A Symbolic Message
Welcome to 2023! Our ministry has much to offer to help improve your overall well–being and your relationship with God. We celebrate 24 years of service this year—we have grown into a discipleship resource for the church and look forward to providing for your needs in recovery, pastoral counseling, and spiritual formation. Please feel free to contact us if you have a particular need or interest, we are here to help!
As our Revelation devotional study continues into chapter 20, feel free to review our path through this great book of the Bible. The study began in December of 2020 and all of the previous posts are available here. It is a joy to share my study of this great book in the Bible!
Chapter 20 is a pivotal chapter in John’s “Apocalypse” (Greek word, meaning to reveal, or make known) translated to “Revelation.” Historically, scholarship will support the notion that the way a Christian interprets this chapter influences much of the way the rest of Revelation—and even the Bible as a whole—is interpreted and understood. Because of this, and because we are not in hurry (recovery and spiritual formation progresses “one day at a time”) we will spend some extra posts on Rev. 20.
In his introduction to chapter 20, G. K. Beale notes the reference to symbolism in Revelation 1:1. The genre of this letter is Apocalyptic Literature and there is symbolic nature in the way this genre communicates;
Revelation 1:1 (CSB)
1The revelation of Jesus Christ that God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John,
There is an “angel” (another greek word translated “messenger”) describing the vision to John. The words the “angel” uses have a symbolic meaning for the subject matter in chapter 20—as well as most of the book of Revelation. Additionally, John uses a repeated introductory “I saw…” in a pattern throughout the book (see Rev. 4:1; 12:1-3; 13:1-3; 14:1; 17:1-3) to clearly inform us of the mediating nature of the communication. There is a messenger representing the message from its source.
The “take-away” this has for Christian recovery and discipleship is,
The words of the Bible contain healing content; not only in what it states, but in the way the statement is made. It can be very easy to speak of our interest in recovering our relationships and finding “sobriety.” It’s entirely different—and sends a very strong symbolic message of our interest—when we do the physical work recovery calls for (i.e., go to meetings, complete a Step Study).