- Read Revelation 1:1-8. Who is this book all about and what do we learn about him in these opening verses?
- What does it mean that this book serves as a “testimony” or “witness” (v. 2)?
- Even in this short opening John manages to unveil a good deal of what he believes about God and Jesus, and about the divine plan. God is the Almighty, the beginning and the end. Other “lords” and rulers will claim similar titles, but there is only one God to whom they belong.
What other “lords” in our own day make competing claims to the Almighty status that—as John testifies here—in reality belongs to God alone?
- Read Revelation 1:9-20. Where is John when he writes this letter and why is he there?
- Why would this be important to John’s original readers?
- Exile has given John time to pray, to reflect, and now to receive the most explosive vision of God’s power and love. How have you experienced God’s power and love in the midst of painful or distressing situations?
- What does John see when he turns to find out who is speaking to him (vv. 12-16)?
- This vision of Jesus draws together the vision of two characters in one of the most famous biblical visions, that of Daniel 7. There, as the suffering of God’s people reaches its height, “the Ancient of Days” takes his seat in heaven, and “one like a son of man” (in other words, a human figure, representing God’s people and, in a measure, all the human race) is presented before him, and enthroned alongside him. Now, in John’s vision, these two pictures seem to have merged. When we are looking at Jesus, he is saying, we are looking straight through him at the Father himself.
Why is it significant for us that the one who represents humanity and the God who rules above all come together in the person of Jesus?
- What is John’s response when he sees this vision of the “one like a son of man” in the midst of the lampstands (v. 17)?
- Why does Jesus emphasize that he is the “living one” who holds “the keys of death and Hades” (vv. 17-18)?
- Seven is the number of perfection, and the seven churches listed in verse 11 stand for all churches in the world, all places and all times. The seven churches need to know that Jesus himself is standing in their midst, and that the “angels” who represent and look after each of them are held in his right hand.
How might this vision of Jesus in the midst of the churches have comforted suffering believers in the first century?
- How does it bring comfort to us today?
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NT for Everyone: Bible Study Guide
About This Book
Many regard Revelation as the hardest book in the New Testament. It is full of strange, lurid, and sometimes bizarre and violent imagery. As a result, people who are quite at home in the Gospels, Acts and Paul's letters find themselves tiptoeing around Revelation with a sense that they don't really belong there. But they do! This book offers one of the clearest and sharpest visions of God's ultimate purpose for the whole creation. Here we see how the powerful forces of evil can be and are being overthrown through the victory of Jesus the Messiah, which continues to inspire and strengthen his followers today. The guides in this series by Tom Wright can be used on their own or alongside his New Testament for Everyone commentaries. They are designed to help you understand the Bible in fresh ways under the guidance of one of the world's leading New Testament scholars.
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PERGAMUM AND THYATIRA
- Read Revelation 2:1-7. What words of praise, warning and promise are spoken to the church at Ephesus?
- The Ephesian believers have drawn a clear line between those who are really following Jesus and those who are not (v. 2). As all church workers know, a group that is rightly concerned for the truth of the gospel may forget that the very heart of that gospel is love. What can we do to help maintain this delicate balance between truth and love in our own churches today?
- Read Revelation 2:8-11. In the church at Smyrna, the Lord finds nothing to condemn. What seems to be the main focus of this letter?
- The Jewish synagogue in Smyrna has become a “satan-synagogue”—not just in a vague, general, abusive sense, but in the rather sharply defined sense that, as “the satan” is literally “the accuser,” the synagogue in town has been “accusing” the Christians of all kinds of wickedness. What is the Lord’s advice to the church at Smyrna when it comes to responding to such accusations and their...
Table of contents
- Cover
- Title page
- Imprint
- Table of contents
- 1. Jesus Revealed
- 2. Letters to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum and Thyatira
- 3. Letters to Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea
- 4. Praise to the Creator
- 5. Worthy Is the Lamb!
- 6. The Day Is Coming
- 7. Sealing God’s People
- 8. The Golden Censer and the First Plagues
- 9. Locusts and Fiery Riders
- 10. A Little Scroll
- 11. Two Witnesses and a Song of Triumph
- 12. The Woman and the Angry Dragon
- 13. Two Monsters
- 14. The Lamb’s Elite Warriors
- 15. Reaping the Harvest and Preparing the Plagues
- 16. The Seven Plagues
- 17. The Monster and the Whore
- 18. Babylon’s Judgment
- 19. God’s Victory
- 20. The Thousand-Year Reign and the Final Judgment
- 21. New Heaven, New Earth, New Jerusalem
- 22. God and the Lamb Are There
- Guidelines for leaders