Revelation

This past weekend has been a bit of a whirlwind. Starting Tuesday night thru Thursday night with band practice and setting up for Kids Kamp this past weekend. What a great times we had... And exhausting as well. But it was all worth it to see God's word proclaimed in song and in message. This week I had a workshop for my seminary class starting on Monday which was a biblical exegesis on the book of revelation. I had intentions on doing some modifications to my guitar in my downtime but either my ineptitude or divine intervention kept me from accomplishing that. In fact I have to take my guitar to Tuscaloosa on the way home to get it de-gregged. I guess God had different plans for me this week. If his plans involved me finding some great food in new Orleans, I am definitely in his will. But it was of course more than that this week. I have had time to reflect on my presuppositions in my walk. When i first became a follower of Christ I listened to the views of other followers in regards to much, but in particular the book of revelation. I assumed their views of the tribulation and millennialism. I therefore took on the premise of "I will be outa here when all this goes down so I don't need to concern myself with such difficult material". I guess that is how it was left and never really focused on it since. That is where this class came as a necessary intervention of sorts. In seminary, there is a plethora of reading involved... As well as research papers. I guess the seminary didn't know that not writing papers and little reading were advantages of obtaining a degree in engineering. Whatever. In my reading I was surrounded by the things I was avoiding. A book with arguments (sometimes more literal) to different views on the millennium, and a commentary that kept kicking a dead horse furthered my insistence on my previous stance. My paper helped to dissipate some of those concerns by broadening my scope of view on the new Jerusalem and the new earth and the perfect world to come. Then came Monday. The professor really challenged my understanding of the views that I and others have regarding this difficult book. What bothers me is this is the view that I typically take on every other book of the bible. He said that we try to label views or ideas as pre-, post- or a- millennialist and neglect the text for what it actually says ( in particular the original audience) and instead try to superimpose ideas or beliefs into the text. How idiotic of me. "I don't know" is a perfectly acceptable answer to the questions that arise from reading this book. Jesus himself said that no one knows the day or the hour except the father. Now if Jesus doesn't know, how should I know? So I don't know what every detail means from john's vision. That is ok. I still can't get my head around grace, so the end times is not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. This letter was sent to followers of Christ who were undergoing intense persecution at the hands of the roman empire. They needed encouragement in a big way. God allows John a vantage point to relay a message of hope. The message is timeless as God transcends time. The imagery makes much more sense when you don't try to read it chronologically. ( see previous statement regarding presuppositions). It starts coming together when the "timeline" is considered as a spiral instead. At this time I am tired of writing on a tablet and I will expound on this later. See ya