You can listen to the full audio here: Beyond Sunday School: Revelation - Introduction
Revelation is one of the most misunderstood—and most avoided—books of the Bible. It can feel strange, confusing, even frightening. Dragons, beasts, bowls of wrath, angels, demons—it’s easy to wonder what we’re supposed to do with a book like this.
We begin with a simple question: What is Revelation actually trying to do?
My hope is that as we work through this book together, Revelation will become less scary and more hopeful, less about decoding the future and more about forming faithful people in the present.
A Letter to Real People
Revelation is, first and foremost, a letter. It was written to real churches, in real cities, facing real pressure and persecution.
The author tells us his name is John. Which John? We don’t know for sure and that’s okay. The original audience didn’t need that information to understand the message. Modern readers tend to fixate on details the ancient world simply didn’t worry about. They were less concerned with precision and more concerned with meaning.
Soaked in the Old Testament
One thing becomes clear almost immediately: Revelation is steeped in the Old Testament. Its imagery, symbols, and themes are drawn from Israel’s Scriptures. Revelation isn’t inventing a new story, it’s retelling God’s story using familiar images in unfamiliar ways.
That’s why we’ll keep circling back to the Old Testament as we go.
Not a Timeline, but a Spiral
Revelation doesn’t move in a straight line. It doesn’t unfold like a timeline where one event leads neatly to the next. Instead, it tells the same story over and over again, each time from a different angle.
After an opening vision and letters to seven real churches, the book pulls back the curtain and shows us a deeper reality: God’s throne, the Lamb, and the unseen spiritual forces at work in the world. From there, we move through cycles—the seals, the trumpets, the bowls—each retelling the story of creation, brokenness, redemption, and hope.
The theological word for this is recapitulation. Revelation spirals rather than progresses. Problems arise when we try to force it into a strict, linear timeline. That approach creates fear, speculation, and confusion; and it misses the point.
A Book Full of Symbols
Revelation communicates primarily through symbolism. That doesn’t make it less true; it’s simply how this kind of literature works.
When John describes Jesus with a sword coming out of his mouth, he’s not giving us a literal picture. He’s using imagery to communicate power—the Word of God that judges, heals, and restores. Revelation is full of scenes like this: vivid images meant to shape our imagination and faith.
When in doubt, symbolism is usually the right starting point.
Knowing Our Limits
We also need to admit our limitations. We are not first-century people. We don’t share the cultural instincts of Revelation’s original audience. There will be moments when the most honest answer is, we’re not entirely sure.
What we can say with confidence is this: Revelation cannot mean something to us that it did not mean to them. It was not written to predict modern geopolitics or chart the end of the world in detail.
What Revelation Is Really For
Revelation was written to encourage perseverance.
The churches receiving this letter were facing suffering and persecution. John himself was exiled by Rome. Revelation exists to remind God’s people that despite appearances, God reigns—and the Lion who is the Lamb has already conquered through his life, death, resurrection, and ascension.
Because of that, God’s people can press on. They can remain faithful. They can live with integrity even in hardship.
That is the heart of Revelation.
When read this way, Revelation becomes not a book of fear, but a book of hope—a reminder that God is faithful, Christ has won, and perseverance is possible.
As we begin this journey together, what has shaped the way you’ve understood—or avoided—the book of Revelation up to now?