Questions About Revelation to Make You Think

Here are some questions about Revelation that you may not have thought about. My book From Fear To Love: Transforming Revelation (which I’ll abbreviate here as FFTL ) answers them all. The free articles in this series answer many of them too, though not as thoroughly as the book does.

1. 1. Why do the martyrs of God do such a seemingly unChristian thing as crying out for revenge? (Rev. 6:9-11) The answer is in FFTL chapter 4, “Pandora’s Horsemen.”
2. 2. Why are there so many antichrists in Revelation? I count at least seven--the dragon, the beast from the sea, the beast from the land, “the” beast, Babylon, the false prophet, and of course, Satan himself. What do they all mean and what are their relationships with each other? A summary of the answers is in the article, “Why are there so many beasts and antichrists in Revelation?” More thorough and complete answers are in several chapters of FFTL . Here’s another question for which I don’t have any answer: Given so many antichrists in Revelation, why do people ask, “Who is the antichrist?”
3. 3. Why don’t Satan and the other antichrist figures appear until the middle of the story? The first mention of any of these characters is a very brief reference in Rev. 11:7, halfway through Revelation; then suddenly in chapter 12, they become very prominent characters. Chapter 6 of FFTL , “A New Song,” explains why.
4. 4. Why does every generation think theirs is “the one” when all of Revelation will be fulfilled, even though every generation turns out to be wrong? The answer is in FFTL chapter 4, “Pandora’s Horsemen.”
5. 5. At Armageddon, why does the Word of God bizarrely carry His sword in His mouth instead of in His hand? What is the significance of the contrast in the Armageddon story of what comes out of the mouth of the Word of God (Rev. 19:15) and what comes out of the mouths of Satan’s partners (16:13-14)? Why does John of Patmos (the author of Revelation) use the strange name Armageddon anyway? That word appears only once in Revelation and nowhere else in the entire Bible. The answers are in the article, “Armageddon--A “War” Between Truth and Falsehood, and Why It Has that Strange Name.” More complete information is in FFTL chapters 1 and 9, “Ears To Hear” and “The Truth Sets Us Free.”
6. 6. Why do the messages to seven churches all have the same form and structure yet say such vastly different things? Does that form mean anything? Do the differences mean anything? An introduction to the answers is in “Revelation and the Big Questions of Spiritual Life” and more completely in FFTL chapter 2, “The Big Questions of Spiritual Life.”
7. 7. Why does the theology keep changing? Why is God so different in different parts of the story? God is anthropomorphic and localized in the sky in one place in the story, and then He is Spirit and everywhere on earth in another part. He sends all sorts of calamities to earth for no reason in one part of the story, He does it because of His wrath about sin in another part, and He bestows all sorts of blessings on people in yet another part. In one place, the things that come out of God’s throne are scary and menacing lightning and thunder; in another the water of life is what comes from God’s throne. Why are the descriptions of heaven at the beginning and the end of the story so completely different? Parts of the answers are in the article, “The Down Side of Heaven” and in the free excerpt. The full resolution to these questions is throughout FFTL .
8. 8. The multiple series of seven plagues on the earth--the seals, trumpets, and bowls--become more and more like the plagues on Egypt before Moses led the children of Israel out of slavery in the Exodus story. The seals are completely unlike the Exodus plagues, the trumpets are somewhat like the Exodus plagues, and the bowls are very much like the Exodus plagues. Why is that? The question is explored in FFTL chapters 4 and 5, and finally resolved in chapter 7, “Paradoxical Doom.”

From Fear To Love: Transforming Revelation by David Brubaker   Download and read a free excerpt. (PDF - requires Adobe Reader) Buy the book: Ebook or paperback directly from the publisher: Booklocker   Paperback from major online bookstores: Amazon Barnes & Noble BooksAMillion Also available from many other booksellers.

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