Week *9*
Video - Learning to ask the right questions (Genre)
Introduction
If you ask the wrong
So, How do we know what questions to ask? Genre!
All about
Example: Tigers Massacre Indians
What is Genre?
Kind, type, category
Who cares about genre?
Genre works as a governing tool for the reader to know how to read what they are reading
The primary importance for understanding a genre, then, is to be able to ask the right questions of the particle text, because the genre dictates the appropriate question. (Who won the game? Have the tigers been captured? Etc)
How do I learn genres?
What are the genres of the book of Revelation?
Revelation is governed by three different genres
Epistolary (
Rev 1:4-5a; 22:21
Why is this important for interpretation?
The message must first have made sense to the 7 churches in Asia Minor.
Why is this important for interpretation?
The message must first have made sense to the 7 churches in Asia Minor.
Real
Key Questions: Who is writing to whom? Why is the person writing to them? How does this book apply to the original audience?
Rev. 1:3; 22:7; 10, 18
Why is this important for interpretation?
More than merely prediction, Revelation is a clarion call for God’s people to both ‘stand firm’ in the face of opposition and for those who have compromised with the opposition to ‘repent’
Why?
Because of who God is - the sovereign ruler over all creation and history
What God desires - the return to a garden where the curse is reverse
Key Questions: What is this prophecy revealing about who God is? What is this prophecy revealing about what God desires? What is this prophecy revealing about what God demands from us?
What is it?
Apocalyptic Literature: A revelation of transcendent realities often communicated by other worldly beings with a great amount of symbolic language to comfort and exhort an oppressed people.
How do we know?
Revelation 1:1
John uses symbolic language (Rev. 1:20, 12:9, 19:8b)
Key questions: What does this symbol point to? A Principle? A reality? Where are these symbols used in the Old Testament? How would these symbols affect the original audience?
What is Revelation then?
Revelation is a Christian prophetic, apocalyptic letter.
Remember apocalypse is not the main objective of Revelation.
It is to reveal something to us.
Week *10* Discussion *Question*
What is one point that you have connected with most from the video or the study of Revelation so far? Explain.
Read Revelation 9:1-12
What or who is the star fallen from heaven?
Who allowed the key to be given to this being? Why?
What came out of the bottomless pit?
What do you think these locusts are?
What does it mean that they “were given” power? What did they have power to do?
What were they not allowed to do?
Who will be protected?
Why would the people attacked by them want to die?
What can you learn from these creatures by the description of their appearance?
Who is their leader?
What motivates them to torture mankind? What can we learn about demons from this?
Read Revelation 9:13-21
What happens at the sixth trumpet?
Who are these four angels and what are they going to do?
What plagues would be unleashed?
Should we take these beasts as literal or symbolic? Why?
How did most people respond to this judgment?
What do verses 20-21 show you about God’s purpose for allowing these judgments?
Read Revelation 10:1-4
What are your observations about this angel?
What is this little scroll?
What do you think the seven thunders refer to?
Why do you think John was not allowed to write down what he heard?
If he couldn’t write it down, then why did God allow him to see it?
What does the fact of this “secret” tell us about what we know of God’s plans?
Read Revelation 10:5-7
What does this passage teach us about God? About angels?
What does the angel swear?
What does his promise that there would be “no more delay” refer to?
What is the trumpet call in verse 7?
Why is it important that God announced these things to his prophets ahead of time?
Read Revelation 10:8-11
Who is the voice from heaven?
Why would the angel ask John to eat the scroll?
What other times in Scripture do we see similar events?
Why would it be sweet in the mouth and bitter in the stomach?