Ground Rules for a Group Study of Revelation

Currently, I am leading a Bible study that is going through the book of Revelation.  I have led Bible studies verse by verse through many books of the Bible over the years, really getting a lot out of even books that people find difficult like Leviticus or Ecclesiastes.  But I have tended to stay away from Revelation simply because I don't have my own eschatological views firmly established, and it can become very contentious very quickly.  I remember deciding I would read through it with a brother one time and we would just take it as it is, but we gave up at chapter 6.

This particular group however kept pressing me, and I realized how foolish it was to avoid the climactic, culminating book of the Bible that brings the whole story together.  Just because it's controversial doesn't mean we should ignore it.

But that being said, I knew I didn't want just a free-for-all.  So I told them we would do Revelation if we came up with some ground rules.  These are the ground rules I came up with and decided I would share them on my blog in case it's helpful to someone else.  I'm also going to try to post insights from the book as we go along. (We'll see if I can keep up with it!)  But for what it's worth, here are my group study ground rules for studying what some people may consider the weirdest book of the Bible!

 Ground Rules for Study of Revelation:

          As I set out these ground rules, please remember that I am not saying this is the only legitimate way to study Revelation or that you cannot make your own applications in other ways.  But with my limited knowledge, and with my lack of certainty, and with the nature of our group, and with considering other people’s GREAT certainty, this is how I am asking that we proceed forward with this study.  I am actually very excited about it, and believe it will be a HUGE benefit, but it IS going to be different from how many people approach it.

• I am not interested in trying to match the predictions in Revelation to specific events, current, historical, or otherwise.
• I am not interested in trying to construct a timeline, so leave your timeline charts at home.  Literary structure charts of the book, on the other hand, are fine.
• We are taking the book as a literary whole, meaning we are not trying to find out if the events predicted themselves are chronological, but rather, why they have been given to us in this order, and how it fits into the structure and themes of the book.
• Revelation is not a stand-alone book.  It is the culmination of the entire Bible, Old AND New Testaments, which means that it wraps up the overall story told in the prior 65 books. We will be seeking to explore those themes and interpreting symbols in Revelation based on the allusions it is making to the rest of Scripture.  If you have not read those other books, now would be a great time to start!
• We will be interpreting Revelation in light of the rest of Scripture, but also, the rest of Scripture in light of Revelation.  In other words, Revelation has some incredibly profound things to say by tying up threads left hanging in other places in the Bible, but we will need to understand the context of those previous hanging threads in order to understand what Revelation is teaching about them.
• Rather than viewing Revelation as a crystal ball to see the future (or the past, depending on your interpretation), in this study, we will be viewing Revelation as a book of teaching with instructions to be obeyed (Rev. 1:3; 22:7).  Therefore, our first thought as we read any passage will be to understand its theological implications (what does this say about God?), its practical obedience implications (what does this say about us and how we should live?), and its worldview implications (what does this say about our world and the spiritual and physical realities of it?).
• Finally, if a discussion is getting too heated about a particular viewpoint, we will close the discussion and move on to the next passage.  I don’t want this to be a battle of viewpoints, but rather an honest and open search for truth, so it is super important that we treat each other and each other’s views with grace, love, and wisdom.

Hope that all makes sense!  Again, I’m not trying to say that constructing timelines or matching events is an invalid way to study Revelation…that’s just not what we’re trying to do here.  And I hope that many people can come and be blessed and enriched by this study!