REV-02 Structure and Content

A friend of mine once told me about his visit to a tapestry shop outside of Cairo, Egypt. They had rooms full of people weaving carpets together. My friend was captivated by the way these thin strands of fabric could be woven with thousands of similar strands to make the complex patterns of the tapestries. The beauty of the strands came to life when they were incorporated into the tapestry. And the book of Revelation is a little like a tapestry. It’s full of tiny prophecies that draw much of their meaning from the other prophecies around them. And its message is most clear when we read the book as a whole, and see the big picture it’s drawing for us.

This is the second lesson in our series on The Book of Revelation, and we have titled it “Structure and Content.” In this lesson, we’ll explore John’s book by considering its literary composition and how its various parts fit together.

We’ll begin our exploration of the structure and content of Revelation by looking briefly at John’s purpose for writing. Next, we’ll explore the details of the book of Revelation itself. And finally we’ll survey some common strategies for its modern application. Let's begin by looking at John’s purpose.

John’s purpose for writing Revelation was almost as complex as the book itself, so we can’t explore all its details in this lesson. But we can still summarize his central purposes in this way: John wrote the book of Revelation to encourage suffering Christians to remain faithful until Jesus returns.

As we indicated in our first lesson in this series, John’s persecuted readers were experiencing numerous temptations to compromise their faith. So, John wrote to assure the churches in Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea, and the rest of the world that Christ knew their suffering and would see them through it. Revelation guaranteed that Jesus was already in control of their glorious future, and that he would reward all his faithful followers.

In line with his role as God’s prophet, John’s purpose was expressed in two complementary messages from Jesus to the churches of Asia Minor. First, John delivered offers of blessings for everyone that was loyal to Jesus. And second, he conveyed threats of curses against all who were disloyal. We’ll explore both these types of messages, beginning with offers of blessing.