalypse, but who are the characters, and what does it mean? #Revelation12 #TheDragon #WomanInLabor #RodofIron
Keep reading
Revelation 12: A Son Is Born
It is such a familiar passage, but reading it in Greek made me notice a couple of things I might have otherwise missed. #Revelation12 #fierydrago #WomaninLabor #ASonIsBorn
Keep reading
Revelation 11: The Seventh Trumpet
It seems fitting that giving God glory on earth would result in the seventh trumpet sounding resounding praise in heaven.
Keep reading
Revelation 11: Two Witnesses Vindicated by God
To the watching world, it seemed as though God had abandoned these two prophets to their foes. At last, or so they must have thought, God’s opponent had gotten the upper hand. What glee! What giddy excitement! But also what despair.
Keep reading
Revelation 11: Prophets Raised from the Dead
As I read these words in Greek (slowly) I could feel this starburst of fascination and horror spreading throughout my chest, with pinpricks all over my head and arms as my hairs stood on end.
Keep reading
Revelation 11: The Beast (Other Views)
If the Beast is not taken to be an actual, literal dangerous wild animal, then what does it represent? And why is there such jubilation when it is able to slay the witnesses? #TheBeast #Revelation11 #TwoWitnesses
Keep reading

Revelation 11: The Two Witnesses (Futurist and Spiritual Views)
Some are certain John’s Revelation is about the end of human history. Others take a broader view that John’s Revelation has to do primarily with spiritual things believers of every era and culture will benefit from. #Revelation11 #TwoWitnesses
Keep reading
Revelation 11: The Two Witnesses (Historical and Preterist Views)
The Two Witnesses are something of a conundrum for expositors looking to history for fulfillment.
Were they actual people (some think so), or representative of groups of people? Maybe they’re allegories for truth? #TwoWitnesses #Revelation11
Keep reading
Revelation 11: Measuring the Temple
John’s visions dovetail in several places with Ezekiel’s vision, and especially here, the correlations are strong.
So what was measuring the temple to signify? As you probably have guessed, answers may vary (!) #Revelation11 #MeasuringtheTemple #Ezekiel
Keep reading
Revelation 11-13: 1,260 Days
Revelation 11-13 speaks repeatedly of a timeframe that seems to last about 3.5 years (the length of Jesus’s ministry, interestingly enough). But there is not consensus about what it all means. #Revelation11 #TheBeast #TheGreatTribulation
Keep reading
Revelation: Interlude Before the Seventh Trumpet
Just as John’s first oracle had an intermission, so now this second one hits pause as well. But this pause is a lot longer, leading some interpreters to suggest it is its own oracle.
Keep reading
Revelation 10: Eat It Up
What is the little opened book John was told to eat? How could it taste so good, yet make him sick to his stomach? What John eats he must now prophecy, concerning the whole world, it seems.
Keep reading
Revelation 10: The Mystery of God Come to Completion
the prophets of old. When the seventh trumpet is sounded, the whole thing will have been revealed.
What a way to rivet our attention!
Keep reading
Revelation 10: The Little Scroll
As soon as I read John was not to reveal what the seven thunders had spoken, that became the one thing I wanted to know most. What did they say? Why tantalize with this astonishing scene, but deny the pronouncement framed within it?
Keep reading
Revelation 9: Conclusion with Four Views
There is a lot to think about in John’s last words of this chapter. He delivered a sad eulogy concerning the people who survived the six trumpets. As you are no doubt anticipating, commentators have very different ideas about how to understand John’s assessment.
Keep reading
Revelation 9: Homicide, Drugs, Porn, and Robbery
In a sense, God converted the hidden decay and erosion to humankind’s souls by these things, into physical pain and horror. It is the last-recourse effort to shake awake an otherwise dying world.
Keep reading
Revelation 9: Dread Cavalry
Horses with vipers for tails and mouths belching fire, brimstone, and smoke teem across the Euphrates in myriads. What are we to make of this terrifying picture?
Keep reading
Revelation 9: The Sixth Trumpet
It is not clear whether the sixth angel sounded the trumpet before the five months of torment and testing had ended, or whether the swarm of supernatural scorpionesque locusts had completed its mission.
Keep reading
Revelation 9: Strange Locusts
Are these actual monsters that will rise up out of some sepulchral chasm cleaving the mantle of earth? Or is their appearance allegory rich with symbolical meaning?
Keep reading
Revelation 9: The Fifth Trumpet, an Historical View
The fifth trumpet seems either definitely metaphysical or highly allegorical, so how do expositors who take the historical or more specifically preterist views read these verses?
Keep reading
Revelation 9: Purpose of the Inquisition
Perhaps for John’s audience, such a prospect generated a redoubled commitment to deal with temptation and sin right away. Better to respond to the first prick of conscience before it becomes complicated.
Keep reading
Revelation 9: The Fifth Trumpet
Is this a metaphorical examination of some kind, that brings on spiritual torment (painful conviction of personal sin?), which displays for all to see who is at peace with God and who is still God’s opponent?
Keep reading
Revelation 8: The Lone Eagle
as so often happens with misfortune, when things feel like they could not possibly get worse … they do
Keep reading
Revelation 8: The Fourth Trumpet
It is a strange vision, when read all in one breath. I imagine John watching—peering, really, into the gloom—as something inflicted the sun with a power that could diminish it by a full third of its strength.
Keep reading
Revelation 8: The Third Trumpet
Is this blazing star a political figure? A religious leader? Literally a poisonous star fallen from heaven?
Each few sheds fascinating insight on John’s vision.
Keep reading
Revelation 8: The Second Trumpet
How interpreters have imagined this scene is in large part influenced by their point of view. Taken simply as a scene, it is horrific. Is it metaphorical? Is it commentary on a situation? Is it prophecy to be literally fulfilled? Is it a warning that may not come to pass if heeded?
Keep reading
Revelation 8: First Trumpet – Hail, Fire, and Blood
Though each perspective sees the fulfillment of these trumpets occurring in very different timeframes, there are certain overarching themes on which all four views agree.
Keep reading
Revelation 8: The Power of Prayer
The tremendous power in the prayers of the holy ones was also revealed to John. You and I think of that power as reaching up to God and the Lord responding in divine might. But this time, John watched as these sacred prayers were thrown forcefully back to earth in a startling reversal of how…
Keep reading
Revelation 8: The Altar of Incense
There is something of a dream quality to John’s narration, as though he were himself enrapt in the incense.
Keep reading
Revelation: The Second Set of Sevens
The four basic scholarly frames of reference will layer well with historical insight and scriptural overlay while leaving room for the possibility that John’s prophetic oracles have yet to be (completely) fulfilled.
Keep reading
Revelation 8: The Seventh Seal
It is one of the more mysterious and intriguing verses in John’s account.
Keep reading
Revelation 7: Meaning of the Multitude
After so many disturbing images from the breaking of the seals, John was now swept up in a rapturous time of praise and thanksgiving, as the mighty multitude, the elders, all the angels, and the four living creatures exalted God, singing,
Keep reading
Revelation 7: The Mighty Multitude
It is the final act of the sixth scroll, just as the sixth day of Creation had a final, climactic act of bringing forth humankind and blessing all that lived across the face of the earth. Imagine the two scenes side-by-side:
Keep reading
Revelation 7: The 144,000
The specificity of the number 144,000 intrigues our modern minds, and features fundamentally for at least one modern day group, the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Is this number literal or symbolic? Why go through each tribe? What is being revealed, exactly?
Keep reading
Revelation 7: God’s Seal of Protection
The next round of misfortune was to be released only after God’s seal of protection was applied to all of God’s own.
Keep reading
Revelation 6: Familiar Imagery, Fresh Meaning
Now, two thousand years later, scholars have much to say on the meaning of this sixth seal.
Keep reading
Revelation 6: The Sixth Seal
So far, everything John saw concerned a single planet. The four horsemen traversed the globe, and the martyrs called out for God’s judgment of those living on earth.
But now the entire cosmos seems to be coming unglued, and the imagery, as fantastic as it is, was vividly familiar to John’s audience.
Keep reading
Revelation 6: The Fifth Seal
The martyrs were invited to refresh themselves during this intermission between their deaths and the coming of the end of time, when all will be judged and justice will be brought forth.
Keep reading
Revelation 6: The Fourth Seal
Before John’s surely horrified eyes, a ghastly figure appeared as the fourth living creature called forth the specter of Death. The horse was pallid with the sickly hue of plague, and the ominous dark shadows of Hades settled around Death’s form, resting above its steed.
Keep reading
Revelation 6: The Third Seal
What John saw he beheld with dread. The world of antiquity was no stranger to famine.
In fact, not long after the Gospel had broken through the barrier of race and religion, the subject of a severe famine comes up in the Book of Acts.
Keep reading
Revelation 6: The Second Seal
Reading about the second seal gives more context to the first seal, the first horse, and the first rider. If they are part of a set, then how does the first rider fit in?
Keep reading
Revelation 6: The First Seal
The Lamb was now moving the scroll into position and opening the first of its seven seals.
Keep reading
Revelation 5: Heaven and Nature Sing
This is how the curtain might fall on the final act of a Wagnerian Opera, the stage vibrant with rich colors, a shimmering backdrop of gold and iridescence as the rainbow radiating from the magnificent throne of God.
Keep reading
Revelation 5: Daniel’s Vision Fulfilled
Daniel was sixty-seven years old in 553 BCE, when Nabonidus appointed his son Belshazzar as his co-regent over the Babylonian empire.
Keep reading
Revelation 5: A New Song
even as John stared in wonder at the fantastic image before him, the Lamb moved to the throne and took the scroll from the One sitting there. When that happened, an eruption of Sensurround experiences poured forth.
Keep reading
Revelation 5: The Lion is a Lamb
For prophets, visions tend to be highly symbolic, with imagery that arouses heightened passions as well as points to an absolute reality. In a sense, visions are both a veil, and a veil being removed.
Keep reading
Revelation 5: The Seven-Sealed Scroll
As John watched, a paean of praise broke forth. It was only then John saw that the right hand of the One sitting upon the throne. #Revelation5 #Sevenseals #SevenSealedScroll
Keep reading
Revelation 4: Seraphim
In this post I put the scene all together and search the scriptures of other accounts that describe God’s heavenly throne room.
Keep reading
Revelation 4: Understanding the Elders
How do we understand what the apostle John saw in his vision? We know who the Seven Spirits of God is. But who are these twenty-four elders?
Keep reading
Revelation 4: Resplendent
This is what John gazed upon in awe and wonder. The elders, consecrated before God, representative of the whole Church, robed in the white garments of righteousness, and crowned with the glory of eternal life, having been sealed by the Holy Spirit.
Keep reading
Revelation 4: A Throne in Heaven
Once John was finished taking down the seven letters—after these things—the scene changes dramatically. John looks up as a portal opens in the sky, and the sound of a trumpet-like voice invites him to come up into heaven.
Keep reading
Revelation 3: Laodicea, A Final Word
For those who will respond to Jesus’s chastening—who open the door to Jesus’s gentle knock—then Jesus would come in to dine together with them, certainly a reference both to God’s invitation in the Torah to feast with God, and to the love feasts of the early church, celebrating the Lord’s Supper.
Keep reading
Revelation 3: Laodicea, Appearances Deceive
By all accounts, the Laodicean Christians really were rich in both temporal wealth and spiritual teaching. But Jesus said they were actually impoverished and they had no idea.
Keep reading
Revelation 3: Laodicea, Tepid Tap Water
The word Jesus used, ἐμέω | emeō, actually means vomit. It brings to mind that feeling of having put something so repellant into one’s mouth that the gag reflex kicks in and out it spews before one hardly has the chance to stop.
Keep reading
Revelation 3: Laodicea
Everything needed to understand what Jesus was saying to the assembly in Laodicea is embedded in this post, but it needs a sleuth to work it all out
Keep reading
Revelation 3: Of Crowns and Thrones
Jesus’s promises to the assembly in Philadelphia included crowns and a throne, rewards that may seem anachronistic to those of us who never grew up with kings and queens in our governments. So, how do we understand what Jesus is saying to people like us, today?
Keep reading
Revelation 3: Philadelphia, Protected
After affirming their salvation, Jesus promised the assembly in Philadelphia that others would know He loved them.
Jesus also promised protection from what was about to come, but though that promise seems straightforward, commentators have puzzled over what it really means.
Keep reading
Revelation 3: Beloved Philadelphians
After affirming their salvation, Jesus promised the assembly in Philadelphia others would know He loved them, and protection from what was about to come.
Keep reading
Revelation 3: Philadelphia
Jesus would not permit God’s adversaries from preventing God’s beloved entering God’s holy house. Jesus had opened the portal, and no one could shut it.
Keep reading
Revelation 3: Sardis
Spiritually, the assembly in Sardis was like a slumbering city even as invading armies (of sin, perhaps) were gathering outside the walls.
Keep reading
Revelation 2: Thyatira and Jezebel
Jesus was not concerned that Jezebel was a woman overseer in the church. Jesus was concerned that Jezebel was a bad leader, one who falsely claimed God’s anointing, and led God’s own astray.
Keep reading
Revelation 2: Thyatira, Two Influential Women in the Church
In the longest of His seven letters, Jesus’s words to Thyatira hold—at least to my ears—grief over Jezebel and her adherents, and concerned warning over those who were not repenting of what Jesus called porneia and debauchery.
Keep reading
Revelation 2: Thyatira
The things Jesus wanted to say to the assemblies in Thyatira comprised a significantly longer message than was delivered to the first three churches. This is, in fact, the longest of Jesus’s seven letters.
Keep reading
Revelation 2: Pergamos, Turn Back
Jesus warned the assembly in Pergamos, Therefore, repent: but if not, I am coming to you quickly, and I will do battle with them with the sword in My mouth.
Keep reading
Revelation 2: Pergamos
if the Ephesian Christians had subtly replaced their love for God and each other with a love for righteousness and right doctrine, the Pergamenian Christians had subtly allowed the erosion of right doctrine in their own midst, while they still held to their faith and trust in Christ.
Keep reading
Revelation 2: Smyrna, Going Deeper
Some have wondered if the ἄγγελος | angelos (which means messenger) of Smyrna might have been the Apostle John’s disciple Polycarp.
Keep reading
Revelation 2: Smyrna
The only surviving city of the seven represented in these letters, Smyrna—now Izmir, Turkey—was the second largest city of the region. And reportedly, the most beautiful.
Keep reading
Revelation 2: Ephesus
Before your hearts become more calloused, while you still have some sensitivity to the Holy Spirit, turn back towards love, Jesus was saying.
Keep reading
Revelation: Blazing Eyes and Brilliant Feet
Before we leave this first chapter, there are two more aspects of John’s vision that deserve contemplation–Jesus’s eyes and feet.
Keep reading
Revelation 1: The Keys of Death and Hades
The impact of John’s vision was powerful, even overwhelming. His senses could hardly take it all in, every aspect was at maximum capacity—flashes of fire and lightning, the thunderous roar of waterfalls, the blinding glow of white light, the heat and gleam of burnished bronze.
But now, with Jesus’s gentle touch and quiet reassurance, this…
Keep reading
Revelation 1: Vision of Christ Unveiled
Besides the emotional and spiritual impact of seeing the Lord during a quiet Sunday prayer, John’s vision held deep symbolic meaning
Keep reading
Revelation 1: In the Spirit on the Lord’s Day
I was in [the] Spirit on the Lord’s Day, and I heard behind me a voice loud as a trumpet saying, “Write what you see into a book
Keep reading
Revelation 1: Α and Ω
It was a huge question for the early church, one of the first questions the church councils sought to answer. Was Jesus a human being? Was Jesus divine?
Keep reading
Revelation 1: He Comes in the Clouds
BEHOLD! He comes with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even they who pierced Him, and they will beat their breasts with grief over Him, all the peoples of the earth. Yes! Amen!
Keep reading
Revelation 1: The Branch and the Spirit
The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
Keep readingLoading…
Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.
New posts in your inbox

About Me
My passion for the Bible began when I was eight or nine years old, somewhere in there, when on occasion my dad would take me to synagogue, where he sang. I remember watching the men in synagogue pray the words of scripture, murmuring and weeping, lovingly touching and kissing the Torah, and I wished I could read what they were reading.
Imagine, then, my wonder when I was given a Bible of my own! Read more
Let’s hang out
[Image above: Matthias Gerung, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons]