Bible Challenge: Revelation

We start on the book of Revelation this week.

Revelation is what is known as apocalyptic literature.  The word apocalypse has come to mean the end of the world, but that's not really what it means.

Apocalyptic literature is literature that uses one story to teach a lesson about something else - usually things that it isn't safe to talk about openly.

An example of this is the original Star Trek series.  It talked about issues of race relations, the Vietnam War and women's rights, but because it was set in the future it was allowed to be on the air - if they had tried to tackle those issues head on they would not have had as much of an impact.  That is apocalyptic literature.

The book of Revelation is talking about the struggles of the first century church with the prevailing culture, and especially the Roman Empire.  It wasn't okay to talk about that openly, so the author of Revelation (possibly the apostle John himself) set the discussion at the end of the world.