book of Revelation as we know it is the record of John, the beloved disciple and a foundation-apostle of Jesus, which he compiled from notes written during his earlier experience of visions while incarcerated in the prison on Roman Patmos in the Aegean Sea. This is the man Jesus entrusted with the care of His mother; a man who deserved trust. In John's old age, similar to the prophet Daniel isolated in a pagan culture, John's love for God and concern for God's people is crowned with an unparalleled revelation of both, this was then lifted by the Spirit of God to become the closing climax of God's written word for all generations.

himself describes the content of his much misunderstood writing as –

'the word of God', the 'witness of Jesus Christ', and 'as many things as he [John] saw'.

personal situation cannot be separated from our understanding of what he has written. For this reason a glossary is useful to help our understanding today, for the mix of Jewish background and Roman law and politics, as John himself knew it, is the very fabric upon which his climactic revelation of Jesus Christ is written.

out-of-body climate of this revelation, however, has misled many to ignore the cultural context of the congregations into which it was given. The Bible was written for us but not to us; therefore it is essential to understand it as its first readers did. For instance, the fact that pagan Rome symbolically represented the four seasons grouped around their image of supreme deity is not incidental to John's description of Heaven's court. The 24 seniors/elders of that court are not simply coincident to the twenty-four hours of our day (twelve to a day and twelve to a night) for this representation of God's rule over humanity is far older in human history than Israel's twelve tribes (or its twelve apostles of Jesus) finding its origin in the earliest records of ancient Egypt. So, the human environment into which John wrote his revelation is directly relevant to the symbolic language God used and John certainly expected it to be understood by the ordinary Christian believer of his time.

also needs to be remembered that, though appearances may be richly symbolic within their historical/cultural context, the reality behind the symbol is very real. For instance, Jesus' form of appearance in Chapter One is completely symbolic but His person is real.

Revelation, given while John is in prison, starts with the messengers (ἄγγελοι) of the seven congregations pictured as stars in Christ's right hand in order to assurance them of their protection in their coming visit to him in prison on Patmos. So it is relevant to therefore know something of the cities in which these congregations lived. They are seven in number because the number represents completeness (as the 7-days of creation) as they corporately represent the whole Church of Jesus, and so the one Spirit of God is therefore represented symbolically before the Throne as 'seven spirits' (1:4, for each of the seven local congregations was as a local instance of the church universal to which the Holy Spirit was fully given at Pentecost, as each of all Christ's congregations are today).

seven congregations in the Roman province of Asia would have known John personally from his base of ministry in its principal town Ephesus. Each message to a congregation begins with a particular aspect of Christ in His relationship to them and ends with an instruction to hear His Spirit and a promise to those who endure. There is no basis whatsoever for reading these seven messages as if addressed to seven 'Eras of Christianity'. They were each real congregations, each in a different circumstance, and each responsive to the personal ministry of John.

This Study Text has been carefully refined from a comparison of the Greek text with most English translations in use today. The Greek text used as a comparison standard is the 21st edition of Eberhard Nestle's Novum Testamentum Graece.

the worst abuse of this Book that I have come across is the shame of a senior academic at a leading South African university in Johannesburg, who used John's words – "And I saw no shrine in it" (concerning the cubic New Jerusalem as Christ's Bride) to teach a future elimination of all religion in a perfect socialist world. Very strangely, his university colleagues seemed to respect it as a possible exegesis.

Book is certainly not for those who do not know God!

What John's statement actually says is simply a reinforcement of the reality shown in the unique cubic shape of this symbolic city. It is the final fulfillment of Israel's Holy of Holies (as its dimension-ratio shows). It is the direct presence/dwelling of God Himself, and so, of course it needs no temple.

Book is the rich inheritance of every believer who submits to the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ, who was given fully at Pentecost to all His congregations in every time and place.