8 Reasons I’m Teaching Revelation

Since moving to Nashville, I have had the privilege of teaching the auditorium class on Wednesday nights. This class, with about 50 or so regularly in attendance, is a joy to teach. The class constantly amazes me with their depth of Biblical knowledge, and our discussions are helpful and interesting.

In April 2008, we began a verse-by-verse study of the Gospel according to John. Due to my slow pace and the class’s regular comments, that study took 23 months. Following that, we looked at the three epistles of John, which took about 6 months. These studies were helpful to me, and (hopefully) each student as well.

Naturally, since we have discussed four of the five books written by John, we decided to continue on and study the final book of the Bible. After a brief “mini-series,” in which we viewed the DVD series “The Silencing of God,” we will begin a study of The Revelation of Jesus Christ tonight. I am looking forward to this study, although I know it will be challenging.

Many Christians have never been through a systematic study of the book of Revelation, and many are afraid to teach the book in any depth. Admittedly, I am nervous about the study, but I believe in studying the entire Bible, including this challenging book.

Here are 8 reasons why I am going ahead with this series, and why I’m looking forward to it.

1. Christ promised a blessing to those who do so! (Revelation 1:3)

2. Christians need to be willing to tackle challenges. Far too often we see a text (or, in this case, an entire book) that is difficult, so we just jump over it to more familiar parts of Scripture. Just as we challenge our children to grow in their knowledge of the world, we must challenge ourselves with more difficult parts of Scripture so we can grow in maturity and faith.

3. God would not put something in the Bible that we would not gain from. Yes, Revelation has some difficult parts, but the overall message is one that helps us grow. It is from God, and it is to our benefit.

4. It helps us understand other parts of Scripture, and vice versa. Can you imagine reading a novel of, say, 30 chapters and stopping after reading 29? Not only is your interest piqued, but so is your knowledge leading into that final chapter. Revelation is the Bible’s “final chapter,” if you please. It fills in so much information for us, and helps us interpret other parts of Scripture, just as other passages help us gain more from it.

5. It is interesting, uplifting, and exciting! Very few books capture our thoughts the way Revelation does. If it were nothing more than another piece of literature, it would still be worthy of reading, because it is so engaging. But, being inspired, it holds a special amount of interest for us.

6. It brings hope to a hopeless world. The message of Revelation is one of conquering and hope. Our world needs to hear that message.

7. It helps us stay away from error. Far too many false teachings have been introduced or “proven” by false interpretations from this book. A proper understanding can help people “head off” many of these teachings, and give them an even stronger faith.

8. It was written to Christians who we can identify with. No, most of us are not going to be killed (or even have the threat of such) for our faith. A careful analysis of the seven churches of Asia, to whom the letter is written, though, will show us that we are not much different in many of our actions and circumstances.

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Obviously, there are more reasons than that, but I’d like to hear your thoughts. Why do you teach/preach from this great book?