Revelation can be a mysterious, strange and scary book. The imagery, language, pictures are dramatic: dragons, beasts, plagues, curses - all this is scary stuff, especially when read in the Bible - a book we come to in order to find hope and comfort. So what are we to make of it?

Revelation tells a cosmic story - the means by which God brings redemption to the world. But it also speaks to us about how we are to live in the light of this. The throne at the centre of the story is at the heart of what this means - worship of the lamb. 

To enter into the message of the book, we must set it in its historical context and this means understanding genre and how that genre uses symbols and allegory to paint a picture that those with eyes to see and ears to hear will understand.

Revelation is a book to be taken seriously but perhaps not in the way we have previously considered; at least not for the approach we are taking here because for our sojourn into the book we are choosing a devotional route - a path with discipleship at its heart. When we leave Revelation it must be as those whose hearts have been drawn deeper into our worship of the lamb. 

John’s apocalypse is written to churches living under the domination of the Roman Empire, and the propaganda of the might of Rome was having a significant impact upon the church which spanned from relative prosperity on the one hand to a real fear of persecution on the other. The seven Churches are addressed directly by Jesus, “Write on a scroll what you see and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea.” Revelation 1:11 The Lord of the Church is directing his people with a combination of both commendation and correction. How will they stay faithful in the midst of all they face was at the heart of what is written. The challenge they faced was ultimately one of devotion. Of how, in the midst of living every day, they will maintain loyalty to he who says, ‘I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and now look, I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades. Revelation 1:17-18’ 

The challenge was very real - and in a way we can fail to understand. Morgan writes: ‘As Christian individuals and communities in Asia Minor interacted with family members, friends, business associates, and public officials who did not share their conviction that “Jesus is Lord,” the basic early Christian confession (Rom 10:9), these believers were faced with hard questions and decisions. Should they continue to participate in social activities that have a pagan (non-Jewish, non-Christian) religious character? This would include most activities: watching or participating in athletic and rhetorical contests; buying and eating meat in the precincts of pagan temples; and frequenting trade guilds, clubs, and events in private homes, each with their meetings, drinking parties, and banquets. They would even have wondered, “Should we or can we go to pagan temples to do our banking or purchase meat? Should we acknowledge the sovereignty of the emperor when asked to do so at a public event in the precincts of his temple, or at another of the many events in his honor?”’[1]

It was real because of the imminent threat up their life. The Church in Pergamum new this only too well since they had witnessed the martyrdom of one of their own as we see in the letter written to them. ‘Yet you remain true to my name. You did not renounce your faith in me, not even in the days of Antipas, my faithful witness, who was put to death in your city—where Satan lives.’ Revelation 2:13

Remaining true was a choice - one we can overlook for the simple reason the threat is not the same. We live in relative safety, the West is increasingly post Christian but we don’t live with the real fear of persecution - the values of our faith may be increasingly marginalised but that’s a very different thing. We can still peacefully practice our religion even if we have lost our voice to shape policy and practice in the nation. Our challenge is not so much persecution as it is relevance and more importantly - compromise. The current danger is not that we would die for our faith but that we would live without it. We are in practice closer to Laodicea than we are Pergamum. For the church in Laodicea a different subtle and deceptive agent was at work. 

‘These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation. I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm---neither hot nor cold---I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see. Revelation 3:14-18.’

The relative prosperity of the town of Laodicea had led the believers into a form of security built around the acquiring of wealth - they’d concluded they were fine, their wealth providing safety that was referred for Jesus alone. Their rebuke was clear and forthright - it was time for turning back to the loyalty of the Lamb. 

I think we can too easily identify with the charge laid at the door of the Laodiceans - the human heart has a propensity to stray - the book of Revelation is written to draw us back to Christ alone. It teaches us what living for the Lamb is all about and it is built around what is the central vision of the book found in chapters 4 and 5. 
Morgan writes, ‘In worship, the community of faith realizes its new identity under the lordship of the Lamb and under the conscious, intentional rejection of the claims to lordship made by Babylon/Rome. As the place where the new being is repeatedly practiced, worship is also a locus of resistance against the anti-God powers, and, since the Apocalypse was read out in worship, also a place of hearing, seeing, learning, and insight.’[2]

Rome has quickly established itself as an imperial cult under the leadership of the Caesars, a term helpfully explained in Wikipedia. ‘An imperial cult is a form of state religion in which an emperor or a dynasty of emperors (or rulers of another title) are worshipped as demigods or deities. "Cult" here is used to mean "worship", not in the modern pejorative sense.’[3]

The Imperial cult was inseparable from that of Rome's official deities, whose cult was essential to Rome's survival and whose neglect was therefore treasonous. It's when you understand the centrality of state worship in these terms that we start to understand the implication of making a counter claim to the Empire – the traditional greeting: ‘Caesar is Lord’, is replaced by the growing group of Christians: ‘No! Jesus is Lord’. We sing the words as a song – they sung them on the way to be doused in tar and set a light. No wonder they felt such a dilemma as to what loyalty to Jesus might mean for them.

This imperial cult was especially widespread in Asia Minor and the cities where the churches of Revelation were located. Pergamum, site of “Satan’s throne” (Rev 2:13)—possibly a reference to the temple of the imperial cult at the top of the city’s imposing acropolis—was permitted in 29 B.C., by the very first emperor, Augustus, to erect a temple to him and to Rome. Cities like Ephesus and Smyrna also had significant temples of the imperial cult. Ephesus was frequently recognized as a proper guardian of the imperial cult, and the city blended its worship of Artemis with worship of the emperor. Smyrna had built a temple to the goddess Roma in 195 B.C. and then one to Emperor Tiberius in A.D. 26. There was some form of the imperial cult in all seven cities.[4] A challenge to all the churches – one which is addressed by John – the hearing and seeing one.

And so, ‘Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near’ (Rev 1:3). The words of Revelation come to us from John – the prophet pastor in order that those following after the Lamb might be formed and transformed into the likeness of Jesus.

That’s why the book of Revelation should be read as a devotional quest. Where do our loyalties lie -and do those loyalties change with the latest idea, concept or challenge?

For the churches identified in Revelation the challenge of loyalty came at three levels:

• Loyalty in the face of plenty
• Loyalty in the face of persecution
• Loyalty in the face of intimidation 

For each church the challenge was different. John Stott captures what he sees as those challenges and what are the true marks of the church – each shown in one of the seven churches in Revelation. Love (Ephesus), suffering (Smyrna), truth (Pergamum), holiness (Thyatira), authenticity (Sardis), mission (Philadelphia), and wholeheartedness (Laodicea). And as Eugene Peterson notes, ‘”[a] random selection of seven churches in any century, including our own, would turn up something very much like the seven churches” addressed in Revelation.’[5] But for us today we do well to ask what does loyalty to Jesus look like from the perspective of the challenges these churches faced?

Morgan sets well the tone of our own study when he writes: ‘That Revelation 2–3 contains an outline of church history[6] seems rather forced and quite far-fetched. But the idea that these seven churches somehow symbolize the range of possible Christian churches—particularly the range of common dangers the churches face—is much more plausible.’[7]

If our journey into the prophecy draws out such qualities in greater measure then maybe its done its job – of securing the hearts and minds of the followers of Jesus today. What is for certain the challenge of loyalty is one we all face – and often on several fronts, how we handle this determines whether with any level of integrity we can say in the face of any dominant empire or force, whether of this age or the one to come: Jesus is Lord.

Footnotes
[1] Reading Revelation Responsibly; Michael J. Morgan. Location 772
[2] Reading Revelation Responsibly; Michael J. Morgan. Location 825
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_cult
[4] Reading Revelation Responsibly; Michael J. Morgan. Location 985
[5] Reading Revelation Responsibly; Michael J. Morgan. Location 2020
[6] Some having taken the seven churches and read them as different ages for the church – such a reading suggests that currently the age of the church is Laodicean but this is not the approach we are taking in these studies.
[7] Reading Revelation Responsibly; Michael J. Morgan. Location 2003

I recently worked through a teaching series at Hope based on the book of Revelation. Because of the nature of the book and some of its complexities I prepared additional notes which we will compile together over time as an e-book. In the meantime i thought I would post them a section at a time on my blog.

Introduction 
Revelation is not for the faint hearted which is why many Christians have stayed well clear of this complex, yet extraordinary book. The great Reformer, Martin Luther said: ‘“to my mind, it [the book of the Revelation] bears upon it no marks of an apostolic or prophetic character… Everyone may form his own judgment of this book; as for myself, I feel an aversion to it, and to me this is sufficient reason for rejecting it.” Harsh comments from the founder of Protestantism! That it’s difficult to interpret is without doubt, so much so that it was the only book in the New Testament for which Calvin didn’t write a commentary. It was both its strangeness and lack of clarity over authorship – it’s widely acknowledged that the John referred to is not the Apostle John – that almost left Revelation outside the New Testament canon.  Yet this book, edged as it was into the Holy Book by the ‘skin of its teeth’ has kept tongues wagging and debates rolling for Centuries. So, what are we to make of it and what place does the Apocalypse (which is what Revelation means) hold for the life of believers today? The answer lies in how we view the book, for what we see will determine how we interpret it and there are at least four ways this has been attempted over the years. But more of that later.

For now, we need to trace a path into Revelation that will help navigate a course and hopefully make the book more accessible. Like myself, many Christians approach Revelation as a predictive text for end times - in fact this has been the normal approach of late Nineteenth Century Christian Fundamentalism, however this will not be the way that I handle the text here. Over the years I have held many different views of the End Times (or Eschatology as it’s known) - in terms of when and how the ‘end of the age’ will come to pass. 

My early Christianity led me to books by authors like Hal Lindsey - The Late Great Planet Earth and Approaching Armageddon. There was a lot of literalism tied into the interpretation along with diagrams of nuclear arsenals held between the United States and the then USSR. Such teachings led one to believe in either a pre, mid or post tribulation rapture - as if the rapture was a fundamental part of Christian Orthodoxy - rather than a more recent approach made popular by books like the Left Behind Series. Such teaching followed me all the way to Bible College and back out again. This time framed in the teaching of a more moderate and considered theology from David Pawson and his book, When Jesus Returns. What I appreciated about Pawson was his commitment to Scripture and interpreting it well, whilst at the same time acknowledging the different schools of thought in areas where the Church has held more than one view.  

Entering the pastorate can easily take you away from theology and, if you are not well disciplined, the ongoing process of learning. In recent years it has led me to hold eschatology at a distance, but you can only do this for so long. Eschatology matters, because it is tied deeply to what we believe about the world we inhabit and the end of the age, and thus how we view and manage current social, economic, political and environmental issues. One might argue the value of this save for one matter of critical importance - the young. The Western Church - and particularly American Evangelicalism, which is usually then played out in UK Christian Culture too, is haemorrhaging millennials and young people. They are leaving the faith of their parents and this should matter to us. What we teach our young people about the future and theology, and in particular eschatology, matters. It is one of the issues that can help people disconnect from their faith altogether when the Church is seen to be dismissive of the world in which we live.
I grew up with the overriding narrative that Christ will return and the earth will be burned by fire therefore any work around conservation, climate change - the environment etc, was of little value. What mattered was seeing people saved - of getting them to heaven when they die. The gospel was very much framed around this idea. This was birthed out of a Platonical and dualist thinking about life and the separation of soul and spirit. Today we have a much broader understanding of the interrelated aspects of life. Science has served us well in this regard - we understand how the whole of life is connected and you can’t simply act in one area of life and not see the effect elsewhere. 

People care about the world they live in. Pollution in our oceans; rising sea levels; disregard for the rain forests and the like cause us to wonder what is happening in the world and move the young to ask - what we are doing to this one, beautiful planet? Poor eschatology has done a bad job of answering this which is why we must do better. 

When reading apocalyptic literature, which is what we read in Revelation, and other Bible passages like Daniel 7 and the Olivet discourse in the gospels, Matthew 24, Luke 21, Mark 13 (amongst others), we need to understand what is happening. The language of destroy, I believe, would be better replaced with that of renew, restore and reconcile. God is in the business of reconciling all things to himself in Christ (Colossians 1:20). So what does this look like?

I will be approaching our study of Revelation from this perspective since I believe this is the most pastorally relevant. As Michael J. Morgan writes ‘How one reads, teaches, and preaches Revelation can have a powerful impact on one’s own—and other people’s—emotional, spiritual, and even physical and economic well-being. Therefore, interpreting the book of Revelation is a serious and sacred responsibility, not to be entered into lightly. Furthermore, although Scripture is a living word from God that can bring a fresh message to people in changing contexts, with respect to Revelation it must be clearly stated that some readings are not only inferior to others, they are in fact unchristian and unhealthy.’[1]

That Revelation should be read as a subversive text has its clue not only from its genre but also its historical context. It teaches how to live in the face of dominant empires that are calling for the devotion that is reserved for God himself. It also highlights our tendency to idolatry and how we must avoid this form of duplicity. Our lives are to be given to the Lamb sacrificed is what Revelation teaches or as Morgan puts it: ‘Revelation is not about the antichrist, but about the living Christ. It is not about a rapture out of this world but about faithful discipleship in this world.’[2]

I am approaching my studies as a pastor rather than a scholar and therefore draw heavily on the work of scholars in interpreting Revelation. My role is to shepherd and so I will spend most time looking at how we should read the book devotionally and pastorally as humble servants of Jesus - or, as we will see, the Lamb. 

Time will be given to investigating the text in its original setting since this is the first point of interpretation. As Dr Van Shore says, ‘First century Jews and Christians were familiar with apocalyptic literature and motifs, it is appropriate to locate Revelation within the flow of Jewish apocalyptic literature of the period, concerning the conventions available to Revelation’s author and audience.’[3] It’s helpful to realise that what we read as strange, for the Jews of the New Testament, the language and imagery was common place and formed a genre of which we find lots of examples outside of Scripture and was very popular in the 1st Century.

We should only ask what Revelation means to us when we have answered - what did the book mean to them? As Schussler Fiorenza points out, ‘it is universally acknowledged that Revelation has to be understood in its historical-cultural and religious context’.[4]

John writes Revelation to seven historical churches situated around Asia Minor - it is only in appreciating what it meant to them that the book can have any value to us. Our first job is historical clarity before we consider contemporary application. There is for sure a contemporary application to Revelation - one more relevant today than ever, but that is not so much to predict the end of the age as it is to live as faithful followers of the one who is the Alpha and Omega. 
 
A Cosmic Story set in the Context of a Global Empire

Revelation tells a story – it’s a story about God’s call to faithfulness in the face of a dominant Empire. The Empire is Rome – Babylon, the beast or the Whore, as depicted in the book. The challenge is how these small groups of Jesus followers will live in the light of such domination. As Morgan writes, ‘No one can read Revelation without sensing that it tells a story, even if that story does not have a merely linear progression. There are major and minor characters, there is conflict and resolution, there is even a plot. Some have even likened Revelation to an ancient drama, complete with Greek choruses that burst into (liturgical) song, providing commentary on, as well as respite from, the dramatic action.’[5]

The story unfolds through five main plots as described by Morgan.

1. Creation and re-creation. This is the story of the faithful, missional, creator God bringing humanity and all creation to its proper end: reconciliation, harmony, and eternal joy in the presence of God.
2. Redemption. This is the closely related story of the faithful, missional, redeemer Lamb living, dying, reigning, and coming again to carry out the creator God’s mission and create a faithful, missional people.
3. Judgment. This is the story of the faithful, missional God and the Lamb bringing an end to evil as a necessary means for the purpose of re-creation and final redemption.
4. Witness: the suffering pilgrim church. This is the story of a faithful, missional people on earth who have been redeemed by the Lamb and empowered by the Spirit to worship and bear witness to God and the Lamb in spite of danger and persecution.
5. Victory: the church triumphant. This is the story of the faithful, missional people who worship God and the Lamb now and forever in their presence, the appropriate reward for their faithfulness even to death.[6]

The question is how do we enter this story today? What do beasts, dragons, and plagues have to do with 2019 and the world we live in? Again, we are not studying Revelation as a text that offers a chronological unfolding of world events but rather a drama through which the call to devotion in the face of opposition lies at its core. Most of my reading has drawn on the work of contemporary scholars who will readily acknowledge that the entire book of Revelation ‘is a critique and parody of the Roman Empire and of the cult of the emperor that was rampant in the Roman province of Asia in the second half of the first century’.[7]

Taking this approach, it’s helpful to clarify the different ways in which Revelation as a book and other apocalyptic literature in the Bible has been viewed. In the main there are four: Futurist, Preterist, Historicist, Idealist.
 
Revelation - Four Basic Approaches

David Pawson in his book, When Jesus Returns, explains the four approaches as:

Preterist – The predictions [of Revelation] were fulfilled during the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, when the church was under the pressures of imperial persecutions.
Historicist – The predictions cover the entire church age between the first and second comings of Christ. It is a coded history of ‘anno domini’ in symbolic form, covering the major phases and crises of the entire period. So the fulfilment is past, present and future to us. We are right in there and from what has already come to pass we can know what is next on the programme.
Futurist – This approach believes that the central block of predictions applies to the last few years leading up to the second coming. It is therefore still future to us today, hence the label.
Idealist – This approach removes all specific time references and discourages correlation with particular events.

Revelation pictures the ‘eternal’ struggle between good and evil and the ‘truths’ can be applied to and century.
In examining the futurist view further, we see it teaches the events of Revelation, in the main have still to be fulfilled in the future. The most common form of this approach today is dispensationalism, popularized especially by the Plymouth Brethren teacher J. N. D. Darby (1808–82), then by the Scofield Bible.

Van Shore writes, ‘Fundamentalists are adamant that Revelation, supplemented by a few other portions of the Bible, contains a systematic doctrine of the end times. Hence, secondary works that most capture the public’s attention are those that read Revelation as literal predictions of events and persons in our own time. Lindsey (1971) is an example of the reformulation of the apocalyptic theme into cultural commonplaces of continuing relevance. Krodel critiques Lindsey’s premillennialist use of the Bible “as God’s gigantic jigsaw puzzle to help us figure out the final events” (1989: 28). He says, The notion of divine rapture from the inevitable holocaust buttresses self righteous, narcissistic smugness; the rejection of negotiations and compromise with our international opponents divides nations along lines of absolute good and absolute evil. The premillennialist ideologies concerning the State of Israel have made their devotees deaf to the cries of Palestinians and to the need of a shared humanity (1989: 28). 

The dominant reading in popular Christian culture of Revelation has been a literal reading in which all the apocalyptic symbols are made static and the text is ripped out of its first century C.E. context. Pippin says that, Fundamentalists actually rewrite Revelation to fit their own conservative political agendas, which are based on cold war rhetoric of the Soviet Union as ‘other’ or on any political threat perceived as ‘other’ (1994: 109).’[8]

Although dispensationalism held ground strongly in the Evangelical community of the 70’s and 80’s especially in America, recent scholarship is bringing about change – a change noted mostly by turning to a preterist approach to Revelation. Richard Middleton in his book, A New Heaven and a New Earth writes, ‘Preterist interpretation, which is standard in Old Testament scholarship, interprets prophetic literature as addressing the prophet’s own situation with a message about God’s historical intervention for judgment and salvation. A preterist approach to New Testament eschatology results in taking the prophecies of Jesus in the Olivet discourse (Matt. 24; Mark 13) or John’s predictions in the book of Revelation as primarily addressing events and issues of their own day. This is the position of many (if not most) New Testament scholars, though in addition most would claim that Jesus and John also looked ahead to a final cosmic fulfilment at the second coming.’[9]

The shift has several things at heart which are real keys in our understanding. Modern scholarship which over time finds its way into the popular main stream is driving real change from what was seen as ‘rescue and remove’ eschatology to a holistic eschatology that understands the work of God as redemptive in creation as a whole. Or, as N. T. Wright puts it: “God’s rescue of the created order itself, rather than the rescue of saved souls from the created order.”[10] But change is at work amongst progressive dispensationalists too. Middleton notes ‘R. Todd Mangum, who has impeccable dispensationalist credentials (a doctorate from Dallas Theological Seminary and a recipient of the John F. Walvoord Award for outstanding work in eschatology) admits that “little good has come of dispensationalists’ emphasis on a pre-tribulational rapture up to now; there is promise for even less good to come of such emphasis in the future.”103 He suggests that dispensationalists adopt a posture of “rapture agnosticism,” both because of the doctrine’s negative ethical effects and because it is not clearly taught in Scripture.’[11]

A Theological Poem

There is however a further way we can approach Revelation and that, in the words of Eugene Peterson as a ‘theological poem’ that ‘does not call for decipherment’ but ‘evokes wonder’ which to my mind draws us to worship. Worship is at the heart the Revelation – all God’s people worship him. And this approach directs what is the emphasis of our journey into the Apocalypse for the deeper the mystery the greater the worship. At its best Revelation stirs our heart to devotion in the face of any trial and tribulation we may face.

Getting to Grips with the Structure

Although our studies in Revelation are not exegetical – we are not taking an in depth chapter by chapter or verse by verse approach there is value in having an overview of how the book is laid out. The book s a whole can be broken into three main sections: Opening Vision and the Letters to the Churches – Revelation 1-3; Centering Vision of God and the Lamb – Revelation 4-5; Visions of the Judgement of God – Revelation 6-20; Final vision of the New Creation – Revelation 21-22

N.T. Wright gives an helpful overview when he writes:

‘We have already had the seven letters to the churches. Now we are to be introduced to the seven seals, which are opened between 6.1 and 8.1. The seventh introduces a further sequence, the seven trumpets, which are blown one by one from 8.6 to 11.15. Then, at the centre of the book, we find visions which unveil the ultimate source of evil and its chief agents: the Dragon, the Beast from the Sea and the Beast from the Land – and also a vision of those who have somehow defeated these monsters (chapters 12—15).

This then leads into the final sequence of seven: the seven bowls of God’s wrath, the final plagues which, like the plagues of Egypt (15.1), will be the means of judging the great tyrannical power and rescuing God’s people from its claws. These bowls of wrath are poured out in chapter 16, but their effect is described more fully in chapters 17 and 18, leading to the celebration of victory over the two Beasts in chapter 19. That only leaves the old Dragon himself, and the last twists of his fate are described in chapter 20. This then clears the stage for the final unveiling of God’s eventual plan: the New Jerusalem in which heaven and earth are joined fully and for ever.’[12]

I trust you will find what is to follow interesting and helpful, that it might be accessible by way entering the book and challenging for each as it draws out of us a deeper devotion to the Jesus. And might these wide words from Wright help us gauge our studies well:

‘Perhaps at this point above all the rest of the New Testament, in my experience – it doesn’t do to be too dogmatic. We must hold on to the central things which John has made crystal clear: the victory of the lamb, and the call to share his victory through faith and patience. God will then do what God will then do. Whether we describe the final events as Revelation 20 has done, or as Paul does in Romans 8.18–26 or 1 Corinthians 15.20–28, it is clear that the one who wins the victory is the creator God, who does so to defeat and abolish death itself and so to open the way to the glories of the renewed creation. That is what matters[13].

Our study is over 5 sessions which are:

Session One       The Devotional Quest
Session Two       The Centring Vision
Session Three    The Faithful Witness
Session Four       The Just Cause
Session Five        The Ultimate Reality

Footnotes 
[1] Reading Revelation Responsibly; Michael J. Morgan. Location 111
[2] Reading Revelation Responsibly; Michael J. Morgan. Location 132
[3] Dr Van Shore – Doctoral Thesis. Having Ears to Hear: John and the Audience of Revelation. p.89
[4] Dr Van Shore – Doctoral Thesis. Having Ears to Hear: John and the Audience of Revelation. p.37
[5] Reading Revelation Responsibly; Michael J. Morgan. Location 887
[6] Reading Revelation Responsibly; Michael J. Morgan. Location 898
[7] Reading Revelation Responsibly; Michael J. Morgan. Location 941
[8] Dr Van Shore – Doctoral Thesis. Having Ears to Hear: John and the Audience of Revelation.
[9] J. Richard Middleton, A New Heaven and a New Earth. P.308
[10] N.T. Wright, How God Became King: The Forgotten Story of the Gospels
[11] J. Richard Middleton, A New Heaven and a New Earth. P.308
[12] N.T. Wright – Revelation for Everyone, p.43
13] N.T. Wright – Revelation for Everyone, p.181