Daily Bible Guide - Reservoir Church

The Revelation of Jesus Christ – Revelation Bible Guide Day 1

read the Introduction to this Bible Guide

Day 1

Revelation 1:1-8

¹The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place; he made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, ²who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw.

³Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of the prophecy, and blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written in it; for the time is near.

⁴John to the seven churches that are in Asia:

Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, ⁵and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.
To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, ⁶and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

⁷Look! He is coming with the clouds;
every eye will see him,
even those who pierced him;
and on his account all the tribes of the earth will wail.

So it is to be. Amen.

⁸“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.

Points of Interest

“The revelation of Jesus Christ” – The first two verses are a title to the book and tell us what genre we’re in – revelation, or literally, apocalypse. We hear that word and think of the destruction of the world, or at least the end of the world as we know it. But the Greek word for this literally means “uncovering” or “revealing.” Apocalyptic literature was an enormously popular form of Jewish spiritual writing in the first century A.D. and in the few centuries preceding. As Babylonian, then Persian, then Greek, and then Roman empires dominated the known world, Jewish writers – including first century followers of Jesus – kept returning to symbols, imagery and poetry to try to pull back the curtain on this known world and see what God might be up to.
“prophecy” – John’s writing is also prophetic. Prophecy is a timely word of comfort or challenge from God. It’s often about the present as much or more than the future.
“John” – Tradition holds that he is the disciple of Jesus that also wrote the gospel of John and the three letters of John in the Bible, but we don’t know that this is true.
“from him who is and who was and who is to come” – This is a rich statement about God’s lifespan through all time, maybe even outside of time. God is alive now, always has been and always will be. It’s also an indication of the different time spans in which we can understand Revelation. It’s partly a book about the future end of history as we know it, but probably less so than many modern readers have imagined. Revelation isn’t some kind of codebook for our geopolitical future, as some have imagined it to be. It’s also partly a book about the past. Revelation cites Old Testament scripture exhaustively and can be read as a coded story about followers of Jesus surviving and thriving under the Roman Empire. We can also read Revelation as providing timely insights into our present. Revelation gives us poetic language and imagery to reflect on the nature of God, evil, history, and more. It also gives us insight into following Jesus while living within a corrupt, bankrupt, unjust human culture and empire.
“from the seven spirits who are before his throne” – the seven spirits are most likely a poetic description of the Holy Spirit, imagined in angelic terms. There may be roots in Isaiah 11, where the Spirit of God is described with seven qualities. ¬
“ruler of the kings of the earth… made us to be a kingdom” – In John’s praise of Jesus, he gives us one of the first anti-imperial encouragements for followers of Jesus. Jesus – not Rome’s Caesar or our president or anyone else – has authority over all the kings of the earth. And followers of Jesus are being shaped into a kingdom – a people or family of God who are loved and free, and available to serve God’s good purposes in our times.
“He is coming with the clouds… the tribes of the earth will wail” – Jesus coming with or on the clouds is a metaphorical image drawn from the late Old Testament book of Daniel. It tells us Jesus is here with us, or he’s coming soon. While Jesus famously brings good news, apparently some people – those who pierced him for sure – will have some different emotions, some reckoning when they next see him.
“the Alpha and the Omega” – the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. The God who lives within and outside of all time – present, past, and future, is the beginning and the end and everything in between.

Spiritual Exercise

Revelation is presented as a word from Jesus, spoken by the Spirit of God, to followers of Jesus. Seven churches, representing churches all around the world, are also told to listen to what the Spirit is saying. So our first week’s spiritual exercises are about listening. What might the Spirit of God be saying to you through today’s passage? Has anything struck your mind or heart? Looking back over the last 24 hours – yours highs and lows, joy or sorrow, presence or distraction, anxiety or peace – has the Spirit of God spoken to you through your life or though any other person? Pay attention for a moment, listen, and ask God how you can respond to whatever comes to mind.

A Direction for Prayer

As you begin the 40 Days of faith, pray that you and your church are encouraged by an experience of Jesus with you and by a fresh word from Jesus to you.

Bible Guide – Day 2

The Bible Guide

This blog post is part of a Lenten journey through the book of Revelation. Every year during the season of Lent, we take a focused look at a portion of Scripture as part of our communal spiritual practice. This year, we are exploring what it means to be Children of God in a Fractured World, with Revelation as our lens. The series starts here.

Revelation Bible Guide – Introduction

Lent at Reservoir

Each year during the pre-Easter season of Lent, what we at Reservoir affectionately call 40 Days of Faith, we’ve become accustomed to exploring a section of Scripture together. You can check out past daily bible guides here if you’re interested. This year, we’re going to explore the book of Revelation, and focus on our identity as children of God in a fractured world. Our Sunday sermons will also explore this from 2/18-4/1, so you’re invited to read/listen to those as well.

Revelation: Children of God in a Fractured World

The last time I heard the book of Revelation mentioned was in a podcast about a basketball coach who was sued by a family for the coach’s cult-like, creepy mind control influence on their child. The coach was a fundamentalist Christian inspired by his church’s interpretation of the book of Revelation. The story of people and churches reading Revelation is full of these types of anecdotes. Revelation, the last book of the Bible, barely made it into the Bible at all, and ever since the early church councils agreed to keep it, it’s been causing trouble.

Nietzsche is said to have called Revelation “the most rabid outburst of vindictiveness in all recorded history,” and George Bernard Shaw is said to have somewhat more gently called it “the curious record of the visions of a drug addict.”

Readings of Revelation have helped support extensive campaigns of religion violence. They’ve been behind innumerable false predictions of the end of the world, paranoid slander of various religious and secular leaders, and loads of bad Christian art and fiction. It’s been said that most Bible-readers don’t read Revelation and the ones who do – well – we wish they wouldn’t.

So why read Revelation at all, and why read it together during our 40 Days of Faith? Well, with just a little background information and guidance, it can be pretty fun. Revelation is written in a genre called apocalyptic literature that was quite popular during its time and is now again in ours. Apocalypse literally means “revelation.” Using vivid symbols and poetry, apocalyptic literature tries to reveal important things about the present and the future that we might otherwise miss. A little bit like zombie thrillers or science fiction or fantasy, apocalyptic uses unconventional, non-literal writing to grip our imaginations and stir our souls.

Additionally, I think Revelation has just a ton of contemporary relevance. It was originally written to people trying to follow Jesus as residents of a Roman Empire, whose culture and leaders alternatively shaped and seduced and threatened them. Revelation tells its readers that their fractured world doesn’t offer the only set of terms to live by. God’s children can have a better future and a better present than what’s available by just going with the flow.

Those of us who live in the contemporary United States live in one of the only nations whose power and good news-propaganda eclipse that of the ancient Roman Empire. More and more, we live in times where this is unmasked as hollow and fractured. Perhaps we wonder how to live our lives and face our eventual deaths with more courage, hope, and resistance. If so, Revelation helps lead the way.

Each weekday in Lent, we’ll present you with a different passage, in the New Revised Standard Version, followed by the three sections below. On weekends, you can catch up on a missed day, review a favorite passage, or skip the guide all together.

Points of Interest – a handful of comments, which include literary or historical notes as well as impressions, thoughts, questions, and reactions. These aren’t meant to be exhaustive or authoritative, but simply to give you some more perspective to work with as you ponder the passage yourself.
Spiritual Exercise – each week, there will a different daily spiritual exercise to try, inspired by the week’s passages.
A Direction for Prayer – there will also be a prompt for prayer that you can use. These invitations focus on the prayers for others we encourage you to try during this season:
- For you: We invite you to name one particularly deep desire you have to see God at work. In making this daily prayer, you’re getting in touch with your own desire — a healthy thing in its own right. You’re also making space for God to work on your behalf and fulfilling one of Jesus’ baseline conditions for new covenant faith — acknowledging you aren’t self-su icient, but could use God’s help.
- For your six: Consider six of your favorite people, people you interact with on a regular basis, who don’t seem to have much of a direct connection to God, but for whom you are very much rooting. What does this passage have to say to them, or to you about them?
- For your church or city: How can we apply the passage corporately as a faith community?
- For our city: What does the passage say about or to our entire city?
  The Daily Bible Guide, while it can certainly be a standalone product, is designed to be one component of a bigger package called 40 Days of Faith – a six-week faith experiment that includes sermons, small group discussions, further prayer exercises, and more. You can learn more about the full 40 Days of Faith in this year’s User Manual

One more note before we begin. As the guide isn’t a commentary or academic document, it’s not filled with footnotes, but the following commentaries and books have helped shape my reading and notes on Revelation. Thanks and credit to these resources: Reading Revelation Responsibly by Michael Gorman, Unveiling Empire by Wes Howard-Brook and Anthony Gwyther, Breaking the Code by Bruce Metzger, The Apocalypse by Charles Talbert, and Reversed Thunder by Eugene Peterson. If you wanted to read just one book about Revelation, Gorman’s would be it.

That’s all for our introduction! Day 1 of the bible guide will be Monday, February 19.

Bible Guide – Day 1