Reflections on Teaching Revelation

Last night, the Wednesday night class that I teach finished our study of the last book of the Bible, Revelation. It took us almost exactly one year to walk through the book, but it has been a joy. While challenging to teach, I have greatly enjoyed teaching the class. I did, however, tell the class that we are doing something far easier for the next few weeks!

After this experience of teaching the book, let me give you 10 random reflections. Some deal with the message of the book, while some deal with teaching it in general.

1. It is wonderful to be on the victorious side! If nothing else, I was reminded of the awesome privilege of knowing that Christ has already defeated Satan, and that His people are victorious in the end.

2. People are genuinely interested in this book. We had people leave other classes to attend this study, some for the entire year.

3. I’m thankful our study was not bound by time. I try not to “drag” through a study on purpose, but Revelation takes time. There is no substitute for serious time spent in this book. I didn’t count the number of Wednesday nights we spent in the book, but I estimate it was over 40.

4. Satan is terrible. One of the endearing qualities of the Bible to me is that God shows us not only the reality of our enemy, but also how powerful and cunning our enemy is. Nowhere is that seen more clearly than in a careful study of Revelation. Studying the book should make us see that Satan is defeated, but still influential.

5. I recommend four resources highly. I used dozens (literally) of sources to prepare, but I kept coming back to four.

• David Roper’s 2-volume commentary from the Truth for Today series. There is no way I can recommend this book too highly. Go to this page and buy both volumes. Today. Right now. … and thank me later!
• Andy Kizer’s class notes. When I was at 9th Avenue, I had the privilege to study part of Revelation under Andy Kizer’s teaching. His notes for the class were amazing, and I used them a lot to help prepare.
• William Barclay’s book Letters to the Seven Churches. Obviously, this helped with chapters 2 and 3, but Barclay’s look at the background of each city is both scholarly and easily read.
• W.B. West Jr.’s book Revelation through First-Century Glasses. West takes Revelation to be written about the fall of Jerusalem, and I took it to be written about the fall of Rome. Still, I found his short, pithy comments to be a great help.

There were dozens of other books, notebooks, documents, and websites that I used, but these four formed a helpful “foundation” of material for both studying and teaching the book.

6. Heaven is going to be worth it all. Wow….what a place that is! Enough said?

7. Introduction and review are crucial. We spent three weeks in introductory material on the book. We looked at the type of literature we were dealing with, historical background, and certain other important matters (numbers in the book, etc.). Though we spent three weeks on this, it helped us move more quickly through the text, because we could then just refer back to our introduction instead of having to teach all that in the middle of our study. Also, when we finished, I took last night to give “22 Chapters in 22 Minutes,” which was a quick review of the book. It is easy to get so caught up in the details of the book over such a long study that we fail to see the whole picture. Here is the PPT to that review:

8. Questions are crucial. I welcome questions in any class I teach, but they were essential in this study. Since this is such a hard book, I used the questions as a gauge of whether or not people were “getting it” in this study. Often, the questions led to very helpful discussion, for which we were all beneficiaries.

9. Old Testament knowledge is essential. Though I had studied Revelation before, I was again blown away by the sheer volume of references to Old Testament people, places, and things. We dare not neglect the first 39 books of the Bible if we are going to understand the final 27.

10. “Come, Lord Jesus.” What a fitting way to end the book, but I will end this post the way I ended the class. Is that our prayer?

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Have you taught Revelation? What are some of your reflections?