SHOW NOTES: - Head to our Start Page for all you need to begin! - Join the RECAPtains - Check out the TBR Store - Show credits FROM TODAY’S RECAP: - Video: Revelation (Part 1) - Graphic: The End of the World As We Know It - Quick Guide: Revelation - A Quick Guide to End Time Views - Database: End Times - Exodus 25:31-40 - Isaiah 11:2 - Isaiah 6:2-3 - Ezekiel 1:10 - Ezekiel 1:18 - 2025 Prep Episode - TBR Start Page - Invite your friends to join you next year! BIBLE READING & LISTENING: Follow along on the Bible App, or to listen to the Bible, try Dwell! SOCIALS: The Bible Recap: Instagram | Facebook | TikTok D-Group: Instagram | Facebook TLC: Instagram | Facebook D-GROUP: D-Group is brought to you by the same team that brings you The Bible Recap. TBR is where we read the Bible, and D-Group is where we study the Bible. D-Group is an international network of Bible study groups that meet weekly in homes, churches, and online. Find or start one near you today! DISCLAIMER: The Bible Recap, Tara-Leigh Cobble, and affiliates are not a church, pastor, spiritual authority, or counseling service. Listeners and viewers consume this content on a voluntary basis and assume all responsibility for the resulting consequences and impact. Links to specific resources and content: This is not an endorsement of the entire website, author, organization, etc.. Their views may not represent our own.
Full Episode
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 1 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 one 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 are 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. There's a PDF, a quick guide, and a database with loads of info. Eschatology matters, but just know that God-fearing, Christ-exalting, Spirit-filled people consistently disagree on this.
Since it's an open-handed issue, by which I mean our eschatological views aren't foundational to our understanding of who God is or what it means to know Him, try to hold any of your ideas about the end times with an open hand, especially if you're new to studying Revelation and you've gotten most of your information secondhand.
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